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I’ve got good news for you, Saints. I’ll say it in one word: Christmas. Christmas is coming. Christmas is a happy time. These Advent days leading up to Christmas are chock full of good news as we anticipate the coming of the Christ Child. Mailboxes are stuffed with cards and letters, bringing glad greetings and warm wishes. Our calendars are filled with open houses, office parties, and other festivities. We reach out and touch loved ones near and far. Visits from relatives and visits to relatives highlight the days surrounding Christmas. Churches and other organizations extend helping hands to the homeless and the down-and-out.
There is so much good news this time of year that it may be hard for us to distinguish between ordinary good news and the extraordinary Good News of Christmas. This really Good News at Christmas is not about fun, phone calls, or family reunions. The really Good News is about the birth of a bundled-up babe in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago, a baby whose journey from the cradle to the cross altered the course of history. The baby Jesus brought Good News. The baby Jesus was Good News. Such Good News, in fact, that more than 2000 years later, we are still joyfully celebrating and eagerly anticipating His birthday. Today, we see that…Christmas Means Good News
1. Bad News Abounds
As happy as this time of year is, there’s still a lot of sadness and badness out there. One glance at the news and we realize the devil doesn’t take time off for Christmas. There is no peace on earth now, and there never will be. We’re still fighting terrorism at home and abroad. Jail cells are full to overflowing. Rapes and robberies, stabbings and suicides continue right on through the holiday season. People still get sick. People still die. There is a lot of bad and sad out there. Even at Christmas!
Do you know who often gets blamed for the world's injustice, indecency, inhospitality, and inhumanity? Yes, often God gets blamed. Especially at Christmastime. He’s viewed by many as a celestial Scrooge who is determined to rob life of every vestige of joy and pleasure. They picture Him as an angry Puritan preacher pointing a condemning finger at them from His heavenly pulpit.
Those folks have it all wrong. They are putting the blame for the bad in the wrong place. True enough, God must judge and condemn those who reject Him, but the Bible also declares: “You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.” The God of love and faithfulness is not a bad news God. He’s a good news God. He knows all about Good News. He wrote the book on it. He is its original Author. Nowhere is that Good News, God’s plan of salvation, explained more clearly and more beautifully than in Paul’s remarkable letter to the Romans. Right off the bat, Paul declares that his mission is to spread the Good News in a bad news world: “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God.”
The Gospel – the Good News that God authored – is designed for people who live under the bad news of sin. Sin is bad news. Sin is the culprit. Sin brought about everything bad and sad into the world. Not God. Sin means bad news for each of us, and there is nothing we can do about it. We can’t transform our sinful lives the way city streets are transformed at Christmas. All it takes to change a dull, drab, dreary street are a few lights, ornaments, and greens. The glitter and sparkle suddenly make everything look new, clean, and fresh. But it doesn’t work that way with sin. We can’t cover up its grit and grime. Even our best efforts fail miserably. As the prophet Isaiah declares: “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” Yes, Bad News Abounds, but thanks be to God…
2. Good News Resounds
In the face of the bad news of sin, the Good News of God explodes into our lives. Long ago, God knew that we could do nothing to help ourselves. Long ago, God decided to bring Good News to sinners like us. Long ago, God gave man His Gospel – in fact, just moments after the bad news of sin broke onto the world, the Good News of grace came to the rescue. The first Gospel promise of a Savior from sin is recorded in the same chapter as the fall into sin – Genesis 3: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
Long before that first Christmas, God announced that He was sending His own Son to bring Good News to sinners. This was the message of the prophets, as Paul says, “The Gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son.” The name given to Him – Jesus – is a name full of Good News, as Matthew explains: “He will save His people from their sins.” After describing the birth of this child, Matthew declares: “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ – which means, ‘God with us.’
This is God’s Good News! It doesn’t come out of any Hollywood script. It isn’t the fanciful dreaming of a silver-tongued storyteller. It isn’t a legend that is too good to be true. It IS true. Jesus IS God’s Good News to man. This Good News is absolutely reliable. We have it from the best of sources: God Himself. And as we all know and Titus puts into words, God “does not lie.” It’s no lie. Through the Gospel, God places into your arms, close to your heart, your Savior. And He says: ‘Here, Friend. Jesus is my personal Good News. With love, Your Father.’
The Good News of Christmas is all about this precious and priceless Gift from God. Christmas celebrates and commemorates the birth of Jesus. But it’s hard to keep focused on Him, isn’t it? There is so much else competing for our attention. There is the frenetic and frantic rushing around to buy and wrap Christmas gifts. There are last-minute cards to send off. There are trees to trim. There are parties to plan and dinners to prepare. There are homes to spruce up and decorate. There are visiting friends and relatives to get ready for. Before we know it, the Child whose birth we are supposed to celebrate gets buried beneath the busyness of the season.
That’s not where He belongs. He’s not just a sidelight of the Christmas season. He IS the Christmas season. He is the Reason for the Season. God’s Son belongs smack dab in the center of our celebrating. If the rush of the season leaves us no time to contemplate the Christ Child, we need to reexamine what we are doing and why we are doing it. Now more than ever, in this rotting, bad-news world, we need our worship, our personal Bible study, and our family devotions to help us fix our focus on the One whose birth we are about to celebrate.
The birth of Jesus is the best possible news for sinners accustomed to bad news. At first glance, this Child is no different from any of us: “As to his human nature he was a descendant of David.” He was as human as any other child. He came from a family line that could be traced back to King David. He had royal blood pulsing through His veins. More than that, He had divine blood pulsing through His veins. This human child was also divine. He was truly the Son of God. The undeniable proof is His Resurrection from the dead. In the normal course of life, children grow up and eventually die. The Christ Child grew up and died. But the difference is that He didn’t stay dead. He conquered death at His great Resurrection victory because He was more than just a man. He was the God-Man.
The Good News is that this Resurrection triumph was on our behalf. He came to be our Substitute. This is how the Christ Child lived up to His name Jesus. This is how the Child saved us from our sins. He didn’t show us how we could camouflage our sinful lives by adding a little more tinsel and trimming. This Child was born that He might destroy the bad news of sin. Demolish it, not decorate it. For this reason, Paul declares that Jesus “was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” His death did away with our sin, and His Resurrection means that we have been made right with God. We don’t have to worry about the bad news of guilt. We don’t have to worry about the bad news of death. In Jesus, there is Good News of forgiveness and life. Paul writes: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” And again: “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Christmas brings Good News. Paul says to Roman Christians and to California Christians: “You also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.” Think about that! We belong to Christ! That’s Good News! Christians can hail each other with more than a hollow ‘Happy Holidays.’ We can salute one another with something besides a simple, ‘Season’s Greetings.’ We can greet each other with more than a mere ‘Merry Christmas.’ We can say with St. Paul: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” Saints, that is my wish for you this happy and holy season. “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.” Amen.
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