How Beautiful the Good News of Great Joy! Isaiah 52:7; Luke 2:10
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father, and our beautiful Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who was born to bring the joy of Heaven to us.
The title of our message is How Beautiful the Good News of Great Joy, based on Isaiah 52:7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
And from the account of the birth of Jesus, in Luke 2, verses 10-11, 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. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
How beautiful is the season of Christmas, beautiful trees and lights and ornaments and decorations.
How beautifully our church decorates for Christmas, with such a large, beautiful tree.
How beautiful Christmas Eve when there’s a dusting of light snow falling, twinkling in the lights. It makes the night feel like what we sing in one of our favorite Christmas hymns, Silent Night, Holy Night, all is calm, all is bright.
After a fresh snowfall, when the moon and the stars are shining, with the snow reflecting their light, it’s a beautiful sight.
How beautiful the sight and the sound must have been that night, when a multitude of angels appeared to the shepherds, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth, goodwill toward men.
Upon seeing that beauty in the sky on the hills above Bethlehem, the shepherds went down to the town below, to a less than beautiful place. Quite frankly, a dirty, smelly place.
There among the animals, they found the baby the angels had spoken of, lying in a manger; not the place, and not the conditions where one would expect to find a newborn king.
Just that Jesus was born, the incarnation of God’s Son, was an amazing thing in itself; that He would lower himself to go through the trauma of birth, and then the pains and discomforts of growing up, things like teething, for example, why would God’s Son do that to Himself?
I once read that the pain of teething that some children go through would put a grown man on his back, moaning in pain; although, some women might argue it doesn’t take much for a man to complain about how bad he feels, when he just has a common cold.
But in all seriousness, that Jesus chose to go through this hurt and trouble when he didn’t have to, he did it only for us, that’s a beautiful thing; not the pain and suffering, they’re the ugly consequences of a fallen world; but the love that caused Him to be born into poverty and to take on the pain that’s a part of this fallen world, all so that He might redeem us, what kind of love would lead someone to do that? Only love divine, God’s great and perfect love for us.
In every way that Jesus lowered Himself, and suffered for us, each was a beautiful act of love.
The baby of Bethlehem grew to be a man, never surrendering to sin, as we have done many times. He carried His perfect love for the world to the cross, and there He suffered more than we can imagine.
How terrible the suffering, how horrible the death, but how beautiful the love that led Him to suffer and die for us.
There is no more beautiful thing in this world, than love, love of a certain kind, the love of God given to the world through His Son, the love that came down at Christmas to save us.
Without love there is no real beauty, only a superficial or false beauty; certainly no lasting beauty.
With love, divine love, everything is made beautiful; with God’s saving love in Christ, everything is made beautiful for eternity.
Research has shown how when you love someone, you tend to see them as more beautiful or attractive than other people do.
When, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we believe in and love our Savior, He becomes truly beautiful to us; and the story of His birth and life and death and resurrection, become to us, the most beautiful of stories.
The good news of God’s great love for us in Christ, is what makes our lives and our world beautiful; it’s all because of our Savior, and the beauty and the power of His great love for us.
Before we mentioned how beautifully our church decorates for Christmas, and indeed it does. But what makes this a truly beautiful place at Christmas is not the decorations, but the message that we share and celebrate here.
From the children last night we heard that beautiful message of great joy. And we hear it again today: “Fear not, 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 Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
That’s a message that never grows old; it never loses its beauty, nor its joy.
The story of Jesus is a story of love of the highest kind. And so, His is the most beautiful of stories.
In the Christmas Hymn, Gentle Mary Laid Her Child, which we’ll sing tomorrow, the third verse, Gentle Mary laid her child… Lowly in a manger; He is still the Undefiled But no more a stranger. Son of God of humble birth, Beautiful the story; Praise His name in all the earth; Hail the King of glory!
Son of God of humble birth, beautiful the story. How could anyone take such humble circumstances, and turn them into a story of such beauty? That’s what God’s love through His Son can do. As our choir sang in our Cantata last Sunday, Love Can, God’s love can do that.
How we need to hear this Christmas story every year, this good news of great joy.
How we need to hear the good news of salvation every Sunday, and every day.
Into a world of bad news with great sorrow, Jesus came, bringing good news with great joy. In fact, He is the good news of great joy.
It seems that the news these days is mostly about politics, and mostly negative; it can get pretty depressing.
The Good News is all about Jesus; there is no news so good to hear as the news of His saving love for the world; there’s no more beautiful message for the world, than the message that’s all about Jesus.
We all have a nativity story of our own to tell: the story of our own birth; and then a second nativity, a second birth, our spiritual birth in Baptism.
How beautiful we were to our parents who held us in their arms, and brought us to be baptized. How beautiful our little children or grandchildren are to us.
How beautiful to Joseph and Mary was the baby they held in their arms and laid down to sleep in a manger.
All the events around the nativity of Jesus – the angels and the shepherds and the magi and the manger, Luke says that Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
Because she did, we have the story of our Savior’s birth, beautiful in every detail,
for us to celebrate and proclaim.
Isaiah says, How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news. Even dirty, dusty feet are beautiful when they carry the Good News of the Gospel, bringing God’s love and joy to the world.
We may grow weary of worldly news, news of another strain of the virus, news of another ugly crime, or another conflict somewhere. But in the Gospel of Christ is the good news that will never weary our hearts, nor crush our souls, as other
words or news can do.
Today and every day, may we share and celebrate this good news with great joy.
And as we share and rejoice, the peace of God, which passes understanding, will guard our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus, God’s dear Son, and our beautiful Savior. Amen.