This is a sermon I preached at Immanuel Church a couple years ago and this year at Christ Church in Nashville. May it be an encouragement to you in what can be a particularly difficult season for many.
I have been, at various points, referred to as a grinch or as Scrooge because I am simply not excited about the Christmas season. (Granted neither of these names are really fair; the Grinch wanted to ruin everyone else’s Christmas and scrooge pretty much hated everyone. I’d like to think neither of these is true of me. I just often want to skip December.) Regardless, while some of you are Buddy the Elf crossed with Clark Griswold, I am not.
The fact is, this time of year engenders a sense of dread for many of us. We often find it to be the most wearisome, not the most wonderful, time of the year. I see and feel it in the lives of those around me and I know it from my own life over the years. Despite pasted on smiles and cheery instagram posts, many of you are feeling it too. So often, Christmas amplifies the difficulties we feel in other seasons–losses, anxieties, loneliness, relational chaos.
Against the backdrop (and cultural expectation) of glowing lights, Christmas cheer, and marshmallow worlds in the winter, a weary or aching heart feels profoundly out of place. But that’s what many of us have–weary, bone-tired, aching, hurting hearts. We bring them into the Christmas season, and the season exacerbates the weariness– we feel them more profoundly during the season. A weary heart never feels good, but it feels especially isolated and heavy when everywhere you turn it’s big smiles and celebrations.
What is Weariness?
Before I go any further let’s pause to consider: what is weariness? Is it fatigue? Is it exhaustion, a product of busyness and a hectic season of life? Well, all those contribute to weariness, but it is more than just the circumstantial troubles we have. My wife Lauren helped me come to a clearer understanding of this. If I ask her how she’s doing and she says, “tired,” well of course. We are adults and we are awake–tired is our state of being. We deal with that every day, and it isn’t a soul-level thing. It doesn’t necessarily suck the life out of us. It just means we need a nap or a free weekend to recoup, maybe a vacation–we just need rest.
But if I ask her how she’s doing and she says, “weary,” I’ve learned that I need to stop and pay attention. That means her heart is heavy, weighed down by something. It isn’t just tired; it is burdened. She is wise to recognize the state of her heart and discern a difference between fatigue and a heart that is weighed down. That’s what weariness is–a burdened soul, like we’re carrying more than we can bear. A nap or a vacation won’t solve it because the burdens are still there when we wake up or get back. This is what many of us feel most particularly at this time of year–there is a weight on the heart, something we are carrying that is too heavy for us, too unsolvable.
This isn’t just one kind of burden. A number of things can cause it, often piled up on top of and intertwined with each other. Here are four common causes for a burdened heart.
- Anxiety: The worries of life are overwhelming–money, health, family, relationships. The evils of the world are astounding–injustice, corruption, violence. The possibilities for the future are daunting. It all feels outside your control, and it is so heavy.
- Hurt: You might have experienced a profound loss. You may have been betrayed. You might be dealing with illness, physical or mental. And the pain is great, a deep hurt that you’ve been carrying for a long time. And pain is heavy–the kind of heavy where just one more thing feels like it might be what breaks us.
- Guilt: You feel like a failure. You feel like you don’t measure up, like you’re letting others down. Maybe you’ve hurt or betrayed someone else. You don’t know how to find forgiveness or to feel forgiven. It is dragging you down.
- Spiritual Emptiness. You feel a sort of hollowness at the core of who you are, an unfulfilled longing, an aimlessness. You feel like you’re on the outside of hope or vibrance looking in. You are weary of all your best efforts failing to fill you up. It leaves you feeling drained and lifeless.
When this is our interior life, the way our hearts feel, the lead up to Christmas can be especially hard. We can feel a chasm between our state of being and what it appears everyone else is experiencing. And it compounds the burden, even making you feel rotten for feeling rotten.
So where else can we turn except God’s word? This morning we’re going to look at a very familiar passage from Luke 2. It has a wonderful promise and declaration for the weary and the well alike, but it is easy to tune out because of its familiar cadence. We can easily treat it like comfortable ambience rather than the inspired, living word of God. So as we read, ask the Lord for eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to receive.
