Commentary on the Gospels

The Child in a Manger
Luke 2:1-20

Theme

The Biblical account of Christ’s Second Coming, when He descends through the clouds and puts down decisively every one of His enemies, shows Him in all His grandeur. In contrast, the Biblical account of His birth shows Him in all His humility, for to accomplish our salvation He was willing to become a helpless babe under the care of a Jewish couple who had neither wealth nor social prestige to recommend them. In all likelihood they were just teenagers living at the edge of poverty.

Exposition

Verse 1. Luke begins his account of Jesus’ birth by placing it in a historical setting. The great event on the world stage that caused Jesus to be born in Bethlehem, the city named by prophecy, was a decree of the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus. This grandnephew and adopted son of the first emperor, Julius Caesar, reigned from 31 BC to AD 14 and established a general peace over the whole region that lasted 200 years, a peace known as Pax Romana. Luke says that Augustus ordered the whole world to be taxed. The words translated "taxed" or "taxing" in verses 1–5 are based on a Greek word which more precisely means "enroll" or "register."¹ What the emperor required of his people everywhere was to add their names to an official list of citizens. This tally included everyone who was willing to declare loyalty to Caesar. The same oath of allegiance is remembered by Josephus, who states that when it was required of all Jews late in Herod’s reign, over 6000 Pharisees refused to participate.² There is evidence that a census of loyal citizens was taken at about the same time in many other regions of the empire.³ The impetus behind this worldwide enrollment was probably Augustus’ desire to assure a smooth transition of power after his death.⁴ In those regions where the wording of the oath has been preserved, it specifically calls for allegiance both to the emperor and to his heirs.⁵

Verse 2. Cyrenius (in Latin, Quirinius) was a prominent figure in his day and a man of many assignments, although history gives us no information about his whereabouts between 6 BC (roughly) and AD 2.⁶ We may therefore place him in Syria shortly before the time of Jesus’ birth in 5 BC. The Greek word translated "governor" is a general term for various positions of leadership in civil government.⁷ Although surviving coins point to Varus as the highest official in Syria at the time of Jesus' birth,⁸ the province was also overseen by a subordinate official known as a procurator.⁹ Because he was the emperor’s direct appointee, he wielded considerable power in his own right. Often he was given charge of some specific task, generally in the financial realm.¹⁰

Luke informs us further that Quirinius was governor when "this registration first took place." We deduce that although the registration began under Quirinius, someone else finished the job.

Verse 3. The registration of citizens loyal to the emperor apparently required that every participant add his name to the list being compiled in the place considered to be his home. Therefore, because Joseph "was of the house and lineage of David," he traveled to Bethlehem, the city of David, in order to fulfill his duty under the emperor's edict. Since Luke makes no mention of Mary's ancestry, we may assume that the enrollment did not include women.

Verse 4. The journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem covers about eighty miles, going down from the hills southwest of Galilee to the Jordan Valley and following the valley until it approaches the Dead Sea. At the end is a strenuous climb to much higher ground.

It was necessary that Mary and Joseph reach Bethlehem before Jesus was born, because prophecy named this city as His birthplace (Mic. 5:2). God chose Bethlehem to underscore the lineage of Christ. As noted earlier, Bethlehem was the hometown of David, the great king of Israel about one thousand years earlier, and it became known as the city of David. According to prophecy, one of the offices that Christ would assume would be that of king, and specifically He would be a king in David's line. He would take the throne not as a usurper, but as a legitimate successor in a royal line established by God.

When David asked the Lord for permission to build Him a temple, the Lord refused, but rewarded his devotion by making an everlasting covenant with him and his descendants (2 Sam. 7:16). The psalmist's elaboration of this covenant is more explicit (Ps. 89:36-37). Unlike similar prophecies, this one is unique in stating that both David’s seed and his throne would be perpetual. "His seed [singular]" who would possess an eternal kingdom is Christ. Indeed, Christ will sit on the throne of David during the Millennium. Then afterward, when the earth is destroyed, He will continue to reign, although He will yield higher authority to the Father, whose throne at the pinnacle of the New Jerusalem will stand as a dominant presence in the new earth that the Father will create (1 Cor. 15:24 ff.).

The expectation that Christ would descend from the line of David is a recurrent theme in the literature of Old Testament prophecy (1 Chron.17:11-14; Ps.89; 132; Isa.9:6-7).Jeremiah called the Messiah a branch of David (Jer. 23:5). Similarly, Isaiah spoke of the Messiah as a branch from the root of Jesse, David's father (Isa.11:1).Later prophets simplified the image and called Him just the Branch (Jer.33:15; Zech.3:8; 6:12).

The royal pedigree of Jesus is affirmed throughout the New Testament.The Gospels furnish two genealogies of Jesus, one in Matthew (Matt.1:1-17) and one in Luke (Luke 3:23-38), and both trace His ancestry to David. During His years of ministry, Jesus allowed others to call Him the son of David (Mark 10:47 et al.).Paul said that Jesus sprang from David's line (Rom.1:3; 2 Tim.2:8).In the Book of Acts, which chronicles the early expansion of the church, the first reference to Jesus as the son of David occurs in an excerpt from one of Paul's sermons during his first missionary journey (Acts 13:23).The kingly descent of Jesus must therefore have been a teaching of the church from the very beginning.

Even the Babylonian Talmud acknowledges that Jesus belonged to the family of David.The Talmud, an ancient source preserving the oral traditions of the Pharisees, is unfriendly to Christianity. Yet on the authority of Ulla, a rabbi from the late third century, the Talmud says that the Sanhedrin took pains to give Jesus a fair trial because He was "near to the kingship."¹¹ In fact, it was by no means a fair trial. The Talmud inserts this claim that the Jewish leaders had not unjustly treated Jesus because it was trying to prevent Jews from listening with a sympathetic ear to Christian witness.

