Angels We Have Heard On High
Advent 2010 | Week 4: The Angels Candle of Peace | Josh Feil
This year The Resolved Church is studying the subjects and text of Christmas Carols which coincide with the weeks of advent. This third week of advent focuses on the theme of peace. The sermon looks at “Angels We Have Heard On High” and works through aspects of Luke 2:8-17. This sermon was originally preached on December 26th, 2010 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA.
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Introduction
Good morning, my name is Josh I’m one of the guys here at the Resolved. This is the second time I’ve preached here and last time was a lot of fun. I’ll pray and we’ll get started.
Open up your Bibles to Luke 2. Now before we get to that text we have some work to do. Luke 2 is our main text, but we’re going to be starting out a lot earlier in the Bible.
In Genesis 1 and 2 God speaks and creates. Everything he creates he says is good. When he creates man and woman he says they are very good. They are good because He made them, and everything God makes and does is good. Here’s the story: God creates the first man and names him Adam. God puts Adam in charge of working the land, naming the animals, and taking care of God’s creation. But as Adam works and cultivates, God says:
“It is not good that the man should be alone.” So God creates a woman for Adam and calls her Eve. The first husband and wife. And then God gives them this command, one of my favorite verses in the Bible:
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
Amen.
Now if the Bible could just end right there, everyone would be happy. I guess we could talk about God, creation and marriage, all of which are pretty hot button issues. As great as it would be if I had 3 hours to unpack all that, for your sake, I don’t. But let’s be honest, the scene is pretty cheery at the end of chapter 2. God only gives them one rule: don’t eat from that one tree, or you will die.
And then chapter 3 comes. In chapter 3, a serpent, who is Satan, comes and tempts the woman Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He tempts her by asking a question,
“Has God actually said, ‘you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’”
His first trick in all of history was the best one and it’s the same one he’s still using today. Any time we question the authority of God and His words, we are not just seeking the truth, but sabotaging the creator. We, just like Satan, want to be greater than God.
This is where the great fracture of history takes place. Eve believes the lie of the serpent. Adam, like the loser husband that he is, stands by, ignoring his responsibility to lead and protect his wife and instead follows her into sin. They fall. Sin enters into creation, and the harmony that existed between Creator and his creatures turns into war between the creatures and their creator.
What does all this have to do with us? Let’s make it clear from the outset that none of us are objective observers. Just like Adam and Eve we have all fallen, we have all sinned against our creator and we are deserving of death. We deserve the curse of the serpent. Not one of us is free from this story. There is tension in the air. Our world is not the way it is supposed to be. And that is our fault. The creatures have rebelled. Let’s look at the curse God gives to the serpent, that in his mercy He does not give us:
(NIV)The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals; you will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel”
Some translations use the word “seed” instead of “offspring.” Who is the seed? And what’s all this talk about bruising and crushing heads and striking heals? Let’s go get some answers.
That’s what we’re here for right? To get some answers? Maybe some of you have never been to church or you haven’t been for a while or you’ve just started to check it out or maybe you’re that kid that was literally born in the church, and you just, stayed there, you never went home. You were in church 5 days a week, you went on 40 missions trips and spent every summer for 15 years at church camp. Everyone knows your family and if you’re not at church people are calling your house wondering when they can come visit you in the hospital because that must be why you weren’t there. Maybe that was you and by God’s grace you’re still in church but you’re also still looking for answers.
Well, we’re all a bunch of sinners trying to love Jesus and serve his Church. And we’re glad you’re here.
That’s the introduction. Now with Genesis 1, 2 and 3 as our background, we turn to Luke 2.
Let’s read the text.
Now the challenge with a passage like this is that a lot of you are really familiar with it. Even if you don’t have a church background, you’re familiar with angels, shepherds and you’ve heard of Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. We’ve all seen nativities, it’s all there.
What were gonna do is unpack three sections of text and compare them with the Christmas carol Angels We Have Heard on High. Three sections concerning the birth of Jesus, the proclamation of the angels, and the response of the shepherds. I’m calling them
- Mary’s Baby, Mary’s God
- Gabriel’s Good News of Great Joy
- Shepherd’s Praise
Mary’s Baby, Mary’s God
1 In those days(A) a decree went out from(B) Caesar Augustus that all the world should be(C) registered. 2This was the first(D) registration when[a] Quirinius(E) was governor of Syria. 3And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4And Joseph also went up(F) from Galilee, from the town of(G) Nazareth, to Judea, to(H) the city of David, which is called(I) Bethlehem,(J) because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5to be registered with Mary, his betrothed,[b] who was with child. 6And(K) while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7And she gave birth to her firstborn son and(L) wrapped him in swaddling cloths and(M) laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in(N) the inn.
