Sermon Tone Analysis
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Images of Christmas and war don’t easily fit together in our minds.
The cold cruelty of war seems about as far as one can get from the warm generosity of the holiday season.
The pain and suffering of battle contradict the joy and celebration of Christmas.
But for those who fought in World War I, Christmas arrived right in the midst of an intense global battle.
Life in the trenches was brutal and gruesome.
New technologies such as tanks and mustard gas had advanced military capabilities to kill even more efficiently and painfully.
But against this backdrop, individuals chose peace.
Early in the war, during December 1914, many German and British soldiers took peace into their own hands.
On Christmas Eve, they sang and played carols to each other across the destroyed no-man’s-land, finding that they knew the same songs even if the lyrics were in different languages.
And early on Christmas Day, German soldiers walked across the scarred landscape, unarmed and shouting “Merry Christmas” to their enemies.
Allied soldiers, a little distrustful at first, crawled out of their trenches and joined them, shaking hands, exchanging gifts of cigarettes and plum pudding, and they sang Christmas carols together.
History.com says there was even a documented game of soccer during this unofficial cease-fire.
The Christmas Truce was never repeated.
Unfortunately, the officers made sure of it by threatening punishments.
But on that special day, enemies placed their shared humanity before their grievances and experienced the Christmas spirit of peace in a truly powerful way.
Wow, can you imagine?
That must have been quite a sight to see those enemy soldiers sharing Christmas peace.
In a similar way, God’s peace can fill us and rule within us even when we are surrounded by death and evil.
God’s presence and peace can pierce even dark and painful surroundings and circumstances, including any war or any emotional valley we find ourselves in.
Christmas is typically, and rightfully, thought of as a season of joy, but it can be a painful season for many people.
Maybe you’re one of them.
What battles do you face today?
What pain is relentlessly bombarding you as you hunker down in the trenches of life?
What darkness haunts you even under the twinkling lights, candles, and decorations?
We may not be able to end the personal, emotional, cultural, or physical wars we are fighting this holiday season, but even in those darkest places, we can lean into the God who is with us.
Today as we continue our Advent journey toward Christmas, we are focusing on and celebrating peace, the peace that has been brought into our word by Immanuel, God with Us.
My hope is that today each of us will experience the comfort of Christ’s peace deep within our souls.
If you’ve been journeying with us the past three weeks toward Christmas, you know that we have been celebrating Advent.
As a quick recap, the word advent means “coming” or “arrival,” and the season is marked by expectation, waiting, anticipation, and longing.
Advent is not just an extension of Christmas—it is a season that links the past, present, and future.
Advent offers us the opportunity to share in the ancient longing for the coming of the Messiah, to celebrate His birth, and to be alert for His second coming.
Advent looks back in celebration at the hope fulfilled in Jesus Christ’s coming, while at the same time looking forward in hopeful and eager anticipation to the coming of Christ’s kingdom when He returns for His people.
During Advent we wait for both—it’s an active, assured, and hopeful waiting.
And each week, we focus on a different attribute of God represented in the coming of Jesus: hope, love, joy, and peace.
Because Jesus is Immanuel, “God with Us,” He is the embodiment of these traits, who has entered our world and who fills us with them all.
The Shepherds: Peace Restored
The shepherds in the Christmas story often get a bad rap.
They are presented as outcasts—a dirty, unruly group that was at the bottom rung of society.
And while they definitely held a lower place in society, not all scholars believe they were so unrespectable.
In fact, shepherds had at one point held a very high position in Israel’s history.
Faithful Jews would have known the stories of the patriarchs of their faith who were shepherds: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and even King David—of whom Jesus was a direct descendant.
But whether or not shepherds of Jesus’s day were a totally motley crew, the profession had undeniably fallen in esteem since the days of the patriarchs.
They were definitely considered a lower social class.
They held a menial vocation that involved hard labor in the elements and physical work with the animals.
Stinky animals.
It’s safe to say a shepherd wasn’t what most mamas dreamed their boys would grow up to be.
They were a pretty lowly bunch.
At the other end of the spectrum in Israel were the religious leaders of the day.
Smug in their moral goodness and high positions of power, they made sure everyone else knew their place in the caste system—Pharisees and Sadducees and the like at the top; everyone else below in descending order.
They kept themselves lifted up by putting everyone else down.
They believed they were the ones with a direct line to God and His purpose for everyone else’s lives.
So in this hierarchy, shepherds weren’t exactly accustomed to being contacted by angelic beings.
They didn’t expect direct messages from God through celestial representatives of light.
Imagine their surprise on that star-filled night on the outskirts of Bethlehem when the brightest star in the sky dimmed, and then the whole dark expanse began to glow with the brilliant light of an angel of the Lord.
Luke described the scene like this:
What was going on here?
And then, as if a vision of an angel wasn’t enough, the glowing guy spoke—to the shepherds!
Unbelievable!
But wait . . .
there’s more.
Literally, more.
As in, more angels:
The words were almost more unbelievable than the messengers themselves.
The angels were making a proclamation of peace to those on whom God’s favor rests.
And they were making it to shepherds?
Can you imagine the confusion and doubts that were probably going through the shepherds’ heads?
Wait, I think they got the wrong guys.
But angels don’t make mistakes.
So, I guess that’s us.
God’s favor is on us.
And His peace is with us.
Seriously?
And while we’re on the subject of wondering what the shepherds might have been thinking during this angelic appearance, have you ever wondered what the sheep were doing this whole time?
I mean, granted, sheep have a reputation for being pretty dumb.
But it’s unlikely they didn’t notice the bright light and the loud noises.
And while they aren’t exactly racehorses, spooked sheep can move fast!
It seems realistic that all those white wooly ones could have bolted during this heavenly announcement—not exactly a peaceful scene on that hillside.
The Bible doesn’t tell us those details.
Perhaps it was chaos, or perhaps the sheep were dazed and motionless, or perhaps the sheep’s response is just irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
Whatever the case, this was completely out of the ordinary.
This wasn’t supposed to happen to shepherds.
Supernatural encounters with God’s messengers and promises of blessing and favor didn’t come to shepherds.
Those were reserved for the super-spiritual religious leaders of the day.
But like much of Jesus’s coming, this announcement didn’t fit the mold of expectations.
Ironically, the religious elite are conspicuously absent from the birth announcement.
Those considered by society to be the “most holy” weren’t given a place in the stable to kneel on holy ground and witness the arrival of the Messiah.
The announcement to the shepherds that God had come to be with us in the birth of the Messiah turned the current system on its head.
It reminded people—and it reminds us today—that God’s favor is not based on human standards.
His favor is on all those who humbly acknowledge their brokenness and accept the gifts of hope, love, joy, and peace that Jesus brings.
The angels appeared to shepherds; the shepherds received the announcement of the good news; and then they became the message bearers of peace.
In three short steps they had come full circle, as Jesus’s arrival meant a kind of restoration for the role of shepherds.
In fact, throughout His teaching, Jesus used shepherds as an example of good things, not bad.
Jesus even went so far as to call Himself the Good Shepherd who loves and cares for His sheep.
That restoration of wholeness and oneness with God is the essence of peace.
The comforting knowledge that all is well and as it should be brings peace of mind and heart.
Jesus’s arrival for the shepherds marked the starting place of peace to all those on whom His favor rests—to all those with whom He is present, which includes us.
The God of peace is truly with us.
Peace is not based on class or position or occupation but on His purpose and design to bring good news that will cause great joy for all the people.
Glory to God in the highest!
The Prince of Peace has come.
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