Advent – Week 3 | The Shepherds Candle: Joy

This is the third week of Advent, the Shepherds Candle dealing with the theme of joy. This year’s text is Luke 2:8-20 and deals with the subjects of the nature of shepherds, angels, fear, and the joy Jesus brings. This sermon was originally preached December 14th, 2008 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.

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December 14th, 2008
Pastor Duane M. Smets

Advent 2008
Joy – The Shepherds Candle
“Good News of Great Joy”
Luke 2:8-20

I. The Background of our Joy
A. Shepherdness vs.8
B. Fearfulness vs.9-10a
II. The Foundation for our Joy
A. Good News for All vs.10
B. A Savior who is Christ the Lord vs.11-12
III. Heaven Expresses Joy vs.13-14
IV. Earth Expresses Joy vs.15-20

Introduction

Good morning. Today is our third Sunday in this month of December celebrating the advent of our Lord. Advent means coming or appearing and refers to this season when we pay particular attention to that pinnacle time in all of history when God came to mankind in the person of Jesus in order to save us.

There are four weeks of advent that the church as a whole throughout the ages has celebrated, The first focuses on Jesus as our hope, the second on Jesus as our humility, the third on Jesus as our joy, and the forth on Jesus as our peace. This is the third week, so we have three of the four candles lit today and the title of my message is “Good News of Great Joy” and we are going to study The Gospel of Luke chapter 2, verses 8-20.

Joy, like a lot of “Christian” words is another one of those somewhat slippery words. Sometimes it seems to me that in being a Christian you sort of adopt all this special vocabulary that doesn’t really make sense to anyone else outside of the “Christian Circle.” Now I don’t think that means we shouldn’t use them…I just think we just need to explain better, spend more time with people, asking them questions, and then explaining what we actually mean…it’s simply being a little more culturally sensitive with the people we talk to.

So I hope today to try and answer some of our questions about the joy we Christians speak of. What is it? What is joy? Is it happiness, gleeful laughter, smiles and fun and games? Or is it serenity, assurance, satisfaction and a calm and collected grin? What about a tear of joy? Is it pleasure and what has it to do with desire? What does it mean to be joyful? How do you rejoice? what is mean for Jesus to be our joy and that the gospel is good news of great joy? What is joy? Is it a temporary feeling of elation or is it a deep rooted unchanging thing? What is joy?

We may not answer all of those questions but i want to try. So let’s read Luke 8-20 and pray.

God, owner of the universe, determiner of all things who alone has all power and all knowledge, When the fullness of time came you sent your Son into the world you made. When reading this story there is a sense of extreme significance for all of history before that moment and all of history afterward hangs on the climax of its significance. I ask you today my God that you would awe your people. As you appeared to those shepherds long ago and displayed your glory would you shine your light into our hearts that we might see the glory of the savior and be filled with great joy. Teach us about joy from your Word. May my mouth as the preacher be one that magnifies the greatness of your Word and praises Jesus for the joy he brings. Amen.

I. The Background of our Joy
A. Shepherdness vs.8

We come to this story and the first thing we encounter are some shepherds. I suppose there are still shepherds around today because I think a lot of clothes are still made from the wool taken off sheep. I’ve never seen or met a shepherd, but I do know some things about them because shepherds are kind of a big deal in the Bible and I’ve studied the Bible a lot.

We read first that these shepherds were “in the same region.” That is reference back to the few verses before that talked about Joseph and Mary, the human parents of Jesus, going to the city of Bethlehem right before Jesus is born. We talked about this small little village last week. Now Bethlehem in the region of Judea…the shepherds were in that region, so they were likely somewhere between 5-20 miles away, maybe a little closer, maybe farther…but it seem they still had to make somewhat of a journey to get to Bethlehem even though they were close.

Now the text says these shepherds were “out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.” This is an interesting and perhaps very telling detail because shepherds usually only lived outside during the warmer months of the middle east, like March through about November at the latest.

This is one reason why many believe that Jesus was probably born during the summer sometime. it is funny to me how much debate there is over the time of Jesus birth, there are actually different arguments for every single month of the year.

