Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery | Luke 2:1-24
Brian Hedges | December 24, 2017
Well, turn in your Bibles this morning to Luke, the second chapter. There’s a wonderful hymn that we sing, and we’re going to sing it here in a few moments this morning, a hymn called “Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery.” This, I think, is one of the greatest modern hymns that has been written in recent years, and it’s a hymn that describes the mystery of the incarnation and of all that Christ has done for us.
So this morning I want to invite you to come behold the wondrous mystery as we look at the Christmas story, and I want to use this hymn, as we work through the text, use the verses of the hymn to help us see what’s going on in this passage and to understand the wonder of what took place that first Christmas morning.
It’s right for us to think of the incarnation as a mystery, because the apostle Paul said, “Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh.” So right at the heart of our Christian faith is this mystery, the mystery of God manifest in the flesh.
The Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck called the incarnation “the central fact in the history of the world.” So it’s good for us, at least once a year, to actually zoom in on this central fact of our faith and give it serious thought.
So, turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter two. We’ve already read part of this passage, but I want to read a longer section now for the sermon, Luke chapter two, beginning in verse one, and then all the way down through verse 24. Luke chapter two, verses one through 24.
“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 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, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 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. And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 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. 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. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
‘Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!’
When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.’ And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord’) and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.’”
This is God’s word.
So, several things that I want you to see in this passage: three things about the birth of Jesus, and then briefly, at the end, three ways for us to respond to this mystery of the incarnation.
I. Jesus Was Born in Humility
So, first of all, just notice that Jesus was born in humility. He was born in humility. Isn’t it amazing, the simplicity of this record of our Lord’s nativity? The earthly circumstances themselves are quite modest, humble, and ordinary. For example, Jesus was born of a family who came from Nazareth. Not Rome, the grand and stately capital of the empire, impressive with all of its military might. Not Athens, the center of culture and of art and of literature. Not even Jerusalem, the religious center of Israel; but Nazareth.
This was actually so unexpected that it was a stumbling block to Nathanael, one of Jesus’ disciples. We see this in John chapter one; when Nathanael hears that Jesus is from Nazareth he says, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” It would kind of be like some great king being born in Niles, Michigan. It’s a small little town, not a place that you would expect a great person to come from, much less the King of the world.
And then, when Jesus is born, he’s wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger, literally a feeding trough. This is where he will be found. This is a sign [from] the angels. The sign, notice, is a humble sign. The shepherds, they receive this message from the angels, but the angels point them to the humble circumstances of the birth of Christ: this little baby that will be in a feeding trough.
All of this just underscores the divine humility itself, that God was manifest in the flesh. This is the amazing thing, the scandalous thing even, about the incarnation. The apostle Paul explains it for us clearly in Philippians chapter two, where he tells us that Christ Jesus was in the form of God, “yet he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being found in the likeness of men.”
The apostle John tells us that the word, the divine word, the word who “was with God,” the word who was equal to God, he was God, the word who created all things, that this “word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Now, have you just stopped lately to think about what that means? Upon birth, Jesus, the divine word who has become flesh, begins the ordinary process of development and growth.
In fact, from his very conception the divine word takes the shape of an embryo in the womb of a woman, and then matures through the process of gestation and comes into the world in the same way as any other child, pushing and screaming his way into life. And then begins this ordinary process of development and growth. He is fully dependent upon his mother’s milk for life and for nourishment. He must rely upon the tender care of his parents to protect him from the elements. He must rely upon their guidance as he is raised into childhood and finally adulthood. This is an amazing thing.
This hymn, written by Matt Papa, goes like this, and it underscores the significance of this humility:
“Come behold the wondrous mystery
In the dawning of the King.
He, the theme of heaven’s praises,
Robed in frail humanity.”
He’s the theme of heaven’s praises. I mean, this is “God, a very God.” The God of heaven robed in frail humanity.
“In our longing, in our darkness,
Now the light of life has come.
Look to Christ, who condescended,
Took on flesh to ransom us.”
