Christmas Rejoicing
Merry Christmas to you all! It is the Holiday Season and the time that we celebrate the birth of our Savior.
Christmas is a time of celebrating family and happiness, it is a time of joy and festivities. Yet, there are many people today who are experiencing pain, sadness, feeling the burdens and stress of this life. It might be that you are reading this and feeling that way in your own life. Jesus came to this earth because of His love for us, because He desired to restore a relationship with us, He came to give us hope! Even, if we call Him our Messiah, it doesn't mean we will be free from the pain of this life on earth, but it does mean He is, “Immanuel, God with us.” Mat. 1:23
I believe we all know the Christmas story. The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and says “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Luke 1:28 The angel goes on to tell her that she, who is not married yet, will be with child, that this child will be called the Son of God. I got to believe that Mary, as this scene is unfolding , has to be processing what this will mean to her. She is a young unmarried woman who is betrothed to Joseph. She is facing loss of reputation, great shame, and possibly much worse, and yet she says, “May it be to me as you have said.” Luke 1:38 Incredible!
Just in case we think a few days might change her attitude toward all of this, we see her with Elizabeth when she declares, “My soul praises the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has been mindful of the humble state of His servant … for the Mighty One has done great things for me, holy is His name.” Are we willing to be like Mary, and rejoice in spite of how the circumstances look, when God calls us to His service, remembering that, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (NIV Isaiah 55:9)
We see in Luke 2, shepherds in the fields, doing what shepherds do and what they have done for many, many nights, they’re watching their sheep. It is a night like all the other nights that have come and gone, until, on this night, when God sent an angel to proclaim “Good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” Luke 2:10 At that point this night became like no other night, before or since! The angel said to the shepherds, “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.” And then an amazing scene became even more spectacular when the angel choir joined the first angel saying, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.” Luke 2:14 The angels were rejoicing and praising God for the birth of the Savior. I pray that you will know God’s peace this Christmas season, I pray His peace would fill each one of us completely!
Now we look at the shepherds. Oh, how I pray that in my life this Christmas I will be like one of the shepherds! God chose to reveal to these humble men of the country and plains, the Good News of the birth of His Son. That the Messiah had come! These men should be a challenge to each of us. What did they do after the angle choir left them and returned to heaven? Did they stand around and talk about it, try to convince each other of what they had just seen? No, they did not hesitate but said, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened; which the Lord has told us about.” There was no question in their minds where this message had originated from, it had come from God and they wanted to be a part of the action taking place that night! These simple shepherds were excited and spilled the story to everyone they met and to all who would listen.
“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.” Luke 2:17-18 There are still people waiting to be amazed this Christmas. Will we be like the shepherds? Are we like the shepherds? I like the shepherds, I pray my life reflects the joy and excitement of the shepherds, who “returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.” Luke 2:20
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