Sermon

December 24, 2006
Christmas Eve
Luke 2:13-14
Pastor Joel Zank

Glory to God in the Highest!

(Luke 2:13-14) Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, {14} "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

In the name of the Christ-child, God's Son and our Savior, dear fellow redeemed,

In the words of one of our Advent hymns, we sing: "Marvel now, O heav'n and earth, that the Lord chose such a birth" (C.W. 2:1) - such a birth indeed! The King of kings was born not to a queen and not in a palace, but to a lowly maiden and in a manger of all places. It all seems so unlikely, doesn't it? Did God think so little of his Son's human birth that he placed him in these stark surroundings, hoping no one would notice? Of course the answer to my question is a resounding no, but if anyone were to doubt this, he need look no further than the words of our text where the matter is settled once and for all.

While our Savior's birth may have gone unannounced and unnoticed in the neighborhoods of Bethlehem, it was an entirely different matter in the nearby fields. God was not ashamed of his Son's birth. He chose to share the good news first with Bethlehem's shepherds, not with a note dropped from the sky, but through one of his holy angels. Just one, at first, till the shepherds' startled hearts were beating once again, then the real celebration began. Luke tells us that suddenly the nighttime sky was filled with host of angels. Did you know that another word for host is "army"? It makes me think of something Jesus would tell his disciples on another Judean night: "Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26:53). Twelve legions would be 72,000 angels. Can you imagine the sight of such an army? Can you imagine the sound its collective voice would make? Those shepherds didn't have to imagine it. They lived it. And whether it was 1000 or 72,000 angels it wouldn't have mattered a bit, for more important than their number was their message, a message still preserved for us, a message we are blessed to ponder on this most holy of nights: Glory to God in the Highest 1) for his gracious favor and 2) for his gift of peace.

Glory to God! We sing those words so often, but just exactly what is God's glory? Perhaps you're thinking of a bright light radiating from God. That's a pretty accurate picture. Now think of that light as being made up of one or more of God's qualities-the traits for which he's known. Think of the praise and honor he deserves for being who he is and for doing what he does. All of this together is God's glory. Now, when the angels add that phrase, "...in the highest," they're simply stating that God's traits or qualities are bringing him praise, not just from those angels visiting Bethlehem, but from all the angels and all the saints who dwell in all of heaven. All are paying attention to and marveling at the wonders of God. And what are those wonders? The angels go on to tell us. But in order to make the best sense of their words, we really need to start at the end of their message - the part about God's favor resting on all mankind.

The angels' words take us back to the beginning of time, and, sadly, to the beginning of sin when one of their own number, a former angel, now called Satan, led others of his kind in a revolt against God. We're told in the book of Jude that these "...angels...did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home." Though God had loved them and had made them to be powerful beings, it wasn't enough. They wanted instead to be gods, masters of their own destiny and everyone else's, so they rebelled. Of course they were no match for the Almighty. God's justice was swift. Jude tells us that God crushed the revolt and ever since has kept the devil and his followers "...in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day." Never again will these creatures enjoy God's favor. But they have continued to earn his wrath.

There's an old saying, "Misery loves company." Consumed by hatred, Satan went after the perfect man and woman God had made. Having written the book on lust and greed, the devil now turned loose the enticing power of these sins on Adam and Eve, promising them that with one bite of the forbidden fruit they would become gods themselves and would be forever free of the Creator's hold on them. What happened next makes no sense, but it happened just the same. Though wise enough to see through Satan's lie, though strong enough to resist his tempting power, Adam and Eve chose to do neither. Instead they joined Satan's rebellion and in that instant ruined the entire human race. From that moment on, every child born to those sinners would inherit their sin, as would all the generations to follow.

Can you begin to imagine God's hurt? Can you begin to imagine his anger? As witnesses to all that had just happened, God's holy angels must have cringed in anticipation of his next move. It was all over. In a moment God would have no choice but to condemn all humanity to hell. Misery would have its company.

Or would it? What happened next surprised even the angels. For when God opened his mouth to speak it was not to curse Adam and Eve, but rather to tell Satan: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel" (Genesis 3:15). Instead of the curse they deserved, our first parents received a promise. Instead of hell, they received hope.