Yet why in his narrative of Jesus’ birth does Luke bother to declare that Jesus’ legal father, Joseph, belonged to David’s lineage? After all, Jesus was not the natural offspring of Joseph. But remember the prophecy that in Christ, both David’s seed and his throne would continue forever (Ps. 89:36-37). That is, Christ would not only be in the blood line of David; He would actually be the rightful king .Therefore, Luke gives us Joseph’s pedigree, which establishes Jesus’ place in the royal succession. If the Davidic dynasty had been restored in Joseph’s day, Joseph would have been the king, and his successor would have been Jesus. In summary, we may say that whereas Jesus’ physical descent from David came through His mother, Mary, His right to the throne came through His legal father, Joseph.

But if Joseph was the rightful king, why was he only a lowly carpenter? Probably because in Jesus' day, the Jewish family with a royal pedigree understood that the course of wisdom was to keep it as secret as possible, lest the Roman authorities consider them a threat and decide to exterminate them. The Jewish upper class at that time mainly consisted of people like the Sadducees, who had become as Graeco-Roman in their values and lifestyle as their standing in the nation permitted.

That Joseph and his son Jesus had a proper claim upon the throne of Israel did not remain a secret, however. Jesus' true line of descent became widely known before He reached the end of His ministry. Its recognition by growing multitudes explains why He was so readily applauded at His Triumphal Entry, why the people hailed Him as "the son of David" (Matt.21:9), why the authorities felt so threatened by Him, why Pilate questioned Him so closely as to whether He was the king of the Jews (John 18:33), and why the inscription on the cross read, "Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews" (John 19:19).

Verse 5. Luke does not actually state that Joseph paid any taxes. Since the words "taxed" and "taxation" in the first five verses are better translated "registered" and "registration," a better interpretation of this verse is that Joseph's purpose in going to Bethlehem was to be counted.

Here we learn two important facts about Mary. First, although she and Joseph were living together as man and wife and although they were legally married, she could not truly be called his wife, for their marriage had not been consummated. She was still a virgin. By his choice of words, Luke is affirming the Virgin Birth. Rather than enter a complicated discussion of Jewish customs, Luke assures us of her virginity by calling her an "espoused wife." "Espoused" simply means "betrothed" or "engaged."¹² The term can be understood to mean that their marriage was still a matter of agreement and promise rather than an accomplished fact.

Second, we learn that her pregnancy had advanced almost to the time of giving birth. Because of her condition while they traveled, tradition imagines that Mary rode to Bethlehem on a donkey, but tradition is not always truthful. We must remember that Joseph was a poor man. His failure to secure good lodgings in Bethlehem and his meager offering of turtledoves at his son's dedication (an incident recorded in Luke 2) strongly suggest that a donkey was beyond his means. How then did Mary travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem? Women in primitive societies have often done hard work until the hour of giving birth. So it is possible that Mary accomplished her journey by taking one plodding step after another over the whole distance of about eighty miles. How tired she must have been by the time she came to the southern end of the Jordan Valley! Yet before her still lay the road's merciless last stretch, requiring an ascent of more than 2000 feet, for Bethlehem was perched on a side spur of a high ridge overlooking the Dead Sea and the distant plains of Moab.¹³

As the couple trudged upward toward the village, they passed terraced olive groves and vineyards.¹⁴ Ahead, just south of their destination, they could see an imposing castle, one of Herod's monuments to his own pleasure.¹⁵ Bethlehem itself was far from imposing. All that greeted the travelers when they reached the end of their climb were a few dozen simple dwellings huddled on the hillside. One leading archaeologist estimated that its total population was about 300.¹⁶

The couple must have attracted some attention as they walked into town, yet probably few realized how far Mary had come. It was a remarkable feat for a woman in her condition. Her ability to complete it indicates that she was young and strong.

Verse 6. Luke’s choice of words here casts doubt on the common notion that Jesus was born on the night when His parents came to town. That notion has no basis either in the Gospel records or in any other first-century source. "While they were there" suggests that Jesus’ birth may have occurred days or even weeks later.

The expression "days were accomplished" signifies not only that Mary came to full term, but also that history had reached the moment in God’s master plan when Christ should be born.

Verse 7. The word "inn" is singular. There was only one inn at Bethlehem. No remains have been found by archaeologists, but we can be sure that its accommodations were crude by modern standards. Since it was not located along a major Roman road, it must have been especially undesirable. A typical inn not catering to the upper class had a central courtyard bordered on one or more sides by a series of rooms. These were protected by walls and ceilings, although an inward wall was generally missing or reduced to an open archway so that occupants could easily view the courtyard, the place where all the animals were kept. Upon entering his room of choice, a traveler would normally find it completely empty—without carpet, bed, or any other furniture. If he wanted a floor covering or blanket, he would have to draw from his own belongings. The innkeeper derived income not by charging a fee for occupying any of these open rooms, but by selling food and other necessities.¹⁷

Some scholars have argued that when Luke places an inn at such a small village only six miles from Jerusalem, he is engaging in mere fantasy. But Bethlehem was near a road connecting Jerusalem to Hebron, an important city about thirteen miles further south.¹⁸ It is easy to imagine circumstances that would have caused travelers along this road to patronize an inn at Bethlehem.

When Joseph and Mary arrived, the inn was full and they had to find somewhere else to stay. That it was crowded on the night of Jesus' birth fits the historical context perfectly, for, as we will show later, Jesus was born on the night preceding the opening day of the Jewish festival now known as Hanukkah. Before a national celebration of this importance