We’ll read verses 1-11 then focus on verses 10 and 11 specifically.
Luke 2:1-11
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town.4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. 6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 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. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
___________________________
10 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. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
All of us need these words, the weary and the well alike. We may not see it. We may not feel it. It may seem like biblical wallpaper that sort of colors the Christmas space. We might hear it in Linus’s voice from the Charlie Brown Christmas movie. But we need these words. Let’s reflect on them together.
“Behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
Most of the time, in normal contexts, when we hear “good news” we might perk up a little bit. It might cheer us up. It might lift our spirits–a new job, admission to a school, a clean bill of health. This is an innocuous phrase that covers everything from finding good deals on a dozen eggs to hearing that cancer is in remission–it means so many things that it means next to nothing without a clear sense of context. But God didn’t send his heavenly messenger to tell us next to nothing.
This is good news of great joy. It is for all the people. Even the best news we’ve ever heard doesn’t cover all that. Most news will be of some joy–pretty nice–for a few people or of some interest to a lot of people, but nothing is of great joy for all the people.
Friends, there has never been, in the history of the world, “good news” like this news. This was not a mere announcement. It was not just information. No, when we see “good news” being declared by the angel, this is the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s what the phrase good news means, it’s literally the word, gospel. “I bring you the gospel of great joy that will be for all the people.”
What “gospel”? That “unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
It’s reasonable to pause here and consider an objection that might be stirring in your heart. After all, I started this message reflecting on weariness. What does this have to do with weariness? Talking about “good news of great joy” sounds a lot like more of the same manic, cheery bubby, festivities that make weariness worse instead of helping. So what difference do these words of Luke 2 make to a burdened soul? Everything, friends, even if you don’t feel it. (And I struggle to feel it most of every Christmas season–that’s what weariness does.) The good news of the arrival of Jesus Christ is the only answer for a soul that has no answers or solutions to what is crushing us. We can see it in verses 10-11. Let’s take a look.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
The angel makes it a point to say that Jesus was born in the city of David. This was not a mere honorific or marketing term, the way we might say that Nashville is “Music City.” God’s messenger is announcing that Jesus was the fulfillment of Old Testament promises, a king to establish the line of David forever. The angel is making sure that we do not miss that this child is the “shoot from the stump of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:1)–that is David’s Father–and particularly that he is the one Isaiah 9:6-7 promised when it says:
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
Did you hear it? Unto you is born this day, in the city of David; that sounds an awful lot like to us a child is born who will rule on the throne of David. So with one little loaded phrase, God is telling us that we can rest in the rule of His Son who has authority over all things. He is sovereign over our circumstances. He rules over nations. He governs the future. Our anxiety, our stress, our frustration and anger at our circumstances and the world around us can be put in his hands. And his rule will not only be eternal, it will only bring more peace. This was not a cherubic birth announcement in soft colors and gentle tones–it was the declaration of victory by a heavenly warrior, victory wrapped up in a baby boy. He, friends, is the answer to our fearful, anxious weariness. He is the resolution to those problems that overwhelm us.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
And what is more he is a savior–a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. He is the savior from our sins, the one who rescues, ransoms, and redeems us. He came to earth with the express intention of saving, of going to the cross. He bore our sins. He satisfied God’s judgment. He embodies God’s love. He sent His holy Spirit. He called us his own. And he now sits at the right of the father to intercede on our behalf until he returns. Yes, all this is wrapped up in the birth announcement, about a baby boy, to those shepherds. All this is what Isaiah promised and what the Angels are announcing. This is why it is good news of great joy for all the people–it is the declaration of salvation
So we can be free from the guilt and shame that so burden our souls. Our sin has been paid for. Your weariness over carrying sin and failure and shame can be put on Christ. He bore it to the cross, as your savior, and you bear it no more. Not only that, he bore those sins committed against you. Every sin is fully addressed in Christ, either at the cross or in final judgement because, after all, he is the Mighty God and ruler. So you can forgive as you have been forgiven. And you can entrust that pain to Christ. You need not be wearied by bitterness and anger and pain. This savior who is Christ the Lord is your prince of peace.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
Many of us are so accustomed to titles like “Christ” and “Lord” we just blow past them. We read them as if they are akin to a southerner calling a grown man, “sir”–a polite term of pseudo-respect out of obligation. But let’s not miss the power of these titles. As we’ve seen, these angels did not waste words or throw out idle syllables. The title “Christ” means the “anointed one,” the Messiah, God’s king over all the earth. He was the one promised throughout the Old Testament, the one whom Israel anticipated and yearned for to restore them.
