“Good Tidings of Great Joy!”
Luke 2:8-12

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Christmas Eve—December 24, 2018

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

For many families it’s a tradition to see a movie together at Christmastime.  You may remember a popular movie a few Christmases back called “Enchanted,” a charming Disney film about fairy tale characters who come to life in the real world.  Is that all the Christmas story the children read a few moments ago from the Gospel of Luke actually is?  Just a myth, a made-up fairy tale?  Was Luke the Walt Disney of his day, spinning for us a charming, but fanciful, story?  Or, did it all really happen, just as Luke records?

We’ve heard this old, familiar story so many times, we may not realize that one of the most powerful indicators of the authenticity of these events is that Luke records the angels first appearing to “shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.”  In the ancient world, shepherds were as far down as you could get on the social scale: dirty, smelly, outcasts from society.   Among Hebrews, they were also looked down on as notorious sinners, because they could rarely attend synagogue or the ceremonies at the temple.

So, if you WERE writing a Disney fairy tale version of the Messiah’s birth, the LAST group that you would cast in the role of the first recipients of this Good News would be “shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.”  In the entertainment industry, they have a phrase called “jump the shark,” which comes from an episode of “Happy Days” when Fonzie supposedly jumped over a shark on water skies.   A show is said to “jump the shark” when the story line becomes so far-fetched that it’s just totally implausible.

The Christmas story is the second of the 24 chapters in Luke’s Gospel, but for many readers in the ancient world Luke has already “jumped the shark” when he reports angels announcing the Messiah’s birth to “shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.”  We today take it for granted that, “The first noel the angel did say was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay.” But, for many in the ancient world reading this story for the first time, that was a real shocker, totally unrealistic and unbelievable to them.  “Shepherds?   You’re telling me that God had the angels first appear to announce this Good News to a bunch of shepherds?  Come on, Luke, no one’s going to believe that!”

Just six miles away from the shepherds that night was the great city of Jerusalem, with its magnificent temple and royal palace, and lots of priests, and scribes, and, well, what seem to be “holy” people, the “right kind” of people, worthy of the Messiah, the kind of people who SHOULD be the first to hear the Good News of his birth.  If Luke WERE making up a Disney fairy tale version of the Christmas story, THAT’S where the angel choir would appear, singing not to shepherds abiding in the field near the little town of Bethlehem, but to a beautiful Disney princess, dancing on the balcony of a palace at Jerusalem.

But, this is a reality show, not a Disney fairy tale.  These events all really transpired, and Luke records the angels appearing to the lowly shepherds because THAT’S how it really happened.  It’s not Walt Disney, but GOD who’s directing this reality show, and it was for a deeply symbolic reason that God chose to first announce the Good News to “shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.”  Jesus puts it this way: “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

The shepherds symbolize all of us, and our unworthiness.  As the book of Romans says, “There is no one righteous, not even one . . .  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  If God was like Santa Claus, “making a list, checking it twice, going to find out who’s naughty and nice,” he would never have sent his Son as the first Christmas gift.  For, none of us is holy, or worthy, or deserving.  But, that’s what Christmas is all about.  He came to MAKE you holy, and worthy, and deserving of eternal life.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

“Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. . .  Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

“Peace . . . goodwill.”  That is how God feels in his heart toward the world, that is how God feels in his heart toward you.  As the Apostle Paul explains in 2nd Corinthians: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting men’s sins against them.” 

Jesus of Nazareth began his earthly odyssey of some 33 years in that stable at Bethlehem, and he did it all for you.  For, he is the very Son of God, come down to earth and made man, who by his life, death, and resurrection from the dead made up for your sin and reconciled you to God, so that YOUR sins are not counted against you.  As Paul says in Colossians: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form. . .  For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things . . .  by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

In Dickens’ story “A Christmas Carol,” Scrooge’s nephew says Christmas is “a good time, a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time.”  Many people think that’s the meaning of those words, “peace on earth, goodwill toward men.”  For a few weeks each year at Christmastime, men show to one another peace and goodwill. 

But, the angels’ announcement of “peace on earth, goodwill toward men” is not about men’s temporary attitude toward one another because of a holiday, but God’s permanent attitude toward all of humanity, because of his Son.  “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.”  Christmas means that YOU are at peace with God.  God is NOT angry with YOU! 

That’s what it’s all about: the lights, the trees, the decorations, the gifts, the Christmas carols, and nativity scenes.  We’re celebrating not a fairy tale, but the wonderful reality of the Good News announced by the angels on the first Christmas Eve.  The Good News that you are at peace with God, on account of his Son, born into our world as the Babe of Bethlehem.

“Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy. . .  Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”