Sermon Tone Analysis
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How does God come to Us?
Advent refers to the four Sundays preceeding Christmas.
We would not know God if God had not revealed Himself to us.
Most religions are concerned with understanding divinity or attaining to a superior state.
Christianity is the only religion where God comes to us.
God comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
God is a person, not an idea.
God does not come as we expect Him.
He comes as He is and we may well miss Him if we are not looking.
This series looks at different parts of the Christmas story and asks, “How does God come to us?”
Angels and Shepherds: Messengers and recipients of joy.
Angels: the messengers of joy
Imagine what it would be like to be an angel.
You were there when God created the world.
You rejoiced to see the goodness and the beauty of God expressed in material form.
You were there when satan fell, you were amazed that someone who stood in the very presence of God could be so twisted as to turn against Him.
You marveled that God created man, and that man had a choice.
God, having suffered the betrayal of heavenly beings created earthly beings more vulnerable than those which betrayed Him.
He did this to demonstrate His love and by choosing to respond out of who He is and not by what was done to Him.
And then man fell.
It surely must have felt like heaven’s defeat, but God assured you that this was part of His plan.
He would introduce redemption, a thought that had never occurred to angels because there was never a possibility.
But with that possibility came a seemingly impossible thought: God would become human.
Centuries, several millennia would be spent to bring about the right conditions for the incarnation.
Humans have their own will and sometimes generations would pass before the alignment of people, circumstances and the purposes of God would all come into convergence.
Prophets would envision it.
Their teachings would be mocked and ridiculed, but miraculously preserved for future generations.
The scriptures bear witness to God’s promises and to the seed which passed through an unbroken line to it’s eventual fulfilment.
From earth’s perspective, it looks like the back side of a tapestry, a series of threads, knotted and crossed with seeming randomness.
But from heaven’s side, a glorious image is emerging.
At earth’s darkest hour, God is going to reverse the course of history.
Light is coming into the world.
A baby is going to be born in a place reserved for animals to show what it really means to be human.
As angels, we are usually the silent observers, the faithful companions, the dutiful servants.
But now at the unveiling of God’s marvelous redemption, we become the celebrants, the messengers giving expression to the glorious scene of which we have been witnesses from the first act until now.
Your angel song is the culmination of all that you have seen and experienced.
It is the expression of joy, not just the pleasure that you feel inside but the delight of being part of something much greater than yourself.
“Glory to God in the highest!”
Shepherds: the recipients of joy
The audience of the angels will be all of nature and those of mankind who will listen.
On this occasion, that happens to be shepherds.
Their menial work has them out on a dark night and their task is symbolic.
They care for domesticated animals, keeping them safe from the wild animals.
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were all shepherds.
It was the profession of a nomadic people, dirty but very necessary.
When Jacob blessed his sons he referred to God as his shepherd.
It was an expression of God’s guidance and care.
David, the great king of Israel, was probably the most famous shepherd.
And the Prophets continued to refer to the leaders of the people as shepherds, though not in a good way.
The Prophets essentially called them butchers rather than shepherds.
To be a shepherd is hard work.
You spend most of your time with animals.
You even smell like them.
You have to keep moving them around to where there is water or foliage.
It’s pretty boring most of the time because you are just watching.
But you have to stay alert because you never know when one of those animals is going to wander off or even worse, they may come under attack.
Being a shepherd is not prestigious work, but you do get to see a lot of beautiful countryside that most people never get to see.
And you have a lot of time to think and to meditate.
It’s kinda like being a philosopher except you never get to go to school.
You have to learn from and study all that’s around you.
And believe me, there’s volumes to study!
People tend to believe what they know.
Most people in ancient times were uneducated and superstitions abounded.
For example, the people in the villages believed that demons roamed the countryside like wild goats.
Nobody would go out of town after dark and those who did travel made sure that they found shelter before the sun went down.
But after dark was when the shepherds had to be out on those demon-infested hills and it’s when they had to be completely alert.
Predators mostly come out at night.
You had to be looking in the shadows for even darker shadows that might appear.
A shepherd had to be one tough dude.
Imagine those shadows becoming lights.
And the lights begin to speak.
A demon would probably try to snatch you like a lamb.
But this voice said, “Don’t be afraid!”
Far from superstition, this was a different sensation… like awe and wonder and amazement.
The angel spoke of the fulfilment of prophetic hope and expectation.
Some people study the scripture.
Shepherds lived the scripture.
They cared, they fed, they watched, they defended.
And when the message came from heaven they went and saw.
These tough guys knelt and they worshiped.
After all, people are not like the animals, not just because they are more intelligent.
They have a redeemed relationship with God.
What is Joy?
Joy is pleasure.
Joy as Feeling.
Joy is a feeling called forth by well-being, success, or good fortune.
A person automatically experiences it because of certain favorable circumstances.
It cannot be commanded.
Joy is that feeling that we have when life is good and everything is going well.
It’s like hope and peace but it wells up within us like a bubbling fountain.
Hope is confidence in the goodness of God.
Peace is the experience of the goodness of God.
Joy is our internal response to the goodness of God.
Joy is not the absence of suffering; but suffering contrasts with and will actually enhance our joy!
Death plus resurrection equals joy!
Death and resurrection will become a familiar pattern for believers.
In this passage Jesus is speaking of His death and Resurrection.
We bring our flesh to death, but we are raised to new life in Christ.
We will face persecution and hardship(death) but God will be glorified (life)!
In fact, even when we physically die, we enter into eternal life.
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