Good News of Great Joy

Christmas is filled with all sorts of images, sights, and sounds. Christmas lights, Christmas trees, Santa Clause, reindeer, candy canes, gifts, wreaths, mistletoe, nativity scenes, a baby in a manger. Mary and Joseph. All these things show up everywhere and remind us of the themes that we have been talking about. Hope. Peace. Joy. Love. The Christmas season does something to us. People generally grow in generosity. The focus is not as much on self, but on others. In the middle of it all there is a reminder that, even if just for a moment, we are not the center of our own universe.

We come this morning to a familiar story. The angel Gabriel had appeared to Mary, a young girl in an obscure little town, to tell her that she would become pregnant and the child she carried would be the Son of God and the ruler Israel had been waiting for. She didn’t understand how this would be possible since she had never been with a man. But Luke 1:37 says that nothing will be impossible with God. She believed the angel.

Almost nine months go by and the Roman emperor declares a census be taken. There was a requirement that everyone register in the hometown of their ancestors. For Joseph, this meant going to Bethlehem, the birthplace of king David, which is just shy of 100 miles. We pick up in that story in Luke 2.

Luke 2:1–14 NASB95

Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child. While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. “This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

So Mary and Joseph arrive in Bethlehem. It’s a busy place. There is no place to stay so they end up staying with the animals. There are debates as to whether it was a barn, a cave, or part of a person’s house. The important point is that Jesus is born, wrapped in cloths, and laid in a manger, which was a feeding trough used to feed livestock.

Meanwhile, there are shepherds out in the fields and an angel appears to announce the birth of their Savior. Look at what the angel said again in verse 10: “I bring you good news of great joy.” The word angel means messenger. When angels appear in the Bible, their purpose is to deliver a message from God to the recipient. Angels do not speak for themselves. They speak for God. The good news of great joy is that a Savior has been born that day who is Christ the Lord. Christ is a title. It means anointed one. It comes from the Greek word that is equal to the Hebrew word Messiah. The Jewish people were in a time of anticipation that the king God promised to David back in 2 Samuel 7 would finally arrive. The angel showed up to tell these shepherds their wait was over.

The word gospel is a church word. It simply means good news. For those of us who have been in church for most our lives, we can begin to take the gospel for granted. We also begin to assume everyone else knows what we know. But the truth is they do not. The further our culture drifts from the Christian culture we were brought up in, the less of a foundation they have for seeing the world the way we do.

The gospel is good news and to help us understand why Christmas is so significant, we are actually going to turn to Romans 1.

Romans 1:16 NASB95

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

This verse is often referenced because of the first part: For I am not ashamed of the gospel. It speaks to a confidence and even a boldness in declaring the truth of God. But if you look carefully at the rest of the verse he provides a definition of the gospel. So in our effort to understand why Christmas is so special and why the announcement of the angel is indeed good news of great joy. Let’s break down Paul’s definition.

The gospel is the power of God.

The word power comes from the same word that we use for dynamite. The power of God is explosive, jaw-dropping, miracle-working, water to wine, healing, walking on water, speaking the universe into existence kind of power. The power of God is unrivaled in any way. There is no other being in existence that can even come close to matching the power of God.

I spoke last week about the fact that humanity cannot save itself. If we could, I think we would have figured it out by now. But we instinctively know we live in a broken world full of broken systems and no matter how hard anyone tries to solve the brokenness problem, the brokenness persists. We are reminded of it every time we are mistreated. We are reminded of it every time we lose a loved one. We are reminded of it when we encounter injustice. We are reminded of it when we experience corruption. And we cry out in desperation when we come face to face with the reality that we are powerless to stop it.

We need a hero.

The gospel, the good news of Jesus, is the power of God. It is the power of God to shine light on our broken situation, to show us who we really are, sinners who rebel against his law but promises a rescuer who will come and rescue us from the broken state and restore us to what we were always supposed to be. We need a hero and the hero could not come from within the broken system. He had to come from outside the brokenness. The good news of great joy is the power of God to enter into the brokenness to redeem the brokenness so that it may be restored to its original unbroken state. Only God can do this.

The next two words of Romans 1:16 define the gospel’s purpose.

The gospel is for salvation.

The gospel is the power of God for the purpose of saving that which is broken. It shines light on our hopelessness, but not to merely show us how broken this world is, but with the hope of a future where brokenness is restored to wholeness. The gospel exposes our sinful state, and the truth that we stand guilty before a holy God. We are defendants in God’s courtroom. There is no escape we can provide from a guilty verdict, except the gospel also shows us that there is an escape from the guilty verdict. But it does not come from us.

The same child who is born in a manger, the child we celebrate at Christmas is the man who was crucified at Easter. The good news of great joy in Luke 2 has the cross in view. Jesus will grow up to buy our pardon from sin by taking our place instead. The Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It also says that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. The baby boy the shepherds went to go see in this story is the man who will die and rise from the dead, buying our pardon in the courtroom of God.

The gospel is the power of God for salvation. There is hope for the brokenness we see and experience. Hope has a name, and his name is Jesus.

The gospel is for everyone who believes.

On Christmas Eve or Christmas day, there is likely to be a gift under a Christmas tree with your name on it. You will be excited to finally open it and enjoy whatever is inside of it. If your house is like my house, you don’t hand yourself your own Christmas gift. The thing about a gift is that it is already yours but you still must receive it. There is a moment that is about a second long when a gift is held out in front of you and you have a moment to choose whether to accept it or not. Now, most of us are going to accept gifts this year without hesitation. Why? Because we know, trust, and love the giver.

God has held out his hand with a gift: eternal life. Many of you have reached out to receive that gift at some point in your life. But for everyone else, the gift is still out there with wrapping paper intact. Many of them don’t know the gift is there. Many of them are not aware of what’s inside. But if we are going to receive the gift, we have to know trust, and love the giver and many simply do not. To receive the gift of eternal life, one must agree with God. We must agree that we have broken his law, he has the right to judge us, but also believe that he has sent his Son to pay the price of our rebellion so we can be reconciled to him.

The good news of great joy is the gift of reconciliation with God. It is having peace, purpose, and assurance in life. It began in Genesis 3 when God promised one would come who would crush the head of the serpent. It became tangible when Mary gave birth to her son. The shepherds in the field got to see the face of God. We experience joy when we enjoy the richness of a relationship with our Father.

The gospel is for everyone who believes. It is of no value for those who reject it.

The gospel is good news of great joy because our Savior has come!

We need a hero, and our hero arrived about 2000 years ago. We celebrate Christmas because Christ has come. The coming of Christ was indeed good news of great joy because it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes. Have you received the gift? Do you know that you have eternal life? Are you actively sharing the gift with those you encounter? The joy of knowing our sins are forgiven is a marvelous gift. It gives us the confidence to walk with our Father in peace.