Augustus Caesar. He is the adopted son of Julius Caesar and was the supreme ruler over all the Roman Empire beginning in 27 B.C. Because of his military success and having restored Roman rule, he was treated more like a god than a man. One ancient inscription that has been found has these words,
“Divine Augustus Caesar, son of a god, imperator of land and sea, the benefactor and savior of the whole world.”
He’s a big deal. He’s king, president, dictator, prime minister all rolled up into one. Supreme authority over his subjects. And he is a real guy. A real, historical figure. Our story, though it contains supernatural elements, is grounded in history. I heard one pastor put it this way, “The Christian faith is stubbornly historical.” We’re not preaching timeless truths, or good advice. We’re preaching gospel, the saving work of Jesus for sinners.
So Caesar wants everyone to be counted, most likely for tax purposes. Joseph takes Mary to Bethlehem, his hometown. They most likely end up staying in some kind of communal living area where the people and animals are all kind of together. We don’t know if Mary gave birth to Jesus the night they got there. We do know that she was at the very least 3 months pregnant when they set out for Bethlehem. But regardless as it says in verse 6:
“While they were there the time came for her to give birth.”
And Mary gives birth to baby Jesus. Baby Jesus. If you think about it those two words really don’t go together. Jesus is the Son of God, not the son of a teenage girl. He is the second person of the trinity, equal with God and the Holy Spirit, all powerful, all knowing, ever-present. John, in his gospel refers to Jesus as the Word, and says that
“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God.” And then John says that the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” Paul, in Colossians 1:19 says that in Jesus “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell…”
Baby Jesus?
Surely this is the irony of all ironies. The Word became flesh. Theologians call this the incarnation. The son of God took on a human body. Truly God, Truly Man. The God-Man.
Truly God – he maintains all of his divine attributes – his wisdom, his authority, his power
Truly Man – he takes on a weak body, a limited mind, endures suffering
Imagine the humiliation. Imagine the eternal God, coming down out of heaven, he condescends, he stoops down, growing as an embryo inside of Mary, and even then, being fully God, worthy of WORSHIP! Mary’s Baby, Mary’s God.
Imagine the scene in the stable. This is the 1st century folks. This isn’t House or Grey’s Anatomy. Can you imagine giving birth with a donkey just standing there, watching? There’s no such thing as an epideral, no pain meds in Bethlehem. Mary is screaming and everyone there is freaking out, thinking what the heck is she doing out here? Joseph is there, doing what he can. Although at least Mary can’t say “You did this to me!” to Joseph. Luke doesn’t give us all these details, but we can guess that it wasn’t pretty. It was normal.
This isn’t how I would expect the King of Kings to enter into human existence. I would expect a palace and royalty the whole 9 yards. The King is here! But, when you look at what Jesus would do in his ministry, always doing the opposite of what you expect, it kind of does make sense. Jesus doesn’t come to Caesar. He doesn’t come to Quirinius, the governor of Syria. He comes to a nobody, a teenage girl in the humblest of situations. The God-Man, the Word in the flesh.
I’m kind of at a disadvantage because I’ve been in church for so long, growing up in it, that it’s hard for me to imagine being new to all this. So let me make it clear what we’re not saying: the gospel is not Jesus is good you’re bad and you need to be less bad so he and everyone at church will like you. It’s not like a ladder where Jesus comes down 90% and we go up 10% to meet him. I don’t know how you get there, how you get 10% closer to God, I don’t know what that looks like. What’s the standard? This (hold up the Bible)? You can’t do this, neither can I. We can’t follow this enough to earn anything. That’s why Jesus has to come all the way down. I mean you can’t get much lower than a baby born to a single girl in a barn around a bunch of animals. So I’m not here to tell you how to clean up your lives or how to be better people. I’m here preaching Jesus, his life, death, resurrection, which is of 1st importance, Paul says, and that starts with a baby.
Does the incarnation mean anything to you? It should. This is where it all starts, where Christ begins to live the obedient life we fail to live and will ultimately die the death that we deserve.
Maybe you’re at the place where you’ve heard of Jesus and you’ve heard this story, but you’re not ready to believe that he was God, that his life has any impact on yours. That’s ok. We’re glad that you’re here.
Or maybe you’ve heard this story so many times that you could get up and tell it better. When it comes to the Bible and Jesus and his church, somehow it’s become routine. Been there, done that. The gospel is dry to you, it’s more of a buzz word between you and your Christian friends than your source of life and meaning and hope. And you’re at the point now where you have no problem accepting Jesus as God, and he’s someone you can pray to, but you don’t think he really understands what you’re going through, that he can’t see past your pain, your sin, your rejection. Consider the incarnation. Consider the full humanity of Jesus, who suffered and was tempted in every way, just like us, so that we might draw near to the throne of grace.
