Luke 2:14

Luke 2:14

The Angels' Christmas Hymn.

I. "Glory," so the angels began, "to God in the highest!" Why was the birth of Christ glory to God in the highest? Besides other deep mysteries, which there may be in that saying, God did thus begin to make known to the holy angels, to those who serve Him in the highest, His manifold wisdom in respect of the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is evermore His special glory among them, as any condescending act of a great and beloved king is his glory among his subjects: namely, that He is now Man as well as God; He hath lowered, abased, emptied Himself, so unspeakably as to have taken our nature into His own, and in it to have suffered for us the worst of pain and shame love taking on itself what sin deserved.

II. The birth of Christ is also peace on earth, peace between God and man, the blessed way to His favour which is better than life. Many of us may know something of the heartfelt, extreme, unutterable delight, when parents or brethren, or dear friends whom we depend upon, are reconciled to us after any kind of falling out; how the whole soul, before unquiet and restless, is restored to sweet assurance of safety and repose! Now people say to themselves over and over, "Come what will, now we have that which we most craved for; we have the heart which we thought we had lost; we know now that we are still dear to him whom we feared we had affronted for ever." Like to this, only unspeakably more than this, is the sense of being reconciled to God, the knowledge of how grievously soever we have fallen from Him, He still cares for us as our Father; and this blessing is solemnly renewed to us as often as Christmas comes round, in the very words of the angel: "On earth peace."

III. And it is, also, good will towards men; not peace only, but grace; not forgiveness only, but every blessing flows from it. There is nothing too good or too great to be expected, hoped, and prayed for, by those whom the Eternal Son owns for brethren and the Eternal Father for children, and into whom the Eternal Spirit has entered, to join them as true members to the Son.

Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. viii., p. 278.

The tidings of the coming of Christ, which were communicated to the shepherds by the angel appointed of God, are no longer confined to the spot and to the period which were rendered memorable by their disclosure. They have ceased to be tidings. They are no longer new. Now they have a history. Time itself has been God's commentator. The ages have rolled away, nations and kingdoms have changed, but this truth of the coming of Christ has not been rolled away, and it has changed only to grow.

I. If theology could exclude the truth that Christ is God, it would remain as poetry. The world would not let it fall. Humanity would enshrine it; we would dream it; we would wake to believe; we would follow it wherever it should lead us.

II. The true work of Christ was to reveal to men their sins, to humble them, to empty them before God, to bring them under the complete control of the Divine will; and this became a sieve, as it were, which separated men one from another. It was the spiritual power of Christ's purity that arrayed the Scribes and Pharisees against Him, and led to His arrest and crucifixion. It was the contrast between His life and theirs, the influence of His doctrines upon their self-conceit, and the power of His soul upon their nature and conduct, that aroused their opposition to Him.

III. For eighteen hundred years Christ has been ostensibly received and rejoiced in as a spiritual power; and yet during this whole period, those who have really received Him according to His errand of the soul, in a way that humbled them, cast them down into condemnation, judged them and raised them up into life, have been relatively the few, the despised and the outcast. Christ has been accepted almost universally throughout the world as an external power; but Christ as a purifier, Christ as a Saviour from sin, taking sides with the weak, the oppressed, the wronged, has been almost universally rejected throughout the world. How many myriads of men are there, who on Christmas Day, wear flowers in memory of Christ, chant hymns in honour of Christ, and present gifts in celebration of the birth of Christ, who will not let the Master enter one step unto their hearts to purify them! Let us beware lest we fall into this error, which so widely prevails in these latter days, of receiving Christ outwardly and rejecting Him inwardly.

H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 45.

References: Luke 2:14 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv., No. 168; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 343; A. W. Hare, The Alton Sermons, p. 80; W. Dorling, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 27; Ibid., vol. iv., p. 401; E. J. Willis, Ibid., vol. x., p. 120; H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol. xix., p. 91; New Manual of Sunday School Addresses, p. 234; H. Wace, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. ii., p. 195.Luke 2:15 . J. Keble, Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany, p. 108; Preacher's Monthly, vol. i., p. 45; Ibid., vol. x., p. 337; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 72; J. M. Neale, Sermons for Children, p. 45; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., pp. 557, 558; vol. xv., p. 360; Expository Sermons on the New Testament, 65; H. G. Robinson, Man in the Image of God, p. 155.Luke 2:15-21 . Clergyman's Magazine, vol. ii., p. 10.