It seems like the date we have now, December 25th, was set by during the reign of Constantine’s in the early fourth century after he, as the ruler of the whole roman empire became a Christian. He wanted to purify and unify their holidays and so it seems that the pagan holiday “Sol Invictus” which was a festival to the birthday of the “invincible sun” was exchanged and made into celebration of the time when Jesus Christ was born. I actually kind of like that idea…of taking something from culture and redeeming it’s gospel value and turning it into something good.

Okay, so some stuff about shepherds and what that has to do with the gospel of joy. To be a shepherd was a lowly job. Nobody ever really wanted to be a shepherd. They were peasants at the bottom scale of society, considered ceremonially unclean to participate in a lot of the Jewish rituals and they were considered unreliable and therefore not allowed to testify in court. Being a shepherd would kind of been like being one of the guys at McDonald’s who makes hamburgers or clean toilets. It’s just a crappy job that nobody wants.

And God chooses shepherds to be among the few groups of people who he announces the birth of Jesus. The glory of God shows up after nothing significant has happened for at least 400 years. It seems as though God is dead and gone and all those miracles of the past perhaps didn’t ever really happen. And God finally shows up and the recipients of this divine visitation amidst the darkness of the night…are shepherds. poor, pathetic, dirty, outcasts. Shepherds.

God had at his command many reliable witnesses to choose from, many honorable and trustworthy people he could have had his angels appear to, like a king or something. But he chooses shepherds. Why? One, because this gospel, this Jesus would be for all people, no matter what race or class in society, no matter how much one had screwed up their life. This Jesus came into the world for the outcasts for those who feel different than everyone else, for those who feel empty and lost and alone and confused and hurting. For those who find themselves stuck time and time again in bad situations and bad decisions that leave them broken and seemingly beyond hope.

As long as this church exists there I pray it will be a place here in our community for the outcasts of society no matter whether you are gay, homeless, a racial minority, if you are handicapped or diseased, if you are a stripper, pothead, junkie, porn addict, or if you are rich and a cut-throat business man…there is room for you here to pursue God with us. There are no qualifications for you to enter our community and begin to live life with us in this city. We all have areas in our life we are working on, where we are helping each other change and we do not believe where we are currently at prohibits the grace of the gospel from being for us.

So that is the first reason why I think God chose to reveal himself to shepherds…to show that God reaches out to outcasts. The other reason I think is because of the uniqueness of the trade.

Shepherding, though a dirty task, is a unique one. The whole of their job description involved caring for sheep…leading them to places where there is food to eat and where there is water to drink. Protecting the sheep from other animal predators who may come in to kill them and eat them. From the time a little baby sheep was born most shepherds would name them and the shepherd could tell the difference between the sheep and all the time that little sheep was growing up he would call them by name and the sheep learned the shepherd’s voice to trust him and follow him.

These are endearing qualities. I don’t think it is just coincidence between this story and Jesus words when he grew up and began preaching and said “I am the good shepherd” who lays down his life for his sheep (Jn 10:11). Jesus’ birth is announced to shepherds because he would become the chief shepherd.

Shepherdness really becomes the foundation for joy. Think of joy. I don’t think anyone would ever say that they don’t want joy. Where does it begin? I think it has to start at the lack there of, or at the recognition that you want or need it…something better. There is the lack of joy when things are just ordinary, apathetic and plain. There is the lack of joy when you are sad or downcast or just feel lowly. There is some affection either resident or brought about where there is a contrast to joy, you don’t have it, and you need it and want it.

How is your joy today? Are you longing for it or residing in it? In this story it doesn’t matter whether we see ourselves as the sheep who needs a shepherd to lead them or whether we see ourselves as the shepherd outcast who needs someone to love them…the point is that the gospel begins at the point where we recognize that we have a need. That we need Jesus and that we always need him. That Jesus is where the only place where joy can really be found.

Jesus is the gospel and there is something very interesting here. Look at the verse 10 where the angel says, “I bring you good news of great joy.” The two words good news there is the one Greek word gospel and it is really interesting that here, the gospel gets defined as inherently being one of joy.

I. The Background of our Joy
B. Fearfulness vs.9-10a

Let’s look at how joy comes about in this story. Verse 9 says, “an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were filled with fear. And the angel said fear not, for I bring you good news.” So as we just saw, the first thing in the foundation of joy is shepherdness, now here we see that the next thing is fearfulness. We will talk about the angels and this amazing thing that happened in a minute but first notice the fear of the shepherds and how the angel does not condemn their fear.

