The angels' Praise

The Angels' praise Luke 2: 8-20 Last week we began looking at the reactions of certain key players in the birth of Jesus to his birth, as expressed in their songs of praise. And we began with Mary the Lords mother, seeing how she had been uniquely blessed by God. She being the fulfilment of Isaiah's words in Isaiah chapter 7 verse 14, where we read: "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel". And yet her reaction to her suddenly elevated status, to this wonderful new revelation of God that centred for the moment on her was, we saw, one of great humility, one of deep gratitude to God and of trust in Him. There were no thoughts of self-glorification here, because for Mary it was all about God such that in her own eyes she was merely his obedient servant. And so today we turn to the song of the angels, a very short song and yet one that has been termed "the sweetest song that was ever sung". Why might this be the case? Well perhaps because, although with Mary's song we've heard the reaction of a mere mortal to God's revealed plan of salvation, now we discover the reaction of heaven itself, as the very beings who constantly surround the throne of God breakthrough in a new way into human history as they appear to a group of simple shepherds out in the fields. What a glorious night it must have been when those men received God's revelation. And perhaps they were already contemplating his works, as, resting for a while from their jobs of tending to the sheep, they gazed up into the sky. Perhaps as they did so they were thinking such thoughts as those of King David found in Psalm 8 saying to themselves: "When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!" Whether this was the case or not, and it would be nice to think so wouldn't it?, the truth is that these words had never before received so perfect a fulfilment, as it must have seemed to those shepherds as though the very stars themselves were breaking forth in song. When, suddenly, all around them a great company of the heavenly host began to praise God as they cried out: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favour rests". And maybe, truth be told, the birth of God's only begotten son, without this fanfare, would have passed by unnoticed because after all the event itself was so ordinary. Here was, on the face of it, an ordinary child born in an ordinary stable with two very ordinary parents. But then these angels, by their song, lifted the situation completely out of the ordinary as they made it what in reality it was, supremely extraordinary. At first a single angel, who was probably the angel Gabriel, who had previously come to Mary, appeared to the shepherds and we're told that, "the glory of the Lord shone around them" (verse 9). Now the word for 'glory' in the New Testament is often the same as that for 'light', so that in Luke chapter 9 verse 29 for instance, where we find the same word being used, we read that on the Mount of Transfiguration Jesus' clothes became "as bright as a flash of lightening" and that Moses and Elijah appeared in glorious splendour talking with Jesus; and also that when speaking of his Damascus road experience in Acts 22 verse 11 Paul says that his companions had to lead him by the hand into the city "because the brilliance of the light had blinded (him)". So that now, when the angels appeared, the whole of the landscape would have been lit up by the light of the Lords glory. And this was a divine illumination that would continue to shine out, for all who had eyes to see, in the life of God's son, the Lord Jesus, particularly through his miraculous signs and wonders as well as his teaching. So that in the opening chapter of his gospel (verse 14) John is able to claim that: "We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." As for the shepherds they'd have been in no doubt that this was God's messenger who was speaking to them such that they were filled with awe and terror so that Gabriel had to calm them down, telling them of the wonderful news that he was bringing to them concerning the Christ who had been promised for generations past, and for whom all those who'd remained faithful to God had been waiting. After which that great company of the heavenly host appeared adding their voices to that of Gabriel as they sang God's praises, before they all left and returned back to heaven. But then what does this means of God declaring to the world what He was bringing about through the birth of his son, this choir of angels, this great glory, this great light shining upon the earth, lighting up the darkness, have to tell us? Well firstly it has something to say about what it meant to God for God to become man. For those of us who've become familiar with the birth of Jesus, with the incarnation, with the idea of God being confined in a man, it's possible at times that we can express his coming all too easily. It trips off the tongue and there's the danger that we're no longer fully grasping the utter immensity of this amazing event. We aren't in other words being filled with anything like the same awe that the shepherds would have been. And perhaps that has something to do with the fact that it was someone like ourselves, a sinner saved by grace but a sinner nonetheless from whom we heard the good news. Because how are we, with our limited vocabulary let alone experience, able to express anything like the true glory of God? But then when we think about the status of those who were first given the responsibility by God of making known the good news of great joy, well we can perhaps glimpse something of the utter immensity of what was happening. Because God chose messengers who suited the message, the holy angels, those who are constantly in his presence. Beings, unlike man, who are free from sin, who are carrying out God's will just as he commands them. Only they could be entrusted with this message. Because this was something new, something that was really beyond belief, for God himself was now accommodating himself to the frame, mind and weaknesses of a man, in such a way that he was both fully human and at the same time fully God. And this astounding thing was no mere whim on His part. Instead it was the beginning of the culmination of his whole plan for the future of humanity that had been formulated before the world, and man himself, had ever been created by God. It was actually the most important thing ever to happen. A demonstration, John tells us, of just how much God loved human kind even when each and every individual had turned against him preferring their own sinful ways to his ways of righteousness. And this was the baby who was now being born and of whom the shepherds were being so wonderfully told, the Son in human form. And who can imagine the extent of what this meant to the Father, to the whole of the Godhead! Secondly the hymn of praise that rang out from