Luke chapter 2 and verse 8. And there were in the same country
shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock
by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord
came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about
them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them,
Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy,
which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day
in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And
this shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall find the babe wrapped
in swaddling clothes, 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, goodwill toward men. And it came to pass, as the angels
were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one
to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this
thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known
unto us. And they came with haste, and
found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger. And when
they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told
them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered
at those things which were told them by the shepherds. Amen. May the Lord bless this
reading from his word. Well, you know what? I'm going
to read another couple of verses. I'll read down to verse 20. But Mary kept all these things
and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying
and praising God for all the things that they had heard and
seen, as it was told unto them. Amen. Right. The birth of the Lord Jesus. Being accomplished, as we saw
or read together last week, we now learn of the announcement
of Christ's incarnation by the angels to the shepherds who were
watching their sheep in the night in the fields near Bethlehem.
And this is the same countryside in which David was a shepherd
as well. We'll remember that Bethlehem
was the city of David and David was, by reputation, a shepherd. And these would be the same fields
that many hundreds of years before David would have looked after
his father's sheep. in which David would have looked
after his father's sheep. So there's a long history here
of shepherds protecting their sheep in these fields. And we
learn too that it was night, and that perhaps suggests that
Christ was born in the hours of darkness, which is no doubt
in itself symbolic of the state of the world that lay in darkness
at this time. Matthew alludes to that. He says
in chapter four, verse 16, the people which sat in darkness
saw great light. and to them which sat in the
region and shadow of death, light is sprung up." So here we have
the angels announcing that Christ, the light of the world, is come
into the world. And also that the shepherds were
out in their fields is probably significant as well. It's led
some people to suggest given a knowledge of the rural practices
and climate of that region, that the time of year when Christ
was born was probably around mid-October rather than near
the end of December with its astronomical connections when
Christ's nativity is marked today. I think it's probably easy for
us to find lots of pagan practices that appear to have been adapted
and adopted into what is now called the religious festival
of Christmas. And while it's true that angels
and shepherds still register in the bleak midwinter feast
of Yuletide, there is little of the true Christ in the modern
celebration of his birth. At first, it is a single angel
who appears to the shepherds, possibly standing above them. And he lightens the darkness
with a glorious light. It's the light of God. It's the light of the glory of
God that shines around him. And their first reaction is fear. But the angel who is perhaps
Gabriel, we're not told the name of this angel, but it has hitherto
been Gabriel who has been so active in announcing Christ's
birth that perhaps this is Gabriel as well. And Gabriel at once,
if that's who it is, dispels their fear with a call not to
be afraid. and they might well be afraid,
being sinful men in the presence of such a glorious angel. Or I should say, being sinful
men or women, as the case may be, because I see no need to
assume that these shepherds were men. or that they were only men. And throughout the Old Testament,
we often find that it was women who looked after the sheep, even
to the point, remember, in the story of Jacob. The message of
the angel, however, to these men and or women is a cause for
joy and Christ the Saviour has been born in Bethlehem, the city
of David and the shepherds are instructed to search out the
child which they do, and they are provided with a sign that
he'll be found wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And this would suggest, perhaps,
that nothing else about the actual circumstances of Christ's birth
would have identified it as special, would have identified it as anything
other than a normal birth in such a situation. But this sign,
the sign of being told Where the child would be found and
how the child would be presented would confirm to the shepherds
the angel's words, but more importantly would be the identification of
the child so that they would know that this truly was the
child that was spoken of as the one who had come in as the saviour
of his people. Soon with the angel appears a
whole host or army of angels and they are a heavenly host
which distinguishes them from being an army of men or an army
of this world. Here is the army of heaven acknowledging
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into this world. and they
appear singing praises to God. What a scene that must have been,
what a sight it must have been to see, as it were, the clouds
part, the skies open, and if that was like a glimpse for these
shepherds, right into the very heart of heaven, to see the angels
singing, perhaps the nearest thing to heaven ever seen on
earth since the creation of the world. What I want to do for
a few minutes here today, this afternoon, this evening, is to
take a few words from the angel's announcement and just to dwell
for a minute or two on the words because they kind of struck me
as I was reading this passage and thinking how I might address
it today. It's from the part where he says
in verse 14, and on earth peace, goodwill
toward men. And it's the little phrase, on
earth peace, that caught my attention. Usually, we say, peace on earth,
whereas what the angel said was, on earth peace. And that phrase,
peace on earth, has graced a million Christmas cards. And I don't
want to make an issue about the order of the words, because it's
