Luke 1:26-35; 2:8-14: The Glory of Christmas

Matthew 1:18–23 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

Intro

Who doesn’t love Christmas?

The music…the family…the food…traditions…presents…

All the happy memories…

Christmas is a time to celebrate all the wonderful blessings and grace we all enjoy.

But in all the hustle and bustle of the Holiday Season we can easily forget the point.

The whole purpose of Christmas.

With all the travel, the plans, the family, the decorations…for most of you moms all the work of building traditions…we can make easily it through the whole Christmas season and completely miss the glory of it.

And that’s what I want to celebrate today.

As we celebrate Christmas Eve I want to take a step back with our time together as a church and celebrate the glory of Christmas.

What Christmas is really all about.

Why Christmas really is a time joy, celebration, merriment and rejoicing.

What is the glory of Christmas?

The Glory of Christmas is the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ.

Christmas is the time where we celebrate that the Eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ, was born of a virgin…to save sinners.

To make the unclean clean.

To forgive our sins, and draw us near to God.

The Glory of Christmas is the free gift of God’s salvation freely offered in Jesus Christ.

So for this Christmas…on this Christmas Eve…what better way to celebrate that grace than by reading the Christmas Story together as a church family to see that glorious grace and all that God has given us in the miraculous birth of Jesus Christ.

Let’s turn to Luke 1:26-35…

The Virgin Birth

Luke 1:26–35 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.”

The virgin birth is something that is mocked and ridiculed by our world today but it is something fundamental to our Christian faith.

Without it the Bible would not be true and we would lose the very foundation of our faith…

And we could not lose the virgin birth without losing the very gospel itself.

We believe that Jesus Christ is truly and fully God and truly and fully man.

That the eternal Son of God took on human flesh to save us from our sins.

This is what we call the incarnation.

That without ever ceasing to be God, Jesus became a man

He lived the perfect and sinless life we failed to live.

And He died our death we deserved to die on the cross to satisfy once and for all the holy and righteous wrath of God.

So that through faith in Him and His sinless life, sacrificial death, and bodily resurrection our sin could be laid on Christ and Christ’s own perfect righteousness credited to to us.

That through faith in Him declared righteous…justified…forgiven…and saved by the grace of God.

But none of that is possible without the virgin birth.

If Christ were not born of a virgin, the very foundation of our faith would come crumbling down.

But here’s what I don’t want to do.

I don’t want to look at the virgin birth and the incarnation as some theological peculiarity.

Something Christians just have to believe.

We relegate the doctrine of the virgin birth to a mere test of Christian orthodoxy.

A box you have to check and believe.

And because of that what usually happens is we miss the glory of the virgin birth altogether.

What it reveals and teaches us about God’s glorious grace Jesus Christ.

So what is the theology behind the virgin birth?

Not just the truth of the virgin birth itself, but the glory of it and what does it show us about God’s amazing grace in the gospel?

Three things.

Number 1, the virgin birth shows us…

1. God Redeems Sinners

Speaking to the Serpent all the way back in Genesis 3:15 after Adam and Eve sinned and fell into the temptation of the Devil God said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Now first and foremost this is a promise of redemption from the Fall.

That Christ would crush the head of the Serpent.

That He would save us from sin, Satan, and death, redeem us from the curse, and make all things new.

But why the emphasis on the woman?

The Bible usually traces genealogies through men.

And Romans 5 says that the responsibility for sin entering the world falls squarely on Adam (Romans 5:17-19).

So why the woman?

Well for one thing it foreshadowed the virgin birth.

The Redeemer would come through a woman.

But here’s what often gets missed.

By promising that Christ would be born of a woman, God is very explicitly promising redemption for sinners, not just in a general since but in a specific sins.

Why? Because Eve was deceived first (1 Timothy 2:14).

Genesis 3:6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Now its not that Adam wasn’t a sinner or that Eve is the only one to blame for our sin.

As we’ve said, the responsibility falls on him.

He was the covenant head and representative of his wife and the whole human race.

But Eve was deceived and Adam followed suit.

And so by promising that the Messiah would be born of a woman God, the one who was deceived…God was promising to redeem Eve...

And in promising to redeem Eve, God was promising to redeem all who believe.

The great Puritan Thomas Watson said Christ was born of a woman, that he might roll away the reproach from the woman, which she had contracted by being seduced by the serpent. Christ in taking his flesh from the woman, has honored her…that is, at the first, the woman had mad man a sinner; so now to make him amends, she should bring him a savior (Watson, A Body of Divinity, 192-193).

Christ rolled away her reproach, just as Christ rolls away the reproach of all of us.

So the Virgin Birth is first and foremost a promise of Redemption and God’s grace towards sinners.

Number 2, the Virgin Birth shows us that…

2. Salvation is a Work of God’s Miraculous Grace and not Human Effort

You’ll notice in our passage Mary says “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.” (Luke 1:34-35).

The Virgin Birth was by the powerful working of the Holy Spirit.

God alone brought it about.

It was not through human work or effort.

It was not as if a man and a woman came together and suddenly created a Savior.

The incarnation and birth of Christ was a miraculous work of God’s grace.

And so the Virgin Birth, in itself, is a reminder that our salvation is not the result of human works or effort.

We cannot work enough or obey enough to save ourselves from even one of our sins.

All of our salvation is only by God’s grace.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8–9).

We are grace alone…Grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, not human effort.

As Jesus said, You must be born again (John 3:3-8).

And, just as with the virgin birth, the only way to be born again through the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6).

So the Virgin Birth, theologically, is a reminder that our salvation is a free gift of God’s grace…not the result of works…

And this free gift is freely given in the new birth in the sovereign and powerful working of the Holy Spirit.

