Christmas 2020

[HKHaugan]

“Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased (Lk.2:14).”

 

The angels were singing this after one of them pronounced the birth of Jesus to shepherds who were tending their sheep in the night.  There are several things that need to be brought up here.  First, angelic presence.  In our self-centered scientific age, the very thought of angels is considered mythical, fantasy, superstitious thinking, but definitely not tenable in the modern mind.  Yet here we are in a world that denies 100% of what motivates our behavior is unseen.  When we talk about character, quality of life, lifestyle, attitude, opinion, morality to name a few, these are the invisible driving forces behind everything human.  The whole of the universe is a visible reality started by an invisible power.  In fact, the physical forces that keep the universe in motion are invisible which ought to say something to us.  The very personal individual nature in each of us, our self-concept, having goals and needs and love and relationship.  The bulk of our human experience is an invisible mass of specifics.

Second, angels appearing to shepherds.  Not to kings, princes, the religious and political leaders of the nation but to shepherds, the lowest social class among the Jewish people.  There we go again with the unseen, social distinction, an invisible judgment. 

Third, in the wilderness at night.  The wilderness is dark even in the day if you think about it.  The external physical wilderness has its invisible counterpart.  Yet a great company of angels appear in the midst of it announcing that a Savior has been born (again an invisible reality come to deal with an invisible problem, sin.)  Logically now, why can’t an invisible company become visible if the source is the originator of the universe?  These are announcers who not only have a message but sing praises to the Creator who sent them in His Light to be seen and heard.  Angel means announcer.

Fourth, the announcement of the Savior.   To Jewish shepherds this would make sense.  Culturally, sin, the internal bad in all people, was liturgically dealt with in terms of sacrifices and rituals.  Here there is a breakthrough, the beginning of their distant God taking the initiative to make Himself personally known, not through an institutional form or hierarchy but through His Heavenly servants.  And, they will see Him for real wrapped in cloths lying in cattle’s feeding trough.  It was for real.  They saw and experienced God in the flesh, the first to come out of the darkness and see the Light. 

Let this beginning soak in for a second, then place yourself in the wilderness of the present world, its imbalance, hate and hostility.  We are all like the peasant shepherds doing our best to survive in it.  But we heard the great announcement for us when we were at a down spot and the darkness seemed to be beyond our ability to deal with it.  Whether it was a spiritual insight, an intellectual awareness, an emotional spark or a simple cry for help, Jesus appeared to us.  We weren’t rescued to leave the wilderness but called to be a light in it.  The point where we were willing to consider Him as the focus of life, He brought us a spiritual light in His Word that reformed our mind, then our heart and then our spirit.

Now we leap 2000 years back to that solitary event in Bethlehem and realize right now, here in the present moment, that baby came for me and gave me a new life and a new lifestyle.  Day by day and moment by moment we move both falling, failing, fatigued and repenting, restarting and rising, His forgiveness is our hope and our future.  We grow step by step through Jesus maturing us. In our travels as His witnesses, we shed the momentary imperfections that spring up from our past letting Him be perfect in us.   For unto us everyday the Savior is born anew in us.  Real peace has arrived, Hallelujah!