Luke 2:8-20 Angels and Shepherds part 1
Good morning! Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter 2. Today we are going to look at verses 8-20, that’s page 857 in the Pew Bibles.
Before we look at our text, I want to share a thought that kept rolling around in my brains as I was studying this text. It’s just the simple phrase, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” It’s a phrase found in James 4:6, and in 1 Peter 5:5 which are both quotes from the Greek version of Proverbs 3:34. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
What we are going to read now from Luke’s Gospel is a demonstration of that truth.
So we pick up right where we left off last time. Mary and Joseph had made their way from Nazareth to Bethlehem and since there was no room for them in the inn they were forced to stay in a manger where Mary gave birth to her firstborn Son, Jesus.
8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
Let’s pray.
There is a constant temptation when studying Biblical historical narrative, which is what we are doing by the way, there is a constant temptation to allegorize everything, to turn every story into an object lesson or make the characters into simply symbolic figures that we can gain wisdom from or learn some moral lesson from. But if you remember what Luke’s purpose in writing this Gospel it was to give his readers certainty about the things that they had been taught through his well researched and orderly account.
Luke wasn’t dealing with object lessons, he was dealing with reality.
With that in mind we can look at the reality of what Luke recorded and learn from the examples of those that he described.
I’m glad that it isn’t Christmas. Christmas comes with a lot of pressure, pressure to get it all in before December 25. All those candles and poinsettias need to be out of here before the Sunday after Christmas! Seeing as how it is March, we can slow down and examine these nativity texts and dig a little deeper that the traditions allow.
So let’s examine closely the characters in this account, the angels and the shepherds because there are lessons we can learn from both and examples that we can follow even today.
This week we are going to look at the angels.
8 And in the same region [near Bethlehem] there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
This was not the first time an angel had appeared to somebody in relation to the birth of Christ, the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah and told him that he and his wife would have a son that would prepare the way for the Lord, that same angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that she would conceive and bear a Son by the Holy Spirit, and now an angel, possibly the same angel though the text doesn’t say, appears to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay…
The difference this time is that when the angel of the Lord appeared the glory of the Lord shown around them. There they were out in the dark fields at night, living in a land of deep darkness and on them light has shone, the light of the glory of the Lord and they were filled with great fear. Who wouldn’t be?
But the angel says, “Fear not, for behold I bring you good news of great joy that shall be for all the people.”
Now there is a word in English that means to bring good news, do you know what it is? To evangelize.
That is actually from a Greek word, the Greek word that the angel uses that’s translated, “I bring you good news…” euangelizo.
To evangelize is not to convert or convince, it’s not to sell somebody something, it’s to proclaim the good news. The angel is the first evangelist, proclaiming the good news to the shepherds.
In our day, our culture thinks that to evangelize is to bring bad news that makes people sad, that makes them feel guilty, when the truth is that it’s exactly the opposite.
The angel says, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
The good news of the angel did have a hint of bad news, the good news is that the Savior has been born, the bad news is that people need saving, but good news there is a Savior, He is Christ the Lord!
This is the first time in Scripture the phrase Christ the Lord is used, the first time those words were linked together. Maybe because we have read these words so many times we don’t think of their significance.
Luke uses the word, “Lord,” twice before this time in our text. Once describing the angel of the Lord, and then to describe the glory of the Lord. In both cases Luke means the same thing, the Lord is Yaweh, he is talking about God. Here in verse 11 the angel says, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Christ the Lord, Christ is THE Lord, Christ is Yaweh, Jesus is God!
Jesus is not a created being, He is not an angel, he is God, equal with the Father and equal with the Holy Spirit, he is Emmanuel, God with us!
The angel continues and says, “And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” Being wrapped in swaddling cloths was not out of the ordinary but lying a baby in a manger certainly was. Bethlehem was not a big town, it would not take the shepherds long to find the only manger in the village that had a baby in it.
In verse 13 the angel is joined by an army of angels and what they say is not without significance either.
“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.’”
What’s interesting about the song this heavenly choir sings is that it’s the result of the gospel that they are describing.
The first angel declared the good news that will bring great joy to the people, which was: unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
The army of angels said here are the results of the good news of the coming of Christ the Lord: it results in the glory of God in the highest AND there will be peace among those with whom He is pleased on the earth.
This peace is not the kind of peace that the world necessarily wants, peace and prosperity are the goals of our culture, but that is not the kind of peace that the angel army was talking about.
They meant a different kind of peace, peace with God. Romans 5:1 declares that peace with God is only possible through faith in Jesus Christ. By faith in Jesus Christ the Lord our guilt is removed from us.
The baby in the manger would later die on the cross and it is through His death that we gain life. His death reminds us that there is bad news, that because of our sin we are separated from God, His enemies, and we are under His wrath.
Romans 5 goes on to say… 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Justified by His blood, saved from the wrath of God, reconciled to God by the death of His Son, and saved by His life… Rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received reconciliation.
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!
Is that you? I pray that it is. If it isn’t yet, it can be now. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved!
Amen.