The older theologians describe this with a term we don’t use in this way, the condescension of Christ. Now, they don’t mean condescension in a demeaning kind of way. Condescension literally means a step down, and it is the ultimate step down, isn’t it? Here is the King of kings, here’s the one who enjoyed heaven’s praises for all eternity, and he comes all the way down into the darkness of a woman’s womb, into the frailty of a little child born into the world, and then raised as one of us. Simply astounding; God manifest in the flesh.
Think about this for a moment: God, a baby. God, whose diapers have to be changed, who has to be burped after feeding, who has to be potty-trained. I don’t say that to be irreverent, but just to draw attention to the astonishing mystery, the scandal, of the incarnation and the beauty of it.
Now, we have to be careful here that we state our theology in correct and orthodox ways, that we don’t contradict anything else Scripture says. Church history has helped us with this. We do not mean, when we talk about God manifest in the flesh, we do not mean the divine nature itself was subject to this humiliation. We don’t mean that the divine nature was incarnated, but the divine person, so that Jesus, while at the very same time that he upholds the universe by the word of his power, at the same time he becomes a baby. There’s mystery of the two natures joined in one person.
This is described for us by the definition of Chalcedon, that great christological statement of faith from the early centuries of the church. With the definition of Chalcedon we affirm and we recognize two natures in Christ, human and divine. He’s not part human, part divine; he is fully God and fully man, fully nature, fully divine, and these two natures, as Chalcedon says, are “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation. Nevertheless, it is the eternal word who unites to himself human nature in the incarnation.” The Son of God is not two persons, but one person; one person, as this definition puts it, “one and the same Son and only begotten God, the word, Lord Jesus Christ,” and it is this divine person who took on flesh and was born among us.
Therefore, just as the apostle Paul in Acts chapter 20 can talk about how the church was purchased by God’s blood because Jesus, the God-man, died on the cross; in the same way, we can appropriately talk about how in Bethlehem God was born among us.
St. Augustine beautifully expressed this in one of his sermons. Listen to these words: “The Maker of man was made man so that the Director of the stars might be a babe at the breast, that Bread might be hungry and the Fountain thirsty, that the Light might sleep and the Way be weary from a journey, that the Truth might be accused by false witnesses and the Judge of the living and the dead be judged by a mortal judge, that Justice might be convicted by the unjust and Discipline be scourged with whips, that the cluster of the grapes might by crowned with thorns and the Foundation be hung up on a tree, that Strength might grow weak, eternal health be wounded, Life die.” [It’s a] mystery, the humility of the incarnation. Jesus was born in humility.
II. Jesus Was Born Under the Law
Secondly, Jesus was also born under the law. Now, this is one of those details that we are likely to pass over quickly when we read this passage. Most of the time when we read the Christmas story we don’t read all the way down to verse 24; we stop around verse 20. But it’s important to read verses 21 through 24, because it gives us historical context and it gives us important theological context for what Jesus came to do.
You see it in verses 21 through 24, where Luke tells us that Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day, he was given the name Jesus in accord with this prior angelic announcement, and then he’s brought up to Jerusalem and presented to the Lord in accordance with the law of Moses. In fact, three times Luke makes reference to the Law: the law of Moses in verse 22, the law of the Lord in verses 23 and 24, quoting from Exodus 13 and Leviticus 12.
Now, why are these details important? They’re important because Luke is showing us in narrative form what the apostle Paul told us in Galatians chapter four, that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent for his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are under the law, so that we might receive the adoption as sons.”
This is why it’s important: it’s important because Jesus came for us. He came to redeem us, and to redeem us he had to actually fulfill all the requirements of the law on our behalf. You see, Jesus, as the divine word, had no obligation to his law; he was the giver of the law! But Jesus as the incarnate Son, as the one who comes as our representative, to live in our place, to be our substitute, he does come with obligation to the law because he’s taking our place.
Now, there are all kinds of things going on in the gospel of Luke that are easy to miss, and here’s one of the things: when you read this story, the Christmas story, as framed by Luke chapter one and then Luke chapters three and four, you begin to understand that Luke is presenting Jesus in a very specific way as the second Adam, the second Adam.
