And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 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. 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.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Luke 2:8-14 

If this were any other story, it would be “old news.” But what makes it still fresh today is the fact that you have personalized it, and that this former newborn baby is now the King of the universe and is living in your heart! Not in some sentimental, nostalgic, or metaphorical way, but literally, personally, and objectively! These first witnesses of his birth could not even begin to imagine such a privilege, and yet they responded with great joy, praising and glorifying God. How much more should we?

There is so much to awe and attract us to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The Gospel writer, John, said that the world could not contain all the books needed to describe all that Jesus did. As Jonathan Edwards wrote, Jesus has “an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies.” 

For example, he is a lion and yet a lamb, glorious and yet humble, just and yet merciful, majestic and yet meek, equal with God and yet reverent toward God, sovereign and yet submissive. He stumped the scribes with his wisdom and yet enjoyed the company of simple children. He stilled a storm and yet refused to get himself down from the cross.

Or St. Augustine describes him this way:

Man’s Maker was made man that He, ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that Truth might be accused by false witnesses, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Fountain be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die.

Reflect

What paradoxes of Christ strike you most deeply? 

Worship is the only rational and appropriate response to such a Savior. Take some time to pray and sing some good, gospel-saturated Christmas carols with others.

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For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 

John 3:16-19

Love is the supreme virtue. It’s the only virtue that God explicitly uses to define himself (1 John 4:8). Unlike our fickle, fleeting, and feelings-oriented love, God’s love is an unwavering, covenantal love, and his divine love is behind every aspect of redemptive history: 

Creation (Ephesians 3:9, 19), predestination (Ephesians 1:5), incarnation (1 John 4:9), crucifixion (John 15:13), resurrection (John 10:17), salvation (Romans 5:8), redemption (Revelation 1:5), adoption (Ephesians 1:5), revelation (John 14:21), inhabitation (John 14:23), preservation (Romans 8:39), unification (Colossians 3:14), protection (1 Thessalonians 5:8), sanctification (Hebrews 12:6), and glorification (2 Timothy 4:8).

Indeed, love is what life is all about! It’s the main thing that God wants to perfect in us, as it says in 1 John 4:16-17, “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us…” Loving God and loving our fellow man is the sum of all God’s commandments. It is also a fruit of the Holy Spirit, which means that we cannot accomplish it without him.

Reflect

Love is a dwindling commodity. As time goes on, the Bible says that the love of most people is going to grow cold (Matthew 24:12). Would you say that your love is on an increasing or decreasing trajectory? Why?

Romans 5:5 says that “God’s love has been poured (literally flooded) into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” When we don’t feel that, what should we do? What can make God’s immeasurable love tangible to us, 2000 years after Christ’s ultimate expression of that love?

In Revelation 2:4, Jesus reproves the church of Ephesus for having lost their first love (meaning Christ). When your love for God is waning, what can you do to rekindle it? What has helped in the past?

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In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

Luke 1:39-45

Most of us think of joy as something that periodically punctuates our life, but the Bible offers a different perspective. Acts 13:52 (NASB) says that “the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.” Is it hard for you to imagine being continually filled with joy? How is that even possible, given all the ups and downs in this fallen world?

We know from Galatians 5:22 that joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and that it is not necessarily a function of our circumstances, well-being, or comfort. It’s deeper than that. Amazingly, John the Baptist leaped for joy while still inside his mother’s womb! His joy was the sole result of his mother, Elizabeth, hearing the voice of pregnant Mary, who was filled with the Holy Spirit. That filling was so powerful, that not only did Elizabeth exclaim blessings upon Mary and Jesus, but so did her Spirit-filled unborn baby (see Luke 1:15)!

Our expressions of joy are often muted and dulled by personal inhibitions, social pressure, familiarity of biblical truth, or simply because we’re not continually filled with the Holy Spirit, as Ephesians 5:18 commands us to be. Many Christians have a hard time even smiling in public, because it’s just not a cultural norm to do so. Joylessness is terribly contagious, but fortunately, so is joyfulness! 

Will you choose to walk in the joy that God has purchased for you at so high a cost, or act as though it’s really not that big a deal?

Reflect

Are you an emotional chameleon, conforming to your surroundings, or do you live by faith, in the power of the Holy Spirit, in order to transform the mood of your surroundings?

Does your heart leap for joy when your Savior draws near? What things inhibit you the most when it comes to expressing your joy more fully and consistently?

Psalm 16:11 says that in God’s presence is “fullness of joy.” In prayer, acknowledge God’s presence and take time to enjoy it! Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you, yield your control to him, and express your joy to God for Jesus leaving heaven and coming to save you from your sins. (Hint: It should far exceed your expression of joy when your favorite team wins the Super Bowl!)

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“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” 

Luke 1:68-79

There’s a progression of thought here, but it’s somewhat jumbled. If we put it in order, we can see a beautiful chain of events: 

1. God promises salvation from of old (v. 70)

2. The people sit in darkness (v. 79)

3. God remembers his covenant (or oath) to Abraham (v. 73)

4. God has tender mercy on his people (v. 78)

5. God sends a prophet (John) to prepare the way before the Lord (v. 76)

6. God raises up a Savior from the line of David (v. 69)

7. The people experience mercy (v. 72), light or truth (v. 79), redemption (v. 68), salvation from their enemies, (v. 71), forgiveness of sins (v. 77), and peace (v. 79)

8. The people serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness (v. 74-75) 

9. Zacharias, filled with the Holy Spirit, blesses the Lord God of Israel (v. 67-68)

10. Luke records this prophecy for our benefit, and of hundreds of future generations. 

Reflect 

What kinds of peace are included in this passage spoken by John the Baptist’s father, Zacharias? What are the results? What kinds of peace have you experienced as a result of your salvation? 

Reflect on how your own personal testimony of salvation mirrors this progression. 

Read Psalm 139 and take time to bless and praise God for all the benefits you’ve received through his salvation.

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For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name.” And again it is said, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.” And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him.” And again Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope.” May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Romans 15:8-13

Every great initiative in world history has had a common ingredient: Hope. So it should be no surprise that the greatest initiative in world history promised the greatest of hopes: eternal redemption. And it was initiated by God himself.

There are not a lot of Old Testament verses on hope, but the concept was certainly there. Before Christ, the nations are described as dwelling in darkness – deep darkness (Isaiah 9:2, 60:2). In other worlds, they had no revelation of God beyond the general revelation of Creation, and thus, no hope. Romans 15:9-12 offers multiple Old Testament passages that foreshadowed the day when all these lost nations would finally have a reason to hope. Their opportunity to hope in Israel’s promised Messiah would change everything.  

Today, our hope is not backward-looking, toward Christ’s first coming, but forward-looking, toward the certainty of his second coming. Hope is more than an expectation; it is a longing and yearning for something, or rather… Someone. 

Romans 15:12 above says that God wants us to not merely have hope, but to “abound in hope.” How? Not by mental gymnastics or or personal will-power, but “by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Christ is coming, but what do we do with that information on a day-by-day basis?

Here are some passages that can help us focus on the hope that we have in a more concrete way: Matthew 24:29-31, 1 Corinthians 15:51-58, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11, 2 Peter 3:3-13, Revelation 21:1-8.

Reflect

When was the last time you felt hopeless, or despairing? What difference can the thought of Christ’s second coming make in our present difficulties?

How does our daily relational closeness (or distance) from Jesus make a difference in our ability to hope?

How would your life look different if you “fixed your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13)?

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