God's Good News of Great Joy

Part I

Scripture Readings-

Old Testament –Isaiah 2:-1-5   This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem: In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, “Come let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Come, O house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the LORD.

Epistle – Romans 13:11-14 And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissention and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 

Gospel –  Luke 1:26-33  In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”       

Sermon-

This Advent Season is a great time, we’re zeroing in on our preparations for Christmas. And today we are beginning a five-part series on The Real Meaning of Christmas. There are various meanings attached to Christmas; some think it is a time to love other people, but love is just a by-product of the real meaning of Christmas; others think that it is a time of friendship, family and getting together with your loved ones. They are not the real meanings of Christmas. The words from Luke Chapter 2 are the real meaning of Christmas; the words the angel spoke to the shepherds explain what this whole thing is all about. “The angel said to them, ‘Fear not, I bring you good news of great joy which shall be to all people. For to you is born this day in the City of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.’  (Luke 2:10,11) Those words are the essence of this whole season; those words are what we are preparing to celebrate on December 25^th.   The fact that God came to us as one of us to do what we could not do. He came to us to pay for our sins so that you and I would have forgiveness, that we would have new life.   He came to us so that we would have what “Emmanuel” means, God with us. Not God against us, not separation from God, but God with us. This is what we want to begin talking about today. We want to take that phrase in Luke Chapter 2 in five little snippets and understand what it means for us. Today, we are going to look at the phrase “The angel said to them”.

Why is the Bible exactly like an angel? The Bible and an angel are exactly alike because they are both messengers. In fact, the two are interchangeable. In the original Greek of the New Testament the word “angel” is aggelos which simply means “messenger”. If you lived in a Greek-speaking country and worked for a messenger service, the little car you drove around every day would say aggelos on the door. In our Gospel lesson, the angel appeared and had a message for Mary. And in Luke 2:9 the angel had a message for the shepherds. An angel is a messenger. This is important to understand because so often we think that if an angel would appear to us this afternoon in the back yard and say “Fear not, I bring you good news of great joy. For to you is born this day in the City of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord”, we could say “Wow, now I can really have no fear. Now I can really have joy and peace and hope.” But you have to remember, an angel is just like the Bible, a messenger. It doesn’t matter whether that message comes to you in black and white in Luke Chapter 2, whether it comes because an angel suddenly appears before you, or if God, Himself, suddenly appears before you – it’s all the same message, it has the same source.

To illustrate this, I have some water here, really good healthy water from “The Springs” in Stockbridge, VT. How can I get the benefits of this great water to you? I could pour it into this lovely looking blue glass, I could bring it to you by pouring it into this really cheap looking paper cup, or I could just give it to you in the bottle from “The Springs”. The only difference is the packaging. It doesn’t matter the means or the avenue in which the water comes to you, all have the same health benefit. And that’s the important point to understand about the message from the angel. The source of the message was God; the angel was a messenger. It doesn’t matter if the message comes from an angel, or if it comes in black and white in the Bible, or if God stands right here before you and says it, it’s all the same message. All have the same benefit because the source is God. That message is for you, it is from God and that means you can fear not, that means there is good news, that means that the news brings great joy because to you is born a Savior and that Savior is Christ the Lord.

Now, interesting to note is that the two main groups that God used to announce the message of the Savior were the shepherds, and the Wise Men. The shepherds received the message via a messenger, the angel. The Wise Men received the message from the Bible in Numbers 24:17. The Wise Men were just reading their Bible, talking about the Savior that would come. Numbers 24:17 says “I see him but not now, I behold him but not near, A star will come out of Jacob, a scepter will rise out of Israel.” The Wise Men got the message of the Savior by reading the Bible, the same way you and I get the message.  It doesn’t matter in which form the message comes, reading your Bible, hearing it preached, or singing Christmas Carols, the message is from God. It doesn’t have to come to you from an angel, the source is God. You and I can have that “fear not” attitude, you and I can have joy, you and I can rejoice in the good news because the Savior has come who is Christ the Lord. Let that joy take root in your life and in your heart. God is the source.