Well, as all this craziness is going down outside the inn, there are a group of shepherds taking care of their sheep out in the fields. An angel shows up and starts talking to them.
I’m calling this section, “Gabriel’s Good News of Great Joy”
Let’s read the text again. Read Luke 2:8-14.
The Shepherds and the Angels
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 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!”
So what’s going on here? There are shepherds taking care of their sheep, and then all of a sudden, an “angel of the Lord appeared to them.” This is most likely the angel Gabriel, who is also identified as “an angel of the Lord” in chapter 1 when he appears to Zechariah.
In verse 9 it says that “an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.”
As if an angel wasn’t scary enough, the glory of the God shows up, and the shepherds just lose it. The greek word for fear here is Phobéo. It can also mean terrifying. It’s where we get the English word Phobia. Whatever your Phobia is, the glory of God is worse than that!
There aren’t any lights out in this field besides the moon and the stars. It’s dark. God’s glory is a BRIGHT BLINDING LIGHT. The same one that knocked Saul off his horse and made him blind.
As if that weren’t enough, suddenly, it says, a multitude of the heavenly host comes out of heaven, praising God and saying
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with who he is pleased!”
Now I think it’s at this point that we need to have a little chat. Can we talk for a couple minutes?
Angels. What’s the deal with angels? What do we think about angels today? Here’s a little of what culture has to say about angels:
Songs: type in Angel Lyrics on google the first five artists: Shaggy, Aerosmith, Sarah McLachlan, Natasha Beddingfield and Jack Johnson
Bands: Angels and Airwaves
TV Shows: Touched by an Angel, Dark Angel
Gangs: Hells Angels
Movies: Angels in the Outfield
Names: Angelica
Cities: Los Angeles
Comics: XMen character named “Angel.”
Maybe I’m wrong but I think most people have this hybrid semi-attraction to the idea of angels, but probably don’t give it too much thought or credence. Let’s just be honest, not the easiest thing to swallow in the Bible. But the fact is, angels show up a lot in the Bible, so if you’re gonna believe the Bible, you’ll have to deal with angels at some point. Here at the Resolved we love the Bible. We believe that it is self authenticating, historically reliable, doesn’t have any errors and that it has final authority over our lives. If the Bible says it, I believe it. The Bible is about Jesus and his glory, so we’re about Jesus and his glory.
Duane preached a sermon on Gabriel last year at Christmas and he had a lot of good info, which I’m gonna use for this section on angels. He made the point that if God is really all powerful and created the world, then it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to think that he created creatures different from the ones we can observe. It’s not too crazy.
Here’s what the Bible says about angels:
1. Angels are immortal spiritual moral being created by God. Psalm 148 calls the angels to praise the Lord because it says God commanded and they were created.
2. Angels have names, like Michael, Gabriel and the fallen angel Lucifer.
3. There are various kinds of angels. Some are always on fire, literally “burning ones” called Seraphs. Some have wings and some don’t (Is.6:2). Some have multiple faces (Ez 1:10). And some simply look human (Gen 18).
4. Angels are organized are frequently called an army or a host, and there are ranks within them. In Jude 9 we are told that Michael is an archangel. Guards are called “Cherubs.” Gabriel is called a “Prince.” Often we see angels with swords (Num 22:23; 1 Chron 21:16). Some of their swords are flaming (Gen 3:2), and they use their swords to execute God’s justice, protection, and to destroy evil angels and their dragon leader (Rev 12:7).
5. Angels have supra-physical bodies that are not normally visible to the human eye (2 Ki 6:17; Num 22:31). This is probably something akin to how we cannot see microscopic substances only angels are macroscopic. And in addition, according to Daniel 9:21 angels have bodies that can travel extremely fast without the aid of technology.
6. In Daniel 10 we learn that though angels have the ability to appear and disappear, they can only be in one place at a time (Dan 10:13-14).
7. Angels are great in number, great in power, and great in wisdom. There are thousands upon thousands (Deut 33:2; Ps 68:17, Rev 5:10-12). In Revelation 5, some translations say that angels around God’s throne number 10,000 times 10,000. 10,000 was the highest numerical value in Greek at the time. So this is akin to saying A billion times a billion. In 2 Kings 19, a single angel once wiped out 185,000 human soldiers (2 Ki 19:35). And in 2 Samuel 14:20 are said to know of all things of the earth, so they are really smart.
