1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. 6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and laid Him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 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. 10 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. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!”
15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
Mary, in her song of praise known as the Magnificat, said in Luke 1:51-52, “He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.” As we move closer to the birth of the Saviour of the world, all of these things are beginning to come together.
The most powerful worldly kingdom of the day, the Roman Empire, under the rule of Caesar Augustus decreed that a census be made across the empire. The reason for the census was to tighten up on the Roman taxation system, and the most effective means of stopping any potential tax revenue from falling through the cracks was to have a detailed list of everyone who lived in the empire.
Caesar was exercising authority over his subjects, but without him realising it, he had begun a chain of events which would ensure that the true King of Kings, the one who held all authority and power, would be born in an obscure little village called Bethlehem, an event prophesied some 700 years earlier. “You, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.” (Micah 5:2)
The Roman census required every man in Israel to return to his ancestral home, so as Luke records in Luke 2:4-5, “Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.”
King David is mentioned twice here. Speaking of Jesus, the angel Gabriel said to Mary, “The Lord God will give to Him the throne of His father David.” (Luke 1:32). Zechariah, in 1:69 said that the Lord “has raised up a horn of salvation for us the house of His servant David.”
Luke stresses the lineage of David to Joseph to underline Jesus’ credentials as a direct descendant of David. In order to fulfill the promise of salvation, Jesus had to be a direct descendant of King David. Joseph’s lineage also explains why he took his family to Bethlehem. Bethlehem was called the city of David.
Yet when Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem, there was no accommodation available. There would’ve been many other people who had travelled to Bethlehem because of the census. Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth, so it is quite possible that hardly anyone in Bethlehem knew who Joseph was. This helps explain why virtually no-one recognised the significance of the birth of Jesus. Most people were just going about their business, grumbling no doubt about the inconvenience of having to travel all the way to their ancestral homes just because the Roman emperor had told them to.
There was no royal welcome for Jesus. He was born in obscurity. “While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and laid Him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” (Luke 2:6–7)
The welcome that Jesus received (or to put it more accurately, didn’t receive) was spiritually significant. He was unrecognised and unacknowledged, showing that He came to live among sinners. Even His birth was a picture of the humility that led Him to the cross. The humility of His birth reflected His human life. Eventually Jesus humbled Himself to death, but there were hints of this already in His obscure and largely unnoticed birth. The suffering that began in Bethlehem followed Him all the way to Calvary.
The prophet Isaiah wrote in 53:3, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.” This speaks of not only Jesus’ death, but His birth and life too.
We have romanticised the word “manger” with cute little Christmas cards and smiling cartoon barnyard animals. The reality is that mangers were used to feed animals. They would have been infested with all kinds of unspeakable germs and filth, and it was one of these feeding troughs that was the bed of the Saviour of the world.
The manger points us to the cross and to the grave, showing how we are saved: by the humility of our Saviour.
However, the advent of the Saviour didn’t go completely unnoticed. This, in conjunction with Jesus’ death and resurrection, was the most important event in the history of the universe. So it had to be both celebrated and explained, so that people would understand that God the Son had become a man to save sinners. So God sent His angels to tell people the good news.
And in keeping with the theme of humility, the first people to hear this good news were shepherds. Shepherds were outcasts, and Luke, in verses 16 and 17 writes something of supreme importance which is so easy for us to miss. “They went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.”
The fact that these poor, outcast shepherds, were the first to visit the Saviour, teaches that salvation is for everyone. Shepherds lived out in the fields. They were unable to keep the ceremonial law, so they were treated as unclean. They were regarded as liars and thieves, which is why their testimony was inadmissible in court. Shepherds were despised, and with the one exception of lepers, they were the lowest class of men in Israel.
Yet these were the men God revealed the Gospel to first - working-class sinners. As Mary sang in her Magnificat, Jesus came to bring down the thrones of the mighty and exalt those of humble estate as Luke 1:52 reminds us, and who better to exalt the newborn King than lowly shepherds? We don’t even know their names, but God showed grace to them, as He does to any poor, wretched sinner who will come to Christ in faith.
Before the shepherds went to see the newborn King, an angel appeared to them, and they were terrified. “An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.” (Luke 2:9) They were so frightened that the first thing the angel said to them was, “Fear not,” and then he told them why in verses 10 and 11. “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 Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.”
Just like the shepherds, if we are ever given even the smallest glimpse of the sheer holiness and glory of God, we would be filled with terror and fear, but what does this perfectly holy and glorious God say to us through His Son? “Fear not. Peace be with you.”
The eternal consequence of our sin should fill us with fear and terror, but Jesus our Saviour comes into our darkness, proclaiming good news, and in so doing, He removes all our fears. This is the hope of the Gospel message.
Just as it was for the shepherds all those years ago, the good news brings great joy. The true joy of Christmas is that God become a man to save His people. And this joyful good news was “for all the people,” as Luke wrote in verse 10. At first it seems that this promise refers to all people everywhere. After all, good news for all people is a Biblical truth. John 3:16 tells us that.
