The Christmas Angel
Matthew 1.18-25 December 10, 2000
The birth of Jesus took place like this.
His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph.
Before they came to the marriage bed, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. (It was by the Holy Spirit, but he didn’t know that.)
Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced.
While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God’s angel spoke in the dream:
“Joseph, son of David, don’t hesitate to get married.
Mary’s pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God’s Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus —‘God saves’— because he will save his people from their sins.”
This would bring the prophet’s embryonic sermon to full term: “Watch for this—a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son; They will name him Emmanuel”
(Hebrew for “God is with us”).
Then Joseph woke up.
He did exactly what God’s angel commanded in the dream:
He married Mary.
But he did not consummate the marriage until she had the baby. He named the baby Jesus.
(The Message New Testament)
If someone came to you insisting that events and conditions were such that you needed to make a change in your life; and if that person were an angel in the middle of the night, would you be apt to make that change?
Or would you be more like the woman who was bitten by a rabid dog, and it looked like she was going to die from rabies. The doctor told her to put her final affairs in order. So the woman took pen and paper, and began writing furiously. In fact she wrote and wrote and wrote. Finally the doctor said, "That sure is a long will you’re making." She snorted, "Will, nothing! I’m making a list of all the people I’m going to bite!"
If I were the angelic messenger of the Christmas story, asking people like Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and all the generations of all ages to change, to be different because of my message; well, there are some things you would want to know about me and my message.
You probably would want to know who it is that I represent; whose message is it? And who is to receive the message? And what is the message all about? And how shall I respond?
The word "an.gel.os" (angel) comes from a basic word that means "message-bearer". An angel is the messenger from God who brought Good News, God’s message. It is hard to ignore angels. A man told about when his mother died, the family gathered at the funeral home. Some of (the family) had been trying to explain to (the) 5-year-old why his grandmother’s body was still with us, but her spirit had gone to be with God in heaven.
The time drew near for the funeral home to close. In the stillness, we suddenly heard footsteps running back and forth across the floor above us. Despite our sadness, we all had to laugh when my son burst out excitedly, Daddy! The angels are coming for Grandma!
The Christmas Angel represents God. The angel announced to Joseph the activity of God’s Holy Spirit in coming to overshadow Mary, implanting within her the child, our Savior. That activity connected man and God together, and that is Good News. The Sound of the Christmas Angel is a chorus of Good News! How indeed is this such good news? The answer lies in a two-fold perspective.
It is God’s Message
God is the Creator, Provider, and Sustainer of all life. His nature is love and truth. Anything that He has to say is worth our attention.
It is God’s Message We Can Receive
The gospel accounts tell us Joseph was an average fellow, an underachiever at best, who died young. Mary was an unmarried, pregnant teenager.
What kind of trouble was Mary in? As a teen (in that culture), she certainly was not old enough to speak for herself - she belonged to her father; As a female, she had no rights in that male-dominated society; As a pregnant, engaged teen, she was at least apparently guilty of misconduct, serious enough to call for the death penalty.
The message was also directed to shepherds -- socially, and religiously unacceptable smelly shepherds. I have been around sheep. They are cute in pictures. They are defenseless and totally without aggression. But they stink! And those who lived with sheep (as the saying goes) get up with a distinctive air about them!
To the least successful of Earth’s inhabitants came the sound of the Christmas angel, a song of Good News.
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives,
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion
- to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, - the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
- and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair." - Isaiah 61.1-3
The sound of the Christmas angel was a chorus of Good News, not just Good advice!
Good news is so wonderful. At the end of World War II the surrender of hostile forces to the Allied countries was good news. The discovery of a polio vaccine was good news. We await the announcement of the end of AIDS...it will be good news.
GOOD NEWS! We recognize the announcement of good news, but what of the meaning? What will happen? The Good News of the end of WW2 was that the boys were coming home, families would be whole again, and the body bags would stop being shipped home. Polio vaccine meant an end to the horror of a mother and dad’s anguish when the doctor would say this arm, or leg would never be used. The Good News of an AIDS cure would mean death has been cheated again.
The question before the house this morning is: What of the meaning of the Good News of the Christmas Angel? Is there a difference this Good News will make in my life?