The shepherds rightfully responded in fear at such a sight. John Calvin is so good here, he says this, “…it is profitable for the minds of men to be struck with awe that they may learn to “give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name…and so (to) fall down lifeless at the sight of God because he appears to them as…a judge. But to revive the minds of the shepherds, the angel declares that he was sent for a different purpose, to announce to them the mercy of God.”

Throughout the Bible whenever anything like this happens the immediate response from humans is fear. And I’m sure that an angel ever showed himself to me or any of you our response would be the same. Why? The reason is because at the sight of God’s power and truth, automatically our moral person kicks into high gear and when recognize or realize that God is true, and then shame at our doubt, recognition of our sins and guilt would fill our minds and we would recognize that we rightly and most probably are about to receive the consequent judgment from God for it.

In that moment I am sure that the shepherd’s response was not unlike the prophet Isaiah’s in the temple when he saw God seated upon his thrown with two angels flying about calling out holy holy holy is the Lord and Isaiah said, “woe is me, i am a man of unclean lips and i live among a people of unclean lips (Is. 6:5).” Woe is a death sentence. Isaiah thought he was about to die for his sin and I am sure the shepherds thought the same here.

So here is the second thing that prepares us for joy, fear. The first is recognizing that we have a need the second is recognizing how great our need is. It is a desperate need. An eternally desperate one upon which life and death hangs. I’m convinced that the more I realize my need for Jesus the more I will be able to see how good the good news really is and begin to discover this great great joy. We’ve talked about the background of joy…the things which prepare us for it. Now let’s look at the foundation of this joy, what it consists of.

II. The Foundation for our Joy
A. Good News for All vs.10

The first thing is what we talked about already, that the gospel is for all. That the good news is for all peoples. The angel announces that he is not here for judgment, there is a day the bible talks about when angels will come for the purpose of judgment and will rain the wrath of God upon the earth. But the time the angels come here in Luke is a joyous occasion because Jesus has come to make a way for all kinds of people to be welcomed into the family of God regardless of who they are or what they have done.

Verse 10 says this “good news of great joy will be for all the people.” The offer of the gospel goes out to all people and will save people from every kind of place and culture. I think that is what is meant by all. The angel wasn’t saying that everyone was going to be saved by this Jesus but that he would be for all peoples.

It is what Jesus said when he said, “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd (Jn 10:16).” It was good news because those who had not been considered part of the fold would now be welcomed in. the angel was announcing a shift from God’s particular working with the Jews to a time when all kinds and classes of people would be privileged, even shepherds and other outcasts.

II. The Foundation for our Joy
B. A Savior who is Christ the Lord vs.11-12

The next thing in the text and really the main thing that is the substance or foundation for our joy is Jesus himself. Verse 11 says, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

We will focus a little more intently next week on who peace Jesus brings as the king and messiah, so I’m not going to exhaust everything here but instead point out a few things in these verses that illuminate the greatness of Jesus.

There are four identifying marks concerning the person who is the reason for this joyous news from the angel. Two are Jewish references and two are Roman references. The two Jewish references are the city of David and this word “Christ.” David was Israel’s greatest king, a strong leader who really put Israel on the map for the first time, he was a man after God’s own heart, he started out as a shepherd, and Bethlehem was the city he lived in and it was prophesied over 700 years earlier that a messiah, who was to be greater than David, would come and shepherd the people (Micah 5).

The word “Christ” is not Jesus last name but a designation meaning messiah or anointed one. Orthodox Jews, the ones with the sweet beards and long curls in their hair…they are today still waiting and hoping for the messiah to come because they do not believe Jesus was the Christ since he did not bring military and political peace in his first coming.

The two Roman references are that this Jesus is to be a savior and a Lord. The common title for the emperor or the Caesar of Rome at the time of Jesus was “Lord.” And even more interesting is that we have an inscription from the same time period which calls Augustus, the emperor of the time, “savior” and it says “the birth date of our God has signaled the beginning of the good news for the world.” So calling Jesus savior and Lord was like making a claim to the imperial throne of Rome.

That is how the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day got the Romans to crucify him, by presenting Jesus to the Roman government as being a malcontent disrupting and challenging the peace and authority of Rome.

