Let Us Go and See

Minister:
Date: AM (Christmas Day)
Text: Luke 2:15
Psalters: 408, 281, 247, 297
  1. What they heard.
    1. In the darkness of the night, the glory of God Himself shone round about the shepherds. Great fear!
    2. Immediately after the night darkness returned and all was still, the shepherds talked about what had just happened.
  2. They decided to go immediately and see.
    1. They were relatively close by, for they were “in the same country” as Bethlehem.
    2. They left their earthly responsibility for a greater, spiritual responsibility: to see what was told them. With haste!
    3. The boys went to see the Messiah, the Lord, but they saw a frail new-born baby surrounded by great material poverty.
      1. They enter a stable of some kind and see their Savior lying in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, able to be touched.
      2. That He is the Savior God was completely concealed, beyond the range of human vision.
  3. They believed what the angel said for they perceived more than what they saw.
    1. They perceived that the paradox in Bethlehem’s manger was necessary because of the purposes which brought Him.
      1. But if this is the Messiah, why was His glory hid? It had to be hid in order to save His people from their spiritual poverty.
      2. With the eye of faith the shepherd boys saw their own spiritual poverty and lack of any goodness and righteousness.
      3. In this Child the fellowship of God with man was amazingly close.
    2. Notice in the stable the divine mercy for there was nothing which would terrify (make sore afraid) the shepherds.
      1. There is no flaming sword to keep us away from the tree of life.
      2. They perceived the greatest love evidenced in the profound humility to descend to the manger and then to the cross.
    3. May we eagerly go and perceive by faith. His little hands would one day hold the scepter of universal dominion.