“Good News of Great Joy” (Luke 2:8-20)

Luke 2:8-20

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Pastor Tom Johnson, December 24, 2016

God has an odd marketing strategy. It is a strange way to publicize the greatest gift ever given to humanity. Important news would normally be proclaimed at the city gates of a large city. That’s the place of highest traffic and quickest way to spread information. You’ll remember that there was a lot of danger threatening the life of this newborn child. King Herod and the Roman authority did not want anyone to be born who could claim the throne of David. But it is still a wonderful revearsal of who we might pick to be the first audience to hear the news of Jesus’ birth. It is a fanfare for the common man—a message to the most ordinary people in the first century—shepherds—sheep farmers. And not only that, they are working the night shift. Their job was to lose any head of sheep in the valleys of the shadow of death. They used rod and staff to corral their flock and fight off predators that like to hunt under the cover of darkness. It was these courageous workers that sat in darkness. They are these humble laborers who see a great light. Their first reaction is to be overcome by dread and fear as they are suddenly engulfed in the light of God’s glory. The angels steal their fear by good news. They are called out of their terror and directed to a newborn King. He is the long-awaited Messiah. He has come to deliver all of us from fear—the fear of death, evil, and sin. He comes to save us from the sad reality of death, evil, and sin
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And nothing has changed these past two thousand years about the human condition. This world still has its dark nights when we fearfully keep watch. We still live in the sober reality that there are threats on every side. Death and evil still threaten us daily and nightly. Our own hearts keep us from being faithful through our night shift. We grow weary in doing good. Our trust in God waxes and wanes like the moon. And we forget that we are here to love and serve God and our neighbor through the darkness. It is a jarring reminder that in God there is no darkness at all. The light of his glory will blind our eyes that have grown accustomed to the darkness. It can be terrifying to realize we have not gone unnoticed by God.

Like the shepherds who quietly work under the cover of night in obscurity, we may often think that no one notices us either. But God does see. He does know every thought and intention of the heart. And no one escapes his notice. I believe it is even evidence of God’s spectacular sense of humor—to choose an audience like this—like us. Every individual is precious in his sight. We can laugh at how must he values each soul. Thank God we are wrong to think that some live lives of anonymity and obscurity. They matter to God. The angels tell the shepherds not to be afraid—but to hear good news of great joy. The good news is not just valuable information about a promise made long ago. It is not merely the dissemination of information to make them smarter.

It is good news of great joy. It is to fill their ears, eyesight, minds, hearts, mouths, and lives. These humble shepherds will immediately go to see their newborn King. They will receive the news by hearing, seeing, pondering, believing, preaching, and worshiping. The good news will transform their lives. The joy of the Lord will be their strength. They are not just telling people “it’s a boy.” They are giving hope, strength, and joy to the world. This is the long-expected Messiah. This is the Christ Child promised long ago. He will finally deliver us from all our fears and everything that threatens us. Mary herself will treasure all their words and spend a lifetime pondering them in her heart. And so God meets us in our valley of the shadow of death. He visits us in our loneliness and obscurity. God says to us, “You have not gone unnoticed. You are the apple of my eye. I want to take your fear away. I want to fill you with great joy. “It’s a boy! A child is born. He is a gift to Mary and Joseph. He is the Royal Son of a holy nation. And yet he is for all people. He is Savior and Deliverer to the whole world. He is born to deliver us. In him we have forgiveness, life, and salvation.

“God with Us” (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23b)

Isaiah 7:10-16
Matthew 1:18-25

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Pastor Tom Johnson, December 18, 2016

It must be an unsettling thing for Joseph. He feels that he has no choice. He cannot go through the marriage. His fiancé Mary is pregnant. He is not the father. But because of his authentic love for Mary, he does not want to publicly embarrass or shame her. He plans to dismiss her quietly. Just like the Joseph of Genesis, he will also have a dream. God sends an angel to visit him in his sleep. The mission is to reassure Joseph. “Do not be afraid. Take Mary to be your wife. Name the child who is conceived by the Holy Spirit ‘Jesus.’ His name means deliverer. And he will save people from their sins.” What Joseph needs is assurance that God is with him. He needs confidence that God is on his side. Joseph will need support. He will need God’s strength. And he will need courage to be the father he is called to be to the promised Messiah. This fulfills what the prophet Isaiah wrote: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God with us.” God is with us even though we may not see him. God is with us even though we may not believe in him or trust in him.

This Scripture that is fulfilled is first directed to King Ahaz. He is everything a king should not be. In fact the book 2 Kings (16:2-4) says, “he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord” and even did unspeakable things to his own son. He participated in human sacrifice and other destructive pagan practices. In other words, he was not even a believer. And it is God himself that approaches Ahaz to propose a sign. The sign will be useful just like we use signs all the time: to assure us that we are on the right path or to bring us to the right path. Ahaz tells God, “Thanks but no thanks. I will not put the Lord to the test.” It is a very religious sounding answer. It may sound pious but he is clearly rejecting God. He does not want a sign. Because that would mean his life will have to change.

Maybe we are a lot more like Ahaz than we want to admit. Perhaps we are more like Joseph than we want to admit. Both of them are reluctant. Both doubt God’s purposes. But Ahaz is especially stubborn. He will not believe. He refuses God’s offer. And he even uses religious language to do so. We can also be like Ahaz—if not individually we are collectively. We can miss the Christmas story and God’s reassurance that he is with us. We may even sound religious and pious but we miss the main point of it all: God with us. We can be like Joseph at times—not fully understanding God’s purposes. We have days when we doubt and do not trust God as fully as we ought to. We need that extra nudge of encouragement. We need a reminder that God is still with us.