the multitude of angels tells us something of what Christ's birth meant to the angels themselves. Because up until then they'd known nothing about God's plans; that's why Peter, in 1 Peter chapter 1, when speaking of "the new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" that he and his readers have come to experience, which looks to "the coming salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time", tells us that "even angels long to look into these things". So that it follows that when they were declaring these truths from God to the shepherds they themselves were in fact discovering them, and were rejoicing at the immensity of the good news as they gave all the Glory to God in the highest. And it was an example of pure praise. There's no mention by the angels of themselves, no 'I' or 'me' getting in the way as can so often happen with ourselves. For example we can be singing out our praises whilst at the same time our minds are on other things, or we can even be thinking more about how well we're singing than what we're singing ... a positive perhaps of our current singing restrictions. The delight of the angels, on the other hand, was entirely in what God alone was doing to bring salvation to mankind on earth. The focus of their praise was fully upon him, the same praise of God which, John in the book of Revelation chapter 5 witnessed coming from the thousands upon thousands of Angels, as they surrounded His throne. Thirdly the angel's song of praise reveals to us just what the message meant, and means, for humanity ... for those shepherds who first heard it and for us. It is, they sing, a message assuring mankind of "peace to men on whom his favour rests". A peace which Paul tells the Philippians (Phil. 4:7) "transcends all understanding"; and which he describes to the church in Rome as being "peace with God" (Romans chapter 5 verse 1). It's that peace without which no other peace, peace with self, peace between individuals, peace between groups and nations, can be ever truly achieved. Because, as Paul he says to the Ephesians (Ephesians chapter 2 verse 14), it's only through Christ Jesus, who is Isaiah's promised "Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6), that "the dividing wall of hostility" is broken down. And this peace, declared the angels, would be for all those who respond to God's grace, all those on whom his favour rests. The elect in other words, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, the poor in spirit to whom belongs the kingdom of God. And so we're made aware, as we read about the response of the shepherds, of what should be our own response. Because we're told that, when the angels had left them, the shepherds turned to each other and said: "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about" (verse 15 of our passage). In other words they were convinced by what they'd heard, that the Messiah had come, he who was Lord, God himself, and they wanted to see him as soon as possible and so they hurried off. And as a result, finding him just as they'd been told they would, they returned to their daily lives forever changed, filled with the same joy as the angels, now themselves with reason to glorify and praise God for all that they'd now heard and seen. And so today people this Christmas time 2020 are faced with the question: Has this been our response too when we have heard the message of the angels which is good news of great joy for all the people? Did it, as it did to the shepherds, speak to our hearts and produce a positive response? Have we believed and gone to the one who promises us peace, so that we're now people who also have reason to glorify and praise God, who also are filled with joy in his presence? Or have we maybe stayed out on the hillside preferring the familiar, our own vision of God and the world. Yes still admiring his creation as we gaze out upon it, considering that we're blessed to be here, believing in a plan, but nonetheless, for all this, still waiting for the truth of it to come to us? We read here in our passage that all who heard what the shepherds had to say to them were amazed. But then it seems that that may have been as far as it went, that only Mary, "treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart." As for the rest the significance of this birth most probably was soon forgotten when, during the coming days, the demands, the pressures, the difficulties of life took over. And the truth is that nothing much has changed. It's still easier to stay put. To be amazed, yes, fearful even, but to leave it at that. This Christmas, as is the case every Christmas, people will come into the church or, we pray more than ever, listen to the Christian message, who normally would have no time for it. They'll hear the message of the angels, about the good news that Christ has come, and they may be excited by it, perhaps amazed by it. But for the vast majority sadly these feelings, if there are such feelings, will be sort live. They'll simply be a part of the whole experience of the season and nothing more, and so they'll go away and forget for another year. And by then, who knows, they might have had their chance to respond. But there's one final thought that the angels' song leaves us with which is that we're reminded of just what their message continues to mean for us. We who've taken that chance, who've heard the voices of the angels and have gone to see for ourselves and then have found the truth of the promised saviour, so that he's now become our joy and peace. Because the message is as true today as it was then and so it challenges us to carry on responding to it. Because although we've seen that the responsibility of first communicating the good news of great joy to humanity had to be given to those who were closest to God, the angels who surround his throne, the fact is that he's now chosen us, and such as us, to be his messengers as we're enabled to do so by the Holy Spirit, who he gives to all who believe. What an amazing privilege and what a tremendous responsibility we have. We who've been trusted by the living God to handle such things, to communicate the message that's the most important that was ever uttered by angel or man! So may we all be ready to play our part in declaring that message. Like the Shepherds eager to spread the word concerning what has been told us about the child, bringing praise and glory to God because of all that we've heard and seen for ourselves and explaining the message that was first heard at Christ's birth to all those who're attracted by it particularly at this time, but who may very well not understand unless we're able to speak out. And surely this is one of the God-given reasons for celebrating the birth of Jesus each year. Because Christmas, even this Christmas, especially this Christmas, is, as it always has been, about good news of great joy for all peoples. Amen