The students here are going to love this. I have a memo to all students from me. It says: “To: All Students.  From: Pastor Berry.” And it says: “You will receive an ‘A’ on all tests from now on.”   Is that good news? And I even signed my name to it!  So now what’s going to happen? Along about Wednesday you have an English test and you get the paper back and it says C+. You go to your teacher and say “Wait a second, there’s a problem with my grade. I got a C+ and I was supposed to receive an A.” The teacher would ask, “Why should you get an A?” And you can say “Because the Pastor in Church on Sunday sent out a memo that said I’m going to get all A’s from here on!” What would be the reaction of the teacher?  The teacher would say “Big deal! You got a C+!” The teacher will say that because my words don’t carry the power, the authority to do anything about grades. I can send out all the memos I want, but they don’t matter. It’s just “Big deal – who cares?” But because those words “fear not”, because those words “good news, great joy, to you is born a Savior, Christ the Lord” didn’t come from me or you, because they originated from God, those words have power. I can tell you “fear not” all day, but my words have no power to drive out fear, no power at all. I can’t even get your grades changed on your test.

This is so important to understand because when we’re under stress, our friends, in trying to help us, say “It will be ok, don’t be afraid.” That’s really no help at all. We have no power as human beings to change situations. You have to go to the Person who has the power, and that Person is God. God has the power to take fear and crumble it into pieces, to bring joy, to give you really good news, to give you a Savior to pay for your sins. God has the power to do it. The words of the angel came from God, God’s word to you and to me. Those words have power to do what they say they will do. And that’s why, if you’re trying to make someone feel better, don’t tell them “Well, it will be O.K, cheer up, don’t worry”. You have to get back to the source, to the Person who can do something about it. You can say “God says He sent you a Savior, He sent you someone to pay for your sins, He’s reconciled you to Himself, therefore God says to you ‘Do not fear!’ You have reason to rejoice, there’s good news.”

How many of you have ever seen the movie “Young Frankenstein”? If you’ve never seen it, go and rent it at the video store because it really illustrates the power we have in the Bible with God’s Word. The movie is a take-off of the novel “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley. If you recall the book, Dr. Frankenstein did experiments to “reanimate dead tissue”, to bring life to dead body parts. He would rob graves and sew all the parts together and use this concoction with lightening bolts to try and bring life, to reanimate, the dead tissue. The movie picks up with Dr. Frankenstein’s grandson who is a teaching at a University. Young Dr. Frankenstein doesn’t want to be associated with his grandfather so he pronounces his name “Fronkensteen”. One of his students gets him to talk about his grandfather’s experiments in reanimating or bringing life to dead tissue. Young Dr. Frankenstein makes the point that you “Cannot bring life to dead tissue. What is dead is dead.” And then the student asked, “What about your grandfather’s experiments?” And young Dr. Frankenstein says that classic line “My grandfather was a cuckoo.” Bringing life to dead tissue is cuckoo.

  But then we look at John Chapter 11. Jesus’ friend Lazarus died and Jesus went to visit the grave. Lazarus had been dead for days. The tissue in his ears was dead and decaying. The tissue in his brain was dead and decaying. The nerve fibers were dead and decaying. The muscles were dead and decaying. But then Jesus did something that was cuckoo, He said, “Lazarus, come out!” All He said was “Lazarus, come out1” He used words, God’s words, “Lazarus, come out!” And ears that were dead, heard because they were God’s words. The dead heart started beating, the dead nerve fibers started firing, the dead brain and the dead muscles started functioning, and Lazarus got up and came out of the grave. The reanimation of dead tissue! And how did Jesus do it? With words. Consider that, along with the message in Luke Chapter 2. You have the words of God saying “Fear not, good news, great joy. To you is born a Savior, Christ the Lord.” When He speaks those words to you, because they’re God’s words, fear begins to crumble and peace which was dead comes back to life. Peace reanimated, peace filling our lives. The end of fear.   And because it’s God’s Word of good news, the bad news begins to crumble and the good is reanimated, the good is brought to life, the good lives. Good news and joy lives in us. The sadness begins to crumble with the Word of God.  Joy which was dead is reanimated and fills our life. And the source of all that is the Savior, Christ the Lord Who died and paid for our sins.

That’s what we want you to see this morning. It’s just not nice thoughts that come in a Christmas card, or nice thoughts that the Pastor or the Sunday School teacher talks about; the source of all this is God. God’s word is powerful to reanimate, to bring to life that which was dead. And that means “Fear not, good news, great joy. To you is born a Savior who is Christ the Lord!”