We could talk a lot about these four identifying marks but I don’t think the shepherds or Mary or any of Jesus disciples understood everything right away in how Jesus fit each of these titles and so I think I can get away with simply saying this. I think what Luke does, or rather what the angel does by what he says is that he identifies this Jesus person to be greatest person who will ever have lived. He assigns him names and titles that all put together crown him as the king of all kings and Lord of all lords.

One of the main names used for God in the Old Testament was LORD, so “Lord” was not a term significant to the Roman only. Lord was the primary way Jews addressed God, they called him “adonai” which means Lord. There is a lot more I could say about that but I’ll just say this today, at the very least Luke has already presented Jesus as the son of God, the son of the LORD most high…and as such Jesus is declared the Lord of the universe, the ruler of all rulers, and the king of all kings.

And despite the expanse of his reign he has come for his people and in the most humble and meanest of circumstances…in the form of man as a baby who spends his first nights sleeping in a dirty feeding trough made for horses and donkeys.

This is the scandal of the Christmas story. Not so much that Mary got pregnant and her fiancé wasn’t the father…but that God became man in Jesus in order to die for his people. The scandal is the humiliation of Jesus, the savior, the Lord, the Christ, the king of all laying aside the obvious marks of his deity in order to undergo the suffering and weakness of being a mistreated human from the time of his birth to the time of his death when he was very God of very God.

Next week we will talk more about Jesus being this God-man but at this point just stop and realize the staggering beauty of such a thing happening. It is a wonder of all wonders. All people have come from one man, Adam and from him we have all been corrupted. Now in Jesus comes one unlike any we have ever conceived. One who holds all the most perfect and admirable qualities. and not just that in some sort of detached philosophical way but one who is intimately and individually for each of us.

That is amazing. That is a joyful thing. the being of Jesus is the beginning and the end of our joy. All the world and all of our lives come together in worshipping him. And that is what how both the heavenly angels and the earthly shepherds respond to this announcement…in joyful worship.

III. Heaven Expresses Joy vs.13-14

Look at the angels’ response and see how heaven expresses joy, our third main point. Up to this place in the story there had only been one angel appearing and speaking and all of the sudden it says, a multitude of heavenly host appear. The word “host” could also be translated “armies.” Literally hundreds of thousands of angels filling the sky and making the night as bright as day. Perhaps it was the same host Jesus referred to when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus but and the disciples wanted to fight and he told them to put away their swords because he said at once he could call down twelve legions of angels (Mt 26:53). Twelve legions is about 60,000 angels.

And then imagine 60,000 angels singing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” What a sight! This is crazy exciting stuff. A blaze of heavenly glory. A dazzling luster displayed in the heavens where this royal entourage explodes in praise at Christ being born! It is exactly what you would expect if the God of the universe became a man and was born into this world.

His divine glory may have been hidden underneath the rags covering the fresh baby skin newly welded to the being of God, but it was not hidden from the angels, and it was revealed to the shepherds and has now been revealed to us.

How can our response not be the same? This exhibition of divine splendor with which God adorns the birth of his son beckons us to praise. How can we refuse to join with this choir of angels? It is only brutal and sinful stupidity that keeps our hearts from leaping with zeal to praise God and to be inflamed with joy in this song of the angels…glory glory glory to God!

And lest we think that joy only exists as some sort of temporal spiritual experience where we feel this great excitement, Luke, our narrator, describes an earthly response…how this insane experience of joy plays out in the long run.

IV. Earth Expresses Joy vs.15-20

Watch what happens with the shepherds. “when the angels went away from them into the 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.’ And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.” This is our fourth and final point for today.

The shepherds do three things: One, they go to see Jesus; Two, they go and tell about Jesus; And three, they go back and live in the joy of Jesus. Do you see those three things? First they say, “let us go…” And then Luke tells us “they went with haste.” Can you feel the excitement? the zeal? This is what they had been longing for all their lives.

Then look where it says, “they made known (what) had been told (to) them.” They started telling people what they had seen and heard. God is with us. The savior is born. There is now an answer to the longing of our hearts, an answer to their questions, a salve for their guilt, and a purpose for their lives.