And that takes us to the third thing the Virgin Birth show us about the glory of God’s grace in the gospel and that is…

3. The Power of God’s Grace to Save Sinners

From a human perspective the virgin birth is a complete and absolute impossibility.

Who had ever heard of someone being born of a virgin?

It’s impossible.

And that’s precisely the point.

The Virgin Birth shows us that there is nothing impossible with God, and that is given to give us a great assurance of our salvation (Luke 1:34-37).

Because I’ll tell you this, our salvation was more impossible than someone ever being born of a virgin.

That is how lost…and blind…and dead we were in our sin.

How could sinners ever be made right with an infinitely holy God?

How could we ever cross over that infinite gap?

The cross of Christ.

That’s why the cross is the wisdom of God and the power of God for all who believe.

Talking about salvation Jesus said What is impossible with man is possible with God (Luke 18:27).

And that is what the virgin birth is meant to tell us.

God really does have the power to save and He proved it by doing the impossible in the Virgin Birth.

Summary

So you see the Virgin Birth is about more than just theological facts and orthodox faith.

Its a proclamation of God’s grace.

His grace to redeem sinners.

His grace freely offered as a gift and not the result of human works or effort.

And the power of His grace to actually and effectively to save sinners.

The glory of Christmas is all about the glory of God’s grace in the Virgin Birth and Incarnation of Jesus Christ.

That’s what we are here to celebrate.

But even still that can be some cold theology…just some interesting facts.

So I want to finish our time together by looking at a picture of this grace found in the rest of the Christmas story in Luke chapter 2.

Shepherds

Luke 2:8–14 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

You know what’s amazing is these flocks were likely some of the very same flocks used for the temple sacrifices foreshadowing the sacrifice Jesus would eventually make on the cross as the perfect Lamb of God (John 1:29).

And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.

And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Have you ever wondered why God sent angels to the shepherds?

I mean this is the birth of Christ…the most momentous event in history!

Why not kings or rulers instead of these poor, lowly shepherds?

Because God wanted to display His grace.

We usually have a romantic view of shepherds…we view them as something positive.

After all, Jesus is the Good Shepherd and Chief Shepherd who saves us from all our sin.

But back in Jesus’ day shepherds were despised and some of the lowest class of people among men.

Now this is not to say this about these particular men, but Shepherds were generally regarded as untrustworthy liars and thieves often “confusing” their sheep with someone else’s.

They couldn’t even give their testimony in a court of Law.

And the nature of their work out in the fields often left them ceremonially unclean preventing them from drawing near and worshiping God in the Temple.

So when you put all that together what do you see?

God sends these heavenly angels with good news, literally the gospel that Christ was born to despised outcasts and lowborn, unclean sinners.

That is every single one of us in our sin.

And that’s who God sent the good news of the gospel for!

That’s who Christ came to save: lowborn, despised, outcast, unclean sinners!

And that’s why the Angel says “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy.

That’s what the gospel is. Great Joy!

And why? For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

The Gospel is news of great Joy because Christ came to save us from all our sins

And notice how personal this news is.

Unto you is born.

To you shepherds.

And to you and I hearing this message today, God has freely offered His Son to be your Savior.

Do you know what a Savior is?

We can use that word so much we forget what it means.

A Savior is someone who delivers someone else.

Someone who rescues another from certain death and destruction…some horrible fate they are destined for and sets their feet on solid ground.

They save people.

And that’s exactly what Jesus did.

He saved us from certain death.

He died on the cross for our sins and rose again three days later to save us from eternal death and Hell, and once for all reconciled us to God.

And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.

This shows us the great humility and love Christ had for us in the incarnation.

The great depths He was willing to go to save us from our sins.

No one would ever expect a baby to be laid in a simple manger, a food trough for family animals and beasts.

How much less would we expect the Eternal Son of God who is Christ the Lord - the King of glory!

And yet there He lay.

And He did not come to earth in royal splendor…in the courts of Kings and Queens, but to a poor carpenter family wrapped in common swaddling cloths and humble poverty.

And so Christ humbled Himself for us.

The manger…the cloths…all of it shows the depths Christ went to save sinners.

He emptied himself.

He made himself low…the lowest of the low…all to save even the lowest sinner.

Its no wonder that Watson said Christ incarnate is nothing but love covered with [human] flesh (Watson, 194).

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God…

That multitude of heavenly host does not just mean a bunch of angels but an army of angels.

That’s what host means.

And here’s the irony. This heavenly army does not come to bring the warfare we deserve.

In our sin, we made ourselves enemies of God.

We tried to remove Him from the throne and set ourselves up as gods over our own life.

And while we deserve to die, God sent this army to preach peace.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

This peace is full reconciliation with God.

The full forgiveness from sins and complete redemption from the curse and the Fall.

The peace Christ made by the blood of His cross (Col 1:20).

This peace is God’s grace in action.

And you might read that lest phrase and peace among those with whom He is pleased, and think this peace is given to those who have done something to deserve it.

But a literal reading would say and peace among the people of His good pleasure.

This is all grace.

The idea is peace, salvation, forgiveness, grace among all God has sovereignly and graciously poured out His good pleasure and merciful grace.

That’s the glory of Christmas!

Conclusion

The Shepherds in the field give us a picture of God’s grace towards each and every one of us.

This free gift of grace God has given us in Christ.

Peace. Salvation. Everlasting life.

All gifts we have through God’s greatest gift…His own Son.

That’s what we are celebrating this Christmas.

As you go to celebrate with family.

Practice your traditions, eat good food.

Open presents…

Remember what Christmas is really all about.

The greatest present of all…

God’s grace in His Son Jesus Christ.

Fear not! For Behold I bring you good news of great joy:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).