My friends, this is what those Christmas angels were singing about; this is God's gracious favor-gracious because it's undeserved; favor, because it's unearned. Perhaps you've never thought to call it by this name, but you're familiar with it none the less. You experience it every day. God's gracious favor is the reason you are here. When I say here, I don't just mean here in this church, I mean here on this earth, still alive. You understand, don't you, that with each one of our sins we repeat the rebellion of Eden. Whether it's a greedy thought, a hurtful word or some selfish thing we do, with each of our sins, we raise a fist heavenward and tell God, "You're not the boss of me. I'm in charge. I do and say and think what I want. Get out of my life." Ours sin are exactly the same as the first one, and so the punishment we deserve for them hasn't changed either. Why shouldn't God strike us dead? Why should he send us to hell? There is no reason except the one Scripture gives, "God is love" (1 John 4:16). He chooses to show divine favor to undeserving sinners like us.

This favor is part of God's glory. He beams with love for those he has made. How this favor shown in Eden must have moved the angels of heaven to praise and worship such a gracious God! How they must have watched with eagerness through all the ages of time to see what this favor would lead to. And then it happened, the offspring of Eve, so long promised, was born the Son of God on earth. Now the angels had even more reason to sing God's praises, for though they still could not fathom God's great love, they could see that love take action. They could watch its plan unfold. And more than that, they could see that God is a God of his word, the Keeper of every promise he makes! Still more reason for that army of Christmas angels to shout: Glory to God in the highest for his gift of peace to earth.

To understand God's gift of peace, we must first understand a bit more about God's favor. God's favor and God's justice stand side by side. One does not cancel the other. When God showed favor to Adam and Eve in the garden, when he shows favor to you and me, treating us with kindness that we don't deserve, none of this comes at the expense of his justice. He hasn't chosen to ignore or overlook our sin. He's not offering us some kind of second chance if only we'll enter rehab and promise to try harder in the future.

No, God is not a God of second chances. So why, then, are we still here? Are we waiting for the other shoe to drop. Is this part of sin's punishment-God is treating us kindly now in order to set us up for an even bigger fall in the end? Not at all! In his gracious favor, God has given us something so much better than a second chance. He devised instead a plan to punish us in hell and save us for heaven all at the same time. How did he do it? Our answer is found in Bethlehem's manger. There lies God's gift of peace. Listen to how the writer to the Hebrews explains it: "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too, [God's Son], shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil..." (Hebrews 2:14). What a perfect Christmas gift. It's just what we needed - a Savior who is both human and divine all at the same time. His humanity made him like us, one whom God expected to perfectly keep every one of his laws. While the Savior's divinity gave him the power to take the holy life he was able to live and gift it to us. And so Jesus is our peace with God, for in him we have the holiness we need to live with God. And still's there's more, there had to be, for there remained the matter of our sin and its punishment. Here too we find in Christ the perfect gift. As God's Son he had the power to claim all our sin and all its guilt as his own. As a human, born of Mary, he could bleed and die on the cross; body and soul he could experience the wages of sin in the fires of hell. There, as our Substitute, he could die the death that we deserved, and, then, as God he could free himself and us from its torments. He could rise from the grave and by the power of his resurrection he could make all of his accomplishments count for all human beings. He could and he did all of this for all of us.

Friends, this is Christmas, the good news that our Savior has been born with the power and the love to conquer sin, and death and Satan for everyone. He is God's gift of peace to all people, for through him all people are right with God. There's nothing left for anyone to do-no penance to make, no suffering to endure-it has all been done by Christ. Believe it, dear Christian, believe it with the faith God is giving you. Cherish the truth that he is not angry with you. Let that truth calm your troubled conscience. All your sin, all your guilt has been taken away from you by Christ. Let the peace that this truth brings have its way between you and your fellow sinners, people who are just as dearly loved by God and just as completely forgiven by him as you are. In God's peace, announce that forgiveness to one another, and then, together, cling to that peace in the face of every trouble, including death. For you belong to Christ who turns trouble into blessing, and who makes death the doorway into heaven. Now that is something for which to praise our God.

Those Christmas angels may have been the first to sing it, but now their song is our song too. Through the faith God has given us we have joined the chorus. Oh, while here on earth we may sing the words a bit off tune, but one day very soon, at least as God measures time, that will all change. God will take us to heaven, where with perfect voices we will sing forever: "Glory to God in the highest!" So will it be, for Jesus' sake. Amen.

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