Jesus is the Saviour of the world, the only Saviour there is, and this good news is for everyone. However, that is not the meaning of this phrase. The angel did not say “all people,” but “all the people,” and the definite article distinguishes these people from others.
So what people did the angel mean? 38 times in his Gospel Luke uses the definite article which refers specifically to the people of Israel. In those days “the people” was a common and general term for the Jews. Of course the good news is not just for the Jews. Later in the chapter we find that it is also for Gentiles. But the angel gave the good news to the Jews first. Paul wrote in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
All the people in verse 10 refers to the Jews, the people of Israel. It is not until we reach verse 32 that we see the worldwide significance of the birth of Jesus, where Simeon, in the last of our 4 hymns of praise, the Nunc Dimittus, wrote, “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” (But more on that next week).
The angel said in verse 11, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour.” The angel wasn’t only pronouncing the birth of Jesus, but His death too. He said a Saviour. We are saved by His death. At Christmas we don’t only celebrate the birth of Jesus, but His death and resurrection too, because they are all equally vital components of the one, eternal plan of salvation.
The good news the angel preached to the shepherds is the Gospel message of the manger, the cross and the empty tomb.
Notice also that the angel said, “Unto you is born.” Just as Jesus was a personal gift given to them, so He is the personal Christmas gift given to each of us, when we receive Him in faith.
The Gospel is a personal message. The angel was doing something more than telling the shepherds what happened. He also told them why it happened and why it mattered - because they, like us, needed a Saviour. He was not for them alone. Jesus is for everyone who receives Him by faith. We too can have the gift of His life, because God says to us what the angel said to the shepherds - “Unto you is born a Saviour.”
Luke uses the title of Saviour for Jesus more than any of the other Gospel writers. He speaks the language of salvation, which is our greatest need. A saviour is a deliverer - someone who rescues people from death and destruction. The first implication of course, is that we need saving.
Jesus came to save us from sin, Satan, and the righteous wrath of God. He delivered us from those enemies by dying on the cross for our sins and then rising again to give us everlasting life. This was more than the shepherds understood, of course, but by saying that Jesus was the Saviour, the angel was telling them to look to Jesus for the salvation they needed.
Then Luke identifies Jesus as the Christ. Christ is not His surname, but His title. Christ is the Greek term for Messiah, which is the Saviour that God had promised to send. Messiah means “the anointed one.” Kings and priests of the Old Testament were anointed with oil as a sign of their office and mission in life, and this ancient ritual points us to Jesus.
God promised that one day He would send the anointed Saviour who would save His people forever. The Jews had been waiting for this for centuries, but now the angel proclaimed that the Saviour had come, making the grand announcement that Jesus is the Christ.
The angel also spoke of Jesus as Lord. This reminds us of His deity, and His sovereign rule over our lives. Jesus is the Lord Christ. What this means is that the promised and anointed Saviour is none other than God Himself, appearing in the flesh.
Saviour, Christ, and Lord. Jesus is given the highest titles that can be given. Saviour speaks of His role as the deliverer, Messiah points to His office in terms of the promised Anointed One of God, and Lord reminds us of His sovereign authority.
The good news for the shepherds was that this child was born in Bethlehem to be their Saviour and their God. They would never have known this unless God revealed it to them. If the angel had not appeared to them while they were out in the fields, keeping watch over their sheep, the shepherds never would have come to Christ. They acknowledged this when they referred to the good news as “this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us,” in verse 15.
What this shows is how important the proclamation of the Gospel is. To understand what God has done, we need to have someone explain it to us. This is how God saves - not simply by sending Jesus to be our Saviour, but also preaching the Gospel to us, so we can understand just how it is possible for us to be saved.
God doesn’t just do things. He also says things, and we need to know what He says so that we can believe in what He has done. Today, we have His written Word, the Bible to help us understand. To help the shepherds believe, God gave them a sign to confirm His promise. “This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:12)
How were they to know which was the right child? All they had to do was find the baby who was lying in a manger. The point of this sign was not so much what Jesus was wearing, but where He was sleeping. The angel had to tell them this, because otherwise they never would have believed it. Who would ever expect to find a baby in a feed trough, especially one who was given to be our Saviour, Christ, and Lord?
Jesus was not born among the pomp and ceremony one would normally see at a royal birth, but instead, in poverty, visited by such social outcasts as common shepherds. This was the humiliation of the incarnation, that the Son of God humbled Himself to save us.
We recognise Jesus the same way that the shepherds did - by His humility. When we see Him wrapped in the swaddling cloths of His humanity, and when we see Him dying in the naked agony of the cross, we can know that He is the Christ God has sent to save us.