the same either way. But I do think that we shall
only feel the true weight of this phrase if we understand
that it's not a suggestion of the angel, that there was now,
or indeed would someday be, peace on earth as a result of the coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ but rather that this peace being
spoken of is Christ himself who is peace and this is now on earth
peace, on earth the person of Christ, on earth the Prince of
Peace. which is one of the glorious
names in that list of glorious names given to the Messiah by
Isaiah in chapter nine. It's not suggesting, I don't
think, that there would be an absence of violence or an absence
of unrest or the end of anxiety, either in that moment or at any
time. in the history of the world,
and as long as time shall last, but rather that he who is our
peace, our reconciliation, and the peacemaker with God had now
been revealed. When the child Jesus was born
in Bethlehem, peace had come into the world. And Micah, the
prophet Micah speaking prophetically of the Messiah in Micah chapter
five, verse five says, this man shall be the peace. Or that can
be paraphrased or translated, this man, the peace. And later
Paul writes to the Ephesians, for he is our peace. And Isaiah tells us of the Lord
declaring in chapter 54 verse 10, for the mountains shall depart
and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart
from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed,
saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. And this is the work
of Christ that is being spoken of also as well as the person
of Christ. Later Ezekiel speaks of this
covenant of peace as the everlasting covenant of grace and peace. concerning the coming of the
Lord Jesus Christ into the world and the accomplishments of the
Lord in his atoning and reconciling and intercessory mission. Ezekiel says, moreover I will
make a covenant of peace with them and it shall be an everlasting
covenant. with them and I will place them
and multiply them and I will set my sanctuary, my peace in
the midst of them forevermore. I wonder if I can explain it
like this. Christ is not our peace because he made peace for
us. Rather, he made peace for us
because he is our peace. Christ is not defined by what
he does, rather he acts according to his nature and his character. Because he is peace, because
he is God's way of peace, therefore he makes peace for us. He acts according to his nature
and his character. He does what he does because
of who he is. He is, says Paul, the God of
all grace and the God of peace. So here the angel is telling
the shepherds that they shall find on earth, in Bethlehem,
wrapped in swaddling clothes and in a manger, the Saviour
who is peace. Christ is God who is peace, just
as he is God who is love. He has come to his people, as Job said, to stand at the
latter day upon the earth. And because Christ is peace,
he pacifies and propitiates God's wrath. and he makes peace between
the offended God and his rebellious people. He does so by bearing
our sin, by taking every reason for God's displeasure away, by
atoning for all for whom he has died, by pardoning our disobedience,
by cleansing our soul. and by these means he reconciles
us to God because Christ is our peace. And Christ is our peace
also in that he unites us one with another. For example, he
has united his two peoples, his people from the Old Testament
with his people from the New Testament. He unites these two
peoples, the Old Testament Jews and also those Old Testament
non-Jews. We so often forget about the
non-Jews of the Old Testament. There were Gentiles who were
converted in the Old Testament as well. Many, many of them,
probably far more than we will realise in time. We will meet them in eternity.
But the Lord has united He has made peace between the Old Testament
people and the New Testament people. and those who received
the promises by faith and trusted on the Messiah who would come
at the appointed time, uniting them with the Gentiles who would
be converted in the New Testament age and brought to experience
the grace and love and mercy of their Redeemer following his
coming. And because Christ is peace,
he ministers peace to those to whom he is joined as the head
and united with as his body. So that in this covenant of peace,
the Lord Jesus Christ is united with his people and he gives
us the peace that passeth understanding in our hearts, in our minds,
in our conversion. So that as the Lord converts
us, he brings us into the experience of peace and salvation. This is our hope. It's the product
of faith, which is in itself the gift of God, the Holy Spirit. And as he brings the gospel,
sends the gospel to us, as we hear the gospel, we derive a
peace From hearing the Gospel, upon the merits of Christ's work,
the sufficiency of Christ's work, the achievement, the effectualness
of Christ's work, we have, through those things, we have peace with
God. We hear it, and we believe it, and it gives us peace in
our heart. And because Christ is peace,
we have peace in this world as well. We have peace in fellowship
with the Lord's people. We have peace towards our neighbours,
even if they don't always have peace with us. We endeavour to
live peaceably with all men and women. We've no desire for war. We've no desire for violence.
Our desire is to live at peace in this world. And because Christ
is peace, we have peace in our own hearts through believing
in him when the troubles and trials and pains and sadnesses
of this life come against us. There's no hardship in this world
that believers will not experience. There's no sorrow from which
we will be exempted. There's no pain that the children
of God do not suffer along with the men and women of this world.
But through all the common troubles of our humanity and this flesh,
there is a distinctive peace in our hearts that brings a quietness,
a resolve, a calmness, a serenity. when we can commit all our cares
into the hands of our Lord, knowing that he does wisely and he does
lovingly by us for our good. And finally, because Christ is
peace, we shall have eternal peace. forever with Him in the
world to come. And what a wonderful peace that
will be, where no tear is shed, no separation is imposed, no
pain can enter, and no sin can exist. If we have any knowledge
and sense of peace in this world, we shall be overwhelmed by the
peace that we shall experience in glory. There we shall be in
the company of him who is peace and we shall be forever united
to him in the enjoyment of himself. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today. Amen.