We are surrounded by Christmas trees, Santa, reindeer, jingling bells, tear-jerker movies, and familiar holiday music. But how much of it directs us to the Christ child? Does it assure us that God is with us in the person of Jesus? There is a real danger of over sentimentalizing this time of year. For some people it is not a time of warm feelings and good memories. Quite the opposite. It can be a time of heightened grief, loneliness, and pain. We need to know that God is indeed with us in the good times and the bad. Materialism also threatens to cause us to miss the Christmas story. One of the most brazen ways this is done is to take a Christmas Carol and re-write the words to sell us their products. The gifts we give should remind us of the greatest gift given—Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us.

That is what I love about both the story of Ahaz and the story of Joseph. The original Christmas story is messy. The story before the original Christmas story is messy. We should not be surprised that the story after is messy as well. God sends his eternal Son to an unbelieving and sinful world. He gives to us even when we are ungrateful. He takes the initiative to relieve our doubts. He is there when we are confused. He sends his angels to reassure us. He sends signs to soothe our anxious souls. He comes to hearten, inspire, encourage, and to comfort us. He points to Emmanuel. He directs us to Jesus again and again. He is the one who comes to deliver us. He is the one who is with us. Just as he came to a broken world before. So shall he come again to be with us.

“If God is with us…if God is for us, who can be against us? …He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:31,32). “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger or sword? …For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38,39).

O come, Thou Dayspring from on high,
And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight. 
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!

And so we pray, “Even so, amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”

“The wolf and the lamb” (Isaiah 11:1-10)

Isaiah 11:1-10

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Pastor Tom Johnson, December 4, 2016

John the Baptist promises that Jesus comes to baptize—not just with water—but with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Generations before, the prophet Isaiah gives us a very vivid picture of what this Messiah will do. We have a wolf sharing a home with a lamb, a leopard lounging with a baby goat, and a baby cow and bear hanging out together. We see both cows and bears eating grass and lions also eating woody vegetation
with the ox. At first glance, it may seem like a good argument for one to become a vegan or vegetarian. And, I admit, it can be very heartwarming: Who doesn’t like greeting cards or videos with animals snuggling up to one another? But we should not miss the radical and progressive description here. It’s purpose is not to warm the heart but prepare ourselves for the coming of Messiah. Isaiah wants us to be ready for the shoot from the stump of Jesse.

Don't be duped! This is photoshopped! :)

Nature is beautiful. I absolutely love our State and National Parks. God’s creation is a powerful reminder that God made everything we see and calls it good. But nature is also cruel and deadly. Maybe we should watch National Geographic documentaries along with cartoons or movies that have talking animals. We will see how wild animals survive. I can assure you that is not by showing empathy to the weak and the young. Wolves target the very young and weak. Not only are they an easy catch; its meat is far more tender. Wild cats do not play fair either. They will also go after the most vulnerable and try to separate them from the herd and older prey. Did you notice the pattern among the animals in our text? The carnivore is now with the herbivore. The meat eater hangs out with the plant eater. The mature, wild animal is with the young, domesticated animal. Like all prophets in Scripture, Isaiah is using animals to illustrate the truth about humanity. Wild animals are often used to describe foreign nations and domesticated animals the people of God.

This is a sobering reminder that human nature is also devastatingly wild. We too consume one another—we target the weak and young. Consider the young in the crossfire of our city streets—or victims and refugees of war—or human trafficking. Evil preys upon the weak. There is little mercy toward the young. Terrorists and political leaders around the world abuse their power. And they have no problem using the youngest and most vulnerable as collateral damage. But that is what we all do when we do not love one another as we are called to do. Rather than work together, forgive one another, and love each other and dwell together in peace; we prefer to be in competition. That is the deceit of sin. That is our wild nature from birth—ever since our parents’ first sin. We put our own needs before the needs of others. We are consumed by our own desires. And, if we are not careful, it is at the expense of others—even the young and vulnerable. We have become like ravenous wolves—controlled by our own hunger—slaves to our appetite. We are both perpetrators and victims to evil—we are both predators and prey to sin. “Discipline yourselves,” Scripture tells us, “keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.” This world wants to have us for breakfast.

The good news of our text is what Messiah does when he comes. He is an animal whisperer. He does not come to destroy the threat of wild beasts. He comes to transform them. He comes to change their very animal nature. He comes to domesticate them. And the really amazing thing about Messiah is that he does not come in what appears to be great power and glory. He comes in what we would consider weakness and vulnerability. “A little child shall lead them,” our texts says. Even as an infant, this child will play over a snake nest and not be bitten. This little child will lead both the wild beasts and the domesticated animals. He will rule all nations—foreign and domestic. And he will not do it by force but by the power of the Holy Spirit that transforms lives. He will domesticate all humanity. He will tame the wildest among us. We will no longer hunt each other nor flee one another. We will lose our appetite for violence. We will say our final goodbyes to the fear of evil and death itself. He will gather us into one mountain, make us one people, and feed us with daily bread. It will be as radical a change as a bear grazing with an ox.

There is another beautiful picture in this text that I don’t want us to miss. It is a reversal of Noah’s flood and the violence that caused it. It is no longer two by two of the same species entering a new world. It is now two by two of what we would consider at odds—wolves and lambs, leopards and kids, lions and calves. Rather than water destroying all living things—this is a baptism of the Holy Spirit and refining fire. “The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” The peace Messiah brings will saturate the world. His grace will reach every corner. His mercy will fill every void. This young babe will domesticate all creatures great and small. And he will make us an eternal home. “And his dwelling shall be glorious.” And so we pray, “Even so, amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”