And then we move on to our third song of praise of the incarnation. “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!’” (Luke 2:13–14) This is the third Christmas carol in the Gospel of Luke, like the others, more commonly known by its Latin name: Gloria in excelsis Deo. Glory to God in the highest.
What makes this song different from the others is that it was sung by a chorus of angels. It was not a hymn that rose up from the earth, but an anthem that came down from heaven.
Mary’s Magnificat, Zechariah’s Benedictus and Simeon’s Nunc Dimittus, as wonderful as they are, are completely overshadowed by the chorus of the angels, because they give us a much clearer revelation of the true divine glory of Jesus Christ. God the Son has always enjoyed the adoration of angels. Revelation 4:8 says, “Day and night they never cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!’”
From eternity past, the angels have, do, and will worship the eternal God, but now He sent His Son into the world, where He would be despised and rejected, even to death for the salvation of fallen mankind. Coming into our world in human form and dying the death of a common criminal for us deserves the highest praise.
J. C. Ryle wrote, “Now is come the highest degree of glory to God, by the appearing of His Son Jesus Christ in the world. He by His life and death on the cross will glorify God’s attributes: justice, holiness, mercy, and wisdom, as they never were glorified before.”
The skies opened up and the angelic choir proclaimed the glory of God. Those shepherds, once their fears had been stilled, were given a privileged glimpse of the glories of Heaven.
“Glory to God,” they sang. God was glorified in sending His Son to be our Saviour. The Christmas angels saw this glory and revealed it to the shepherds so that we could see it too.
Then the angels pronounced a benediction. The coming of Christ was not just for the glory of God, but also for the good of humanity. After giving glory to God in the highest, they proclaimed peace on earth.
What is peace? Throughout human history we have legislated peace. We have signed peace treaties which have ended wars, we have signed non-aggression pacts which have delayed wars, and what has it brought us? Everything but peace. All our sin has brought us is more wars, more hatred, and more heartache, but no peace.
But now a new King was born, and He brings us a whole new understanding of peace. With His birth the angels pronounced peace on earth - shalom, which is nothing like the peace we see in sinful human beings. Jesus brings us peace with God, first of all. Until we have peace with God, we cannot have any true peace.
The apostle Paul, in the opening verses of Ephesians 2, paints a bleak picture of our standing outside the grace of God, a place where there is no peace. “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience - among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” (Ephesians 2:1-3)
Our sins stand in judgment against us and we are afraid to die, because deep down we know that we deserve judgment. But Jesus came to give us peace with God by paying the penalty that our sins deserve. Paul continues, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:4-8)
He also wrote in Colossians 1:19-20, “In Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.” Peace with God comes through Christ, and through Christ alone. Until such time as we come to God through the atoning blood of our Saviour, we remain at war with Him.
It is only Jesus Christ who brings peace, and in the Gloria sung by the angels, they proclaim this Biblical truth.
The Gloria is often misunderstood to be a promise of universal salvation: “Peace on earth, goodwill to men,” but that is not what the angels sang. The wording of Luke 2:14 is crucial. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!” Which begs the question, with whom is He pleased?
William McDonald wrote, “The men in whom God is pleased are those who repent of their sins and receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.” That is the only thing you can do which pleases God. Repent of your sins and receive the gift of grace He offers you.
What happened next is important because it shows how we should respond to the Gospel message. In verse 18 Luke writes, “All who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.” But this does not mean that everyone believed them. People were surprised by the shepherds’ story, but there is no indication that they all came to faith in Christ. People wonder about all kinds of things that they never fully believe.
Many people have the same response today. They think that Christmas makes a great story, but they wonder whether it’s really true. This baby that was born in Bethlehem that we hear about every year in late December - is He really the Saviour of the world? Some people wonder, but they can’t keep wondering forever. Either the good news of great joy is true, in which case we should believe in Jesus Christ, or the whole thing is a myth, in which case there is no one to save us from our sins.
We’re told in verse 19 that Mary “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” Some 9 months earlier Gabriel visited her and gave her the dramatic and life-changing news, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour 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.” (Luke 1:30-33)
And now the shepherds arrived, telling her and Joseph what the angel had said to them about the city of David, their son as Saviour, Lord and Christ. All of the promises given to Mary by Gabriel were confirmed by the shepherds. It’s no wonder she treasured these things in her heart.
The shepherds heard the Gospel, they responded to it by faith, and when they found the Saviour, just as the angel had told them, they believed.
When they saw Jesus lying in the manger, they were certain that everything the angel said was true. They saw Jesus, and they knew for sure, and they became the first evangelists, telling others as Luke wrote in verse 20. “The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.”
The shepherds did exactly the same as the angels. They glorified God.
Are we sharing our faith and spreading the good news about Jesus Christ? This is the call and duty of all Christians.
Maybe you’re still not sure. If so, believe the Gospel. Repent and turn to Christ. Go to Him just as the shepherds did, and you will have eternal peace with God, and you too will be able to sing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!”