But he was not the kind of Christ they anticipated. He was born in an animal shed to an unwed mother from a backwater town. His entourage at birth consisted of shepherds and farm animals. He did not overthrow the Romans (though he is sovereign over emperors). He did not come with military might (though He is the Lord of hosts). He did not establish a mighty nation or people (though his kingdom shall last forever and every knee shall bow to him).
No, Jesus was Christ, the Messiah, the Lord and ruler of all who would set his people free and rescue us from the curse that has brought us low since Genesis 3, the bondage to sin and its rampant effects on the world. He came to undo it, to redeem and renew and finally to make all things new.
Now, let’s back up one verse now as we come to the end of the message, and consider the power of Joy in light of who Jesus is
10 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 a weary soul, often the gospel doesn’t sound joyful. It just sounds like news, or information, or maybe even like an obligation. And even if it is good news, it doesn’t engender joy. To a weary person, joy sounds unattainable. Joy is something that other people have but not us.
- To a weary person, joy sounds like endorphins, you know those chemicals released in the brain to give someone the feeling of a runner’s high. I run, but I have never experienced this high, these endorphins. They sound kind of nice, but it seems like it’s just for other people, special people, people who are clearly better at running than I am. So I just keep plodding along and getting tired and sore, with no endorphins because it’s good for me.
But while life may feel a lot like running (especially the tired and sore part), joy is not a chemical. We so readily think of joy as a passive result of pleasurable things–something that just happens in us and to us. It comes and goes because it is a product of circumstance. But if this was the case, when the angel says “I bring you good news of great joy” it would make little sense. It would be like him saying “I have some good news, I hope you like it and it puts a smile on your face.”
Joy in the Bible is not circumstantial. It is something we pursue and attain, and we are commanded and called to do so throughout scripture–because it has a substance, a reality we can hold on to. It isn’t a feeling (although it shapes our feelings). It’s a conviction! So when the angel says “I bring you good news of great joy” he isn’t hoping they like it. He is promising access to joy. He is saying “This good news, this gospel, is how you gain joy.” And not just joy–great joy. The good news of Jesus the Savior and Messiah is the source of our joy and where joy is located. This means trusting in Jesus, believing in Jesus, drawing close to Jesus is where the remedy to weariness is found.
Because, yes, joy is the remedy to weariness. We don’t find a way out of our soul’s weariness so we can find joy. Clinging to Christ, pursuing Christ, believing Christ, looking to Christ is how our weariness lifts. Why? Because “the joy of the Lord is our strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10) It is our spiritual power to persevere, to lift our heads, to walk by faith despite our weariness. It is not a high or a shot or a boost. It is the state of a soul that rests fully in the good news of a real, ruling, rescuing Jesus.
Conclusion
What does this mean for us as we look ahead to the celebration of Christ’s birth? It means the same thing for the weary and the non-weary alike, the beaten down and the upbeat: The good news of Jesus is the source of our joy. So if you are enraptured with Bing Crosby, It’s a Wonderful Life, sugar cookies, Christmas light tours, Tinsel, and wassel–the good news of Jesus is the true source of joy for you. Or if the Christmas festivities make you want to hole up and not come out until January because you are so burnt out, aching, empty, or hurt–the good news of Jesus is the true source of joy for you.
Friends, the joy of the Lord–the good news of great joy–is our strength. It is our comfort. It is our peace. It is our hope. We cling to the reality of Jesus, the work of Jesus, and the hope of Jesus in the midst of weariness of every kind.
