Joy To The World

This morning, before we finish our gathering together and head into this final week before Christmas, we will have an opportunity to declare in song that marvelous refrain…“Joy to the World, the Lord has come let earth receive her King.”

For there is a joy, a deep, divine joy that beckons our souls…and seeks to break forth at this time of year. So often this great joy can find itself clouded by the complexity of all our activity. I can think of the card sending, and the unfortunate women who in a last minute rush…brought a box of 50 identical cards with our bothering to read the verse, she quickly signed and addressed all but one. Several days after they had been mailed, she came across that one…”This card is just to say, a special gift is on the way.”

decorations…cousin…Leah and I…within a minutes time had a wonderful tree we both like…only to then end up inside the store in a battle over which color bulbs to put on the tree. Then of course there’s the gift shopping. The cartoon by Guindon that showed a warty lady shopper resting for a moment with her arms filled with packages. She is in the middle of a very busy department store filled with other Christmas shoppers and she is explaining the whole Christmas scene to her small son as follows: “No one is quite sure how Christmas worked out like this, dear. Theologians are working very, very hard on that question right now.”

…and finally relationships…one young girl, upon hearing about that first Christmas night and there being no room at the inn, simply muttered “It’s Josephs fault, he should have made reservations.”

So it is that the mayhem of activity and the memories of the past can compete with the joy at hand.

YET STILL OUR SOULS ARE STIRRED BY A DIVINE JOY THAT CANNOT BE SILENCED BY TIME, TRADITIONS, OR TROUBLES….AND AS THAT FIRST Christmas unwrapped this great joy, so we discover how to unwrap our own.

Luke 2:8-20 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to the, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with an angel, praising God and saying “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.” When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and see, which were just as they had been told.

At the heart of this eternal event was “GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY”…And if we reflect on this first encounter with Christmas, we find the essence of capturing that joy ourselves. 3 keys in particular have stood out to me as the keys to the joy of Christmas;…the JOY THAT IS IN THE BIRTH OF CHRIST JESUS.

1. RECOGNIZE THE NEED THAT SENT HIM

v.11 What did the angels bring as good news? “Today in the town of David a SAVIOR has been born to you.”…a SAVIOR How often our modern joy has been reduced, substituting a sentiment for a savior. (Wanting to rewrite heavens great work “Today a sentiment has been born to you.”)…but these SHEPHERDS could not miss it. For they were more than simply lowly, poor shepherds;

Shepherds were despised by the orthodox good people of the day. They were quite unable to keep the details of the ceremonial law; they could not observe all the meticulous hand-washings and rules and regulations. Their flocks made far too constant demands on them; and so the orthodox looked down on them. It was to simple men of the fields that God’s message first came. They were sinners who had no doubt of their need; no opportunity for self righteousness. But these were in all likelihood very special shepherds. We have already seen how in the Temple, morning and evening, an unblemished lamb was offered as a sacrifice to God. To see that the supply of perfect offerings was always available the Temple authorities had their own private sheep flocks; and we know that these flock wee pastured near Bethlehem. It is most likely that these shepherds were in charge of the flocks from which the Temple offerings were chosen. They had birthed, raised, and cared for countless lambs taken for constant sacrifice. It is a lovely thought that the shepherds who looked after the Temple lambs were the first to see the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.