There are several clues to this. One is in Luke chapter one, where the angel comes and tells Mary that she’s going to conceive a child, and the language that is used there is very curious. The angel says that the Holy Spirit is going to “overshadow you, and you will conceive,” and it’s a language that is very similar to Genesis chapter one, where the Spirit of the Lord overshadows, he hovers over the face of the deep on that morning of creation. It’s the same kind of language. So it’s new creation language.
Then, in Luke chapter three, Luke gives us a genealogy of Jesus. Have you ever noticed that the genealogy given in Luke is a little bit different than the genealogy given in Matthew? In Matthew, the genealogy goes all the way back to Abraham, but in Luke it goes all the way back to Adam, who is called the son of God. In fact, Luke puts that genealogy between the baptism of Jesus and the temptation of Jesus, I think showing us that it is as the second Adam that Jesus, then, goes in the wilderness to be tempted.
Adam, the first Adam, was tempted in the garden as the representative of the human race, and he failed; and here’s Jesus, the Son of Adam, the Son of God, the new Adam, the second Adam, the last Adam, and Jesus as the second Adam goes into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and he succeeds, he is victorious in every point, where we would have failed.
Luke, in other words, is showing us that “just as by one man’s disobedience sin and death came into the world, so also by the obedience of one man, Jesus Christ, the many will be made righteous,” Romans chapter five.
Once again, this hymn that we sing captures this beautifully.
“Come behold the wondrous mystery,
He, the perfect Son of man,
In his living, in his suffering,
Never trace nor stain of sin.
See the true and better Adam,
Come to save the hellbound man;
Christ, the great and sure fulfillment
Of the law, in him we stand.”
Those of you who have been around for the last few months, we’ve been looking at the book of Galatians, and here you see the connection, that just as the book of Galatians presses upon us again and again and again that we are justified, that we are accepted with God, that we are declared righteous not on the basis of our works but on the basis of what Christ has done, it’s through faith in Christ, it’s through what he has done, not through what we have done; you see it right here, in the details of the gospel narrative itself, that Christ came under the law. He came to fulfill the law, and to fulfill the law in our place as this true and better Adam, and it’s only when we stand in him, only when we are united to him, that we find our salvation.
III. Jesus Was Born to Save Us
That, then, leads us to the third observation from this text. This one, I think, we’re all familiar with: Jesus was born to save us. He was born in humility, he was born under the law, and he was born to save us. You see this in the middle section, verses eight through 14. Look especially at verse 11.
“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” And in fact, Jesus’ very name means that he is a Savior; it means that God will save, or that Yahweh will save. He’s named Jesus, and we know from the other narrative of Jesus’ birth in Matthew chapter one that the reason why he was to be named Jesus is because he would save his people from their sin. So here’s Jesus the Savior.
And then look especially at verse 14, which gives us both the purpose and the nature of this salvation. The heavenly host praises God, and they say, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.” Here’s the purpose of salvation: glory to God in the highest!
Why did God send Jesus? To save us. He did it, as he does all things, for the sake of his name; he did it for the sake of his glory. The apostle Paul, in Ephesians chapter one, writes this wonderful hymn of praise to God.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,” and he then chronicles these blessings that are given to us by the Father in Christ. He’s chosen us in him, he’s predestined us to adoption as children through him, he has redeemed us through the blood of Christ, he’s enriched us with wisdom and knowledge, making known to us the mystery of his will, he’s given us an inheritance, he sent the Holy Spirit to seal us for the day of redemption. And three times in Ephesians chapter one, in that hymn, he says, “To the praise of the glory of his grace,” or, “To the praise of his glory.” That’s why God did it! He did it for the praise of his glory. He did it so that he would be glorified and known. This is the ultimate end of God in all of his works, including salvation.
But get this: it is not at cross-purposes with his love for human beings, because the text says, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace among those with whom he is well pleased.” This word “peace” evokes the Hebrew concept of shalom. Shalom has been defined by Cornelius Plantinga as “the webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight.”
Shalom: it’s more than just the absence of conflict; it’s the presence of harmony, it’s the flourishing of all creation and of all created things under the lordship and the rule of God. It’s the word as it’s meant to be; it’s God reigning on earth in a way that brings peace and prosperity and blessing and hope and goodness to the created realm.
I quoted at the beginning Herman Bavinck, that Dutch theologian, who said that the incarnation is the central fact of the Christian faith, the central doctrine. Here’s another statement from Bavinck. This is, I think, one of the best descriptions of the gospel that I’ve ever read in one sentence. Bavinck said, “The essence of the Christian religion consists in this: that the creation of the Father, devastated by sin, is restored in the death of the Son of God and recreated by the Holy Spirit into a kingdom of God.” That’s what Jesus came to do: to restore us and to recreate us as the kingdom of God. That’s all included in this little word “peace.” He came to bring peace!
Now where do we get that peace? We get that peace, the apostle Paul tells us, through the blood of the cross, Ephesians chapter two and Colossians chapter one. Peace comes through the sacrifice; peace comes through the work of Christ on the cross. The peace is secured by Christ’s substitutionary work on our behalf.
I think perhaps the original readers of the gospel of Luke would have seen the contrast between this peace and what was offered by the then rulers of the ancient world, the peace offered by Rome, called the Pax Romana. The Pax Romana was the peace that Rome offered, but it was peace that came at the point of a sword. It was peace that came when you bent the knee to a bloody tyrant, who would either crush you or would bring you to your knees in surrender. It was a violent kind of peace. It was a brutal kind of peace; it was in some ways a charade, not true peace at all.
But in contrast to that, here is the pax Christiana. It is the peace of Christ, and it’s peace that comes not through violence upon human beings, it is peace that comes as he takes that violence upon himself by becoming our substitute on the cross.
Again, this wonderful hymn expresses it well; here are the words:
“Come behold the wondrous mystery,
Christ, the Lord, upon the tree.
In the stead of ruined sinners
Hangs the Lamb in victory.
See the price of our redemption,
See the Father’s plan unfold;
Bringing many sons to glory,
Grace unmeasured, love untold.”
Brothers and sisters, friends, this is the hope of the world. This is where peace will come from. This is where the healing of the world will come from.
Are you concerned, as I am, about all of the darkness in the world today? The darkness of injustice, the darkness of violence, the darkness of sin. We see it in every level. We see it on the political level, we see it on the environmental level, we see it in the way races relate to one another, we see it in the way families relate to one another. We feel it in our own hearts, the conflict with this dark. Where does the hope come from? It comes from the Lamb who hung upon the cross in victory to bring us peace.
So, Jesus was born in humility, he was born under the law, he was born to save us; which means, really, he was born to die in our place. This is the mystery, the mystery of the incarnation.
How do we respond to this mystery?
Let me very briefly give you three ways to respond that come right here in the text.
(1) First of all, come and see. Look at verses 15, 16: “When the angels went away from them into heaven the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.’ And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger.”
Let me just speak to some of you here today who maybe do not believe, or maybe you’re not sure you believe. It’s possible that maybe you are here this morning, but not certain of Christianity. Maybe you know about it, maybe you were even raised in it, but you don’t know that it’s the truth.
I just want to challenge you, as you think about Christmas and what it means, investigate the evidence. Come and see. That’s what [shepherds] did; they heard this message and then they went and looked! They checked it out for themselves. I think every one of us, at some point in our lives we have to do that. We have to do that for ourselves. We have to look at the evidence. Read the Bible. Read it! Read the gospel of Luke! Not just the Christmas story; read the whole thing. Read the gospel of Luke. Read the New Testament. Read with an open heart and open mind. Ask God. You might even just pray this kind of prayer: “God, if you’re real, show me who Jesus is, show me what this means. If you’re real, give me real faith.”
Come and see. Don’t take it at my word, but look actually at the word of God. Look at the historical record preserved for us in history; see what it says.
(2) Number two, wonder and ponder. Look at verses 17 through 19: “And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child, and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.”
If you’re a believer this morning and the story of Christmas, maybe, is even “old hat,” I mean, we celebrate it every year, you’ve heard the Christmas story a hundred times, you’ve read this narrative from Luke over and over and over again; don’t pass by too quickly. Like those who first heard these glad tidings of the gospel, stop and wonder. Let it sink in what this means, and like Mary, treasure these things in your heart. Ponder them in your heart.
The idea of the wording there means to meditate, to muse over silently, letting it have its effect. So stop, wonder, ponder. Give it some thought. Don’t let the hustle and bustle of the holidays move you through this celebration of the incarnation so quickly that you don’t stop and think about the profound mystery of what God has done.
(3) And then finally, thirdly, glorify and praise God. Look at verse 20: “And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.” This mystery should lead us to worship, shouldn’t it? It should lead us to glorify God, to praise God, to worship God, to love him more deeply.
And listen: the shepherds worshipped, but they worshipped with far less understanding than you and I have. We know the fuller story. We know that the incarnation led to crucifixion, and the crucifixion was followed by resurrection. We know that Christmas led to Good Friday and Good Friday was followed by Easter Sunday, by the first resurrection morning. And we know, though we don’t yet know it in fullness, we know that in Christ’s resurrection we are assured of our own resurrection if we believe in him, if we are united to him. That means that death is not the end, it means that suffering and sorrow someday will be no more. It means that there is hope in this world beyond what we can see.
I want to tell you: I know, I know and I know personally, what it is to go into holiday season and you feel the loss of what the years have taken from you. Some of you know that. Some of you have lost family members this year. Some of you have lost family members this time of year and every time Christmas rolls around you ache, you hurt, longing for that lost mom or dad or son or daughter.
And I know. I understand. I have sweet memories of childhood and early adulthood when both parents were fully cognizant and there, and as you know, my mom has advanced Alzheimer’s disease, just a shell of what she once was, her mind mostly gone. Christmas will never be quite the same, if I’m thinking about the lights and the memories and the family time and all of that. It will never be quite the same.
But Christmas isn’t about the nostalgia, you see. It’s about something else; it’s about a hope that bursts the bounds of this world’s sorrows. Christmas is about what Jesus did in all of his life and then at his death, and then, subsequent to his death, in his resurrection his ascension to the right of God, where he glorified human nature itself, gave us assurance that this is not all there is.
So I want to end with these words, also from this hymn, words that remind us that Christ is risen, that death is defeated, and that the future of our world is one of hope and power and glory.
“Come behold the wondrous mystery,
Slain by death, the God of life.
But no grave could e’er restrain him;
Praise the Lord, he is alive!
What a foretaste of deliverance,
How unwavering our hope;
Christ in power resurrected,
As we will be when he comes.”
That’s what Christmas is about. It’s about the power of the God who became flesh, dwelt among us, and obeyed the Father all the way to the cross, the death of the cross, was buried in a tomb, and then rose in victory and life on the third day. He’s ascended to his Father’s throne and someday coming again. Is that your hope this morning? I trust that it is. Let’s pray.
Great is this mystery of godliness, that you, our God and Savior, was manifest in the flesh. Our minds can’t fully comprehend what this means, but we stretch our minds and we break open our hearts this morning to receive the good news that when you, Lord Jesus, were born into this world in that Bethlehem feeding trough, you were coming to make all things new. You were coming to redeem this world, to bring hope and blessing, restoration, as far as the curse is found.
We thank you for it, and we pray this morning that you would help us to see it, believe it, understand it, to embrace it, and that it would give us deep hope in the midst of the darkness and pain of our lives. Thank you for this good news.
As we come now to the table, we come to celebrate what you have done for us, come to celebrate and thank you for your broken body and your poured-out blood, and we do it in anticipation of the day when we will feast with you in your everlasting kingdom. So come, Lord Jesus. We pray in your name, Amen.
Brian G. Hedges
