And They Returned Rejoicing

And They Returned Rejoicing

There always seems a quiet somberness to Christmas, driven by carols such as Silent Night and O Little Town of Bethlehem, that tends toward the demure and reflective. And while I very much enjoy demure reflection, it misses a critical element of what actually happened that fateful Christmas night which changed the world forever. This tends to be a common issue though. Sure, we have our times of worship, but then we settle in for the sermon, and our most attended services (Christmas, Easter, and of course Mother’s Day) always tend to take the foot off of the gas rather than punch it down. But what is recorded for us in Scripture paints a different picture that is worth remembering.

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.” (Luke 2:8-9) Terrified is not usually a word one hears around Christmastime (with very good reason!) but its presence here just seems strange and out of place. And after the angel encourages these poor shepherds not to be afraid and shares with them his great pronouncement what follows is incredible. “Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God…” (Luke 2:13) Anybody remember the last time the heavens opened up with angels singing to the glory of the Lord? By show of hands, anyone? Bueller? Likely not. It’s not your average Wednesday evening occurrence. There’s nothing wrong with the pa rump pum pum pum of The Little Drummer Boy, as long as we never forget just how momentous this event truly was. The announcement of God’s Son being born on Earth, the beginning of the plan to draw back God’s people to Himself should never be downplayed. The shepherds were initially struck with fear, followed by awe, then inspired to act. “So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.” (Luke 2:16) Far too many of us trend back to that demure reflective state and find comfort in the following, “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19) But the world is in desperate need of another kind of reaction. Something more than quiet and ponderous. Something more expressive and less introspective. “The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.” (Luke 2:20)

We see in the shepherds an example found elsewhere in Scripture, which helps point out a unifying truth. An encounter with God inspires action and an overflowing of praise. There were two recent examples we’ve seen recently in our study of The Chosen: the first, the leper who is healed after meeting Jesus on the road referenced in Luke 5:12-16 and just last week, the Samaritan woman referenced in John 4:1-26. We intuitively grasp that meeting Jesus changes everything (ENCOUNTERING GOD CHANGES EVERYTHING) but the difference between intuition and experience can be seen and heard. After Jesus’ resurrection and ascension back into Heaven the apostles helped foster the nascent church at the direction of the Holy Spirit. It was not long before trouble visited them in the form of persecution. After being arrested, questioned, and flogged this was their response, “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.” (Acts 5:41) One does not meet an unjust arrest, chastisement from the local authorities, and a beating with rejoicing unless you have a very good reason for doing so. These men had not merely been convinced that the Way was the best configuration of society to reach the “highest good” for the most people. They were not merely very passionate about a new teaching they had stumbled across. They were not merely out of other better options. The only way you can react with rejoicing to a state sanctioned thrashing is if your life is directed toward something other than yourself. That you have experienced something so far away and above that there is literally nothing that can tear you away from it. Many people describe love this way. 

“Love is the one thing we are capable of perceiving that transcends time and space.”- Interstellar. We recognize, even if we don’t fully understand, the indelible impact and enduring strength of love. It animates many of our most quixotic decisions. We understand that, from an outsider’s perspective, those moments are not meant to make sense, that one’s heart can intuit things hidden from one’s mind. (A dangerous method if solely followed, Jeremiah 17:9, James 1:14, Psalms 95:10 one’s heart can just as easily lead one astray.) But the point is that love quite often causes us to act contrary to expectation, reason, or sense. And if we look at the acts of God, one could easily describe them that way. His actions are by definition higher than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9) but we know that they are driven by love. (John 3:16) We know that Heaven is ordered by this unfathomable love. “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:10) And if we cannot find much of a reason for rejoicing in our own lives, perhaps we should remind ourselves of that Heavenly mindset. We’ll need to get used to it after all, we’re going to be spending quite some time there.

“Sing praises of the Lord, you His faithful people; praise His holy name. For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” (Psalms 30:4-5) Maybe you are still in the night awaiting the coming dawn. Perhaps we could also read that verse this way,--but rejoicing comes in the mourning. Consider the walls of Jericho. (Joshua 6) The Israelite army was instructed to march around the walls of Jericho for six days, and on the seventh day to march around it with the priests blowing their trumpets. When they sounded the long blasts, the whole of the army was to give up a great shout. At that the walls came falling down and the impenetrable city was given into their hands. Understood in our context, the victory was won when the army began rejoicing. God wants us to know that His victory is assured, there is no need to wage war or fight a battle. He has already won. It has already happened. It is an act of faith (this time faith correctly placed) to rejoice although we personally cannot see the end, assured of the promises He has already made. Because we really do have a secret the rest of the world is not privy to. Even if we’ve taken it for granted, become inured, or forgotten it.

Paul writes of the power given to the faithful, “through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as imposters; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” (2 Corinthians 6:8-10) Again, this is how a life is changed by experience, not argument or cajoling. You cannot convince a person to react this way, they must see it and feel it for themselves. 

Two final examples for us to examine. First, the rich young man. “Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, ‘Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?’” (Matthew 19:16) No time to get into all of the mistaken assumptions embedded in that question, just know that 1. He was asking the right person, and 2. He was asking after the right goal. Once it became clear that this young man was a fastidious rule follower, Jesus gave him an instruction that wasn’t written down beforehand. “Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.” (Matthew 19:21-22) Perhaps the only recorded event of someone walking away from Jesus disappointed. Contrast this example with the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. This man was on his long journey back home from Jerusalem attempting to decipher the Book of Isaiah. He did not understand what the author was writing about. He seemed to be asking as to whether these were events passed or yet to come. “Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.” (Acts 8:35) The very next verse shows this man’s desire as he immediately asked to be baptized. He’s described afterwards, “but went on his way rejoicing.” (Acts 8:39b) One person understood the letter of the law but missed the spirit of the words, the other confused as to the words he was reading but understood the heart of it just fine. One walked away from the Saviour sad about the loss of his possessions, the other going home rejoicing because of the pricelessness of the gift he’d just been granted. Never ever lose sight of the miracle of life itself. The untold beauty of the world we’ve been allowed to inhabit. Even in the midst of the deadening complexity of day to day living, we are assured a place with our Savior. The one whose birth we are preparing to celebrate, whose death to which we owe our freedom, and whose resurrection is the exclamation point on the most glorious sentence one can ever hear. “I love you!” Told to us by God Himself. In word and deed (for Him they are the same.) we are assured of a love that transcends our reason, our sense, our rationality. And there is only one proper response as found in Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”

Jordan Williamson