I want to place before you this morning the Bible’s uncompromising message of faith and hope, that the good news of the Christmas angel is above the end of a world war, or the discovery of great medicines, or the successes of political polices.
The good news spoken by the Christmas angel means that God has heard the cries of a lonely, forgotten, sinful world; God has heard, and He has given, and because of that we can find meaning and hope, and life can be filled with peace and assurance.
The angel said to this frightened, pregnant teenager: "Mary, you have found favor with God." The word is "cha’.ris". Many times in the New Testament this word is translated "grace," the unmerited favor of God. Dr. Strong calls this word "...the divine influence on the heart, which is reflected in the life." The word has its’ origin in a basic word that means to be cheerful, or calm about life’s conditions.
So the Christmas angel is saying to this girl in real trouble, "There is every reason to be calm, God is smiling, and He wants you to smile with Him." If I were Mary, my response would have been, "Yeah, right...check it out; I’m engaged, and not even old enough to date, and you’re telling me I’m pregnant, and Joseph’s going to buy it that the Holy Ghost did this. You don’t understand the trouble I’m in big fella! What have I got to smile about?"
And this morning, you might be here with the same uncertainties about life that Mary carried around - You’re worried that the mortgage won’t get paid, or that your job is going to be phased-out, Christmas is coming and there’s too much month left over at the end of the money as it is; or your marriage is in trouble, the doctor has just used the "c-word" (cancer). And Preacher, you want me to smile because there is a God who’s smiling? Uh-huh!
Tom Allen, a pastor and former Army Ranger, tells this story:
I finally saw Saving Private Ryan about two weeks ago. I was extremely proud until the last minute of the movie.
As the movie began, I was proud watching the Rangers take Omaha Beach. Then the story begins when they receive a mission to go deep into enemy territory to save Private Ryan. They hit skirmish after skirmish, and some of them are killed along the way. They finally get to where Private Ryan is holed up, and they say, "Come with us. We’ve come to save you."
He says, "I’m not going. I have to stay here because there’s a big battle coming up, and if I leave my men they’re all going to die."
What do the Rangers say? "We’ll stay here and fight with you." They all stay and fight, and it’s gory and hard, and almost everyone dies except Private Ryan. At the end, one of the main characters—Tom Hanks—is sitting on the ground. He’s been shot and he’s dying. The battle has been won.
Private Ryan leans over to him, and Tom Hanks whispers something to him. Everyone in the theater is crying because Tom Hanks was shot; I was crying because of what he said—it was so terrible. Private Ryan bent down and Tom Hanks said, "Earn this." The reason that made me angry is no Ranger would ever say, "Earn this." Why? Because the Ranger motto for the past 200 years has not been "Earn this." The Ranger motto for the past 200 years has been Sua sponte, "I chose this." I volunteered for this.
So, when Private Ryan bent down, if Tom Hanks was really a Ranger he would have said, "Sua sponte, I chose this. This is free. You don’t pay anything for this. I give up my life for you. That’s my job."
And so when you look at the cross and see Jesus hanging there, what you do not hear is "Earn this." You never hear Jesus say, "Earn this." He doesn’t say, "I’ve given everything for you. Now you need to gut it out for me." What he says is "Sua sponte." I volunteered for this. You don’t have to pay anything for it.
“Earn this” creates the fear of unreasonable expectations, a weight which no person can bear. The Christmas angel said "phob.e’.o not"! Don’t be afraid! It is the opposite of our normal fearful reaction to the calamities of life.
God’s message from the Christmas angel was, "Relax, everything’s under control...Good news here!"
What is the meaning of this good news? No matter what crisis you face today, or tomorrow, or the eternity of tomorrows, this Jesus Christ, born so long ago, the God who became a man and lived and died among us – this same Jesus Christ is smiling....and he knows how to meet your need. And the only requirement he places on us to be our brother is for us to have the same Father.
The sound of the Christmas angel was not just Good news; it was the BEST news this old world has ever heard. To all the anxiety, fear, stress - all the discordant notes of hell, the Christmas angel announced the holy message: "God has said ’ENOUGH!’ Let there be singing, and laughter, and joy. My Son is born, and I am smiling!"