8. According to Jesus in Matthew 22, angels do not marry or procreate (Mt 22:30).
9. Angels are unredeemable. Similar to how the human race fell, both Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 tell us that a large number of the angel race fell by following the leadership of a bad angel named Lucifer (Ez 28:11-19; Is 14:12-17). The difference is that unlike us, not all the angels fell…and for the ones that did fall God has not granted an opportunity for salvation or redemption like us (2 Pet 2:4).
10. 1 Peter 1:12 says angels enjoy looking in on what God is doing with us and Ephesians 3:10 and 1 Corinthians 4:9 tell us that God is showing off to the angels his wisdom and greatness by what he is doing with us. Angels will never know what is like to be in the redeemed love of God
11. One of the angels main jobs is to minister to Jesus. They are all over Jesus birth, they’re there again two years later when Herod tries to kill two-year-old Jesus. They’re with Jesus in the wilderness during his temptation. There at the cross ready to respond to Jesus command to stop everything if he calls on them. They’re the ones who roll away the stone after Jesus rises from the dead. They’re there when Jesus when ascends back into heaven on a cloud. And Jesus says that when he returns to earth next time, he will come with all his angels in a big display of power, glory and might.
12. And lastly, because angels are so into Jesus, they are also really into the gospel. They are announcing the good news of the gospel at Jesus birth and helping the events along. And then again in the book of Acts we see angels helping the church out, performing miracles like prison busts and giving the apostles directions of where to go and what to do (Acts 5:19; 12:7; 12:23; 8:26; 10:1-8).
That’s a lot of stuff about angels. The big idea is this. If you’re gonna dig Jesus and dig the Bible, you have to dig angels. Not because they’re super-ninja warriors, but because they are created beings, like us, meant to reflect God’s glory back to Him. They’re a good example for us.
And that’s exactly what they are doing here. Proclaiming the birth of the coming King Jesus.
This is where the carol comes in.
“Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o’er the plains, and the mountains in reply, echoing their joyous strains.”
This song is a song about singing! And look at what is happening between it and the text:
Angels are singing, proclaiming the glory of God, the mountains are singing, all of creation is rejoicing at the birth of Jesus! This is a scene of joy and exuberance and worship! There is a choir of creatures overflowing in praise of their creator! And yet, as we saw with Adam and we see in ourselves, the one creature God chose to lead the choir decided to sing his own song.
We are so quick to write our own lyrics, to sing our own songs, aren’t we? Let me ask you: which song are you singing? Are you singing the song of the gospel, where Jesus is king and he pays your debt? Or are you singing the song of self-reliance, independence, personal authority? Are you singing the song of the snake? Questioning the wisdom of God, stuck in your sin? How often do we sing that song? I pray we would repent and find hope in the song of the King.
Lastly here we’re going to look at what the shepherds do after the angels appear to them. This section is called Shepherds’ Praise.
Let’s read the text:
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.” 16And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby (AD) 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 (AE) Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, (AF) glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
Shepherds were generally regarded as low class, untrustworthy citizens. They were ceremonially unclean according to Jewish sacrificial customs. Basically they are outcasts. Yet the Word of God comes to them through these angels. What’s going on here? I think a few important things:
1) The gospel is for all people in all levels of society. Jesus would become known as the “friend of sinners”, which is good news for us.
2) Again we see the backwards nature of Jesus incarnation and the announcement of his birth. Not to the rich or influential first, but to a no name girl and a bunch of outcast shepherds.
3) The first people to hear about Jesus’ birth are shepherds. David, Jesus’ ancestor was a shepherd, and Jesus himself is our good shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep How significant then, that we are Jesus’ sheep whom he protects, corrects, rebukes, guides, and comforts and those who first hear about Jesus are doing the same with their sheep? Maybe I’m pushing the text too hard to pull that out, but I think it’s beautiful to see the concern that Jesus has for his people, immediately illustrated in this field outside the place of his birth.
4) The shepherds respond in praise. After the find Jesus and see him, the Bible says that “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… and the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.” The shepherds hear the good news about Jesus. They examine the evidence, and they respond in praise.
So when we sing in the song, “Shepherds why this jubilee? Why your joyous strains prolong? What the gladsome tidings be, which inspire your heavenly song?”
What’s the answer? Jesus. The good news. Gabriel said it was good news of great joy. Is Jesus great joy for you? He’s not a magic pill, he’s not a magic baby. He is God incarnate, the Word become flesh.
As we go to the table, I would leave you with the last stanza of our Christmas carol:
“Come to Bethlehem and see, Christ whose birth the angels sing; come adore on bended knee, Christ the Lord, the newborn King.”
Let’s pray.