And then I love the last thing this story says about the shepherds when it says, “and the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God.” They returned. They went back to taking care of sheep but you know I’m sure taking care of those sheep would never be the same again for those shepherds. They had been exposed to the joy of the universe and were forever changed.

I think there are some great lessons here for us about what joy is like and how following Jesus effects us. First, there is the going to Jesus. All have a longing for joy, like I said earlier I don’t think that is something anyone would dispute, but it is recognizing that joy in life comes from following after Jesus. The life of the Christian is one which goes to find him and goes to find him. we wake up in the morning looking for Jesus and throughout the day we continually search for Him as the source of our joy.

The second lesson here is the telling about Jesus. The sharing of our joy with others. One of my favorites verses is in the smallest book of the bible, Philemon, and it says, “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ Jesus (Philemon 6 [NIV]).” It is true that our own joy is propelled and increased in the sharing of Jesus with others.

And the third lesson here is the living a life of joy. The first line of the Westminster Confession says, “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” And that is what we at the resolved are about…making a big deal about God because that is what makes us happy. It is the doctrine of Christian hedonism, where the heartbeat of our lives is continually pursuing our happiness in the being of God himself.

It is a different life. It is a life formed by the gospel, a gospel centered life, and this gospel is one of great joy. It is where what brings us happiness and satisfaction most comes from God. Even in the seemingly insignificant and trivial things, they become significant and meaningful because God is wrapped up in it and that brings us joy.

Conclusion

Let’s conclude this sermon. In the beginning I asked a whole slew of questions about joy. And I think maybe this passage of Scripture has helped with some of them. Not all of them for sure. I still have my questions. But here is what I think this text has given us. It seems that like faith there are a few different aspects to joy.

It seems that joy is first a worldview thing where you come to believe that humans are made for joy and that joy is in knowing God through following Jesus. I think that is where the deep rooted, serenity, assurance aspect of joy comes from. I think having this kind of core belief or conviction is what enables joy in the middle of hard, difficult, and painful experiences because there is a sense of the truth of God residing within and that no matter what is joy can be there even in the midst of the tears.

Then it seems that joy is an emotional experience that can occur. There are moments of time when we have laughter and fun and pleasure and we are experiencing a taste of what we eternally made for, happiness. At our community group this week we were discussion joy and the question was asked about the whether non-Christians could have joy or if the gospel effects simple joys even things as small as enjoying chocolate.

My answer was yes, I think non-Christians experience moments of happiness and yes there is simply joy in chocolate…however I think it only occurs in the brief emotional way because it is not rooted in the ground of joy what joy really is. It is a disconnected joy because it is not connected with the author of joy and so it lacks the fully quality of peace and satisfaction. You didn’t know that there was a gospel way to eat chocolate huh?

Lastly it seems to me that discipline is a part of joy, that there is a volitional will element to it. there is an ebb and flow in life. Trials come and God stretches us and challenges us in order to teach us deeper depths of joy and to open us up to new and different experiences of His pleasure. Sometimes we have to fight and work hard to find our joy in God because there are so many things out there either attempting to distract us from that joy or competing with a lie saying that their joy is better when it really is not.

As a pastor, many people will come to me with their problems, which is fine, that is part of what I am here for…but my response is always in some way, “Well, what are you doing to pursue joy in God.” We so easily think that we just need this, or we just need that but what we really need is to stop, spend some time on our knees praying, spend some time reading God’s word, spend some time going outside and realizing the glory of God’s creation, spend some time eating a good meal and drinking a good drink and thinking about how God made it taste so good, or to spend some time thinking about Jesus and who he is and what he has done for us. God is an inexhaustible resource if we would only be moved to draw upon him and drink deeply.

Any time I ever preach on happiness or joy as being the center of the Christian life I can’t help but quote Jonathan Edwards who wrote perhaps one of the best books on the subject called “The Religious Affections.” I’ll conclude with a quote from it.

“The love and joy of the saints on earth is the beginning and dawning of the light, life, and blessedness of heaven…as it is with the love of the saints, so it is with their joy and spiritual delight and pleasure…it primarily consists in the sweet entertainment their minds have in the contemplation of the divine and holy beauty of these things as they are in themselves. And therefore, the religion of heaven consists chiefly in affection of holy love and joy.”

Let’s pray.