Luke 2:8-14 - "Do Not Be Afraid"

10 Then the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. 11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. I believe some of the most exciting verses in all the Bible are found here in Luke 2:8-14. Today, we live in a broken world. The world that Jesus was born into two-thousand years ago was a broken world! A broken world is a fearful world, an insecure world, a world that is in survival mode, a world that doesn’t’ know what the future holds for it, a world that doesn’t know what is going to happen next. Like the insane tyrant King Herod the Great, the king of Judea in the day of Jesus, we live is a world of incompetent, insane, power thirsty tyrants, who are running our nations. It was a messed up, broken world two-thousand years ago and it is pretty much the same today!   But here in this passage a message of “good tidings” appears for the dark Roman world. “A Savior has been born”! Notice several things in this passage. We are first told that in the same place where Jesus was born, there were “shepherds living out in the fields at night watching their flocks”. Shepherds were like nomads traveling from place to place looking for grass for their flocks. Wow! People in our world are transit, moving from city to city, country to country, looking for a better something! They are “outside” the fold of safety! Jesus would later say in Matthew 9:35-39 when He was moved with compassion as He looked on the multitudes; “They are like scattered sheep with no shepherd, hungry and thirsty, weary and worn, diseased and sick.”  What a vivid description of our world today!   We live in a world of darkness. It is like “night” in our world of darkness full of sin with “men and women loving the darkness and hating the light because their deeds are evil” (John 3:19-21). Jesus said in His prophetic message in Luke 20:26, that in the last days “men’s hearts will fail them for fear…”.  If you google the number one cause of death in America, the first thing that pops up is this from the U.S. Health Department CDC: “Heart disease has been the leading cause of death in the United States since 1950 (1). Risk factors for heart disease include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, overweight and obesity, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and excessive alcohol use.” Jesus knew what He was talking about!   It was in this kind of world filled with fear that the angel of the Lord showed up to the shepherds with a message of “good tiding of great joy”! This is the third appearance of an angel in the Gospel of Luke and in each one they repeated the same words. To Zacharias, to Mary, and to the shepherds, the angel assured them with, “Do not be afraid”!   “And behold!” (v. 9). Listen! Take note of this! Something special is happening! An angel and the glory of the Lord shows up with him. Remember the four-hundred silent years of God between Malachi and Matthew. The Glory of God showed up in burning bush with Moses, over the tabernacle in the wilderness, and in Solomon’s temple about 1000 B.C. But the last appearance of the Glory of the Lord showing up in the Old Testament is found in Ezekiel’s prophetic vision in Ezekiel 9-11, where it is seen leaving the temple and the city of Jerusalem.   But behold!!!! Here in Luke 2, at the birth of Jesus, the glory of the Lord once again appears on earth to shepherds in the night watching their sheep! My friend, today wherever the presence of Jesus is you will find the Glory of the Lord. Goodness! Time and space do not allow us to say more today but I trust you get the message! God’s glory in Jesus Christ expels all fear and gives us a message of salvation and hope in a very dark world!   Today, can others see the Glory of the Lord in your life! Our very presence and manner of life should be shouting to the world, “Do Not Be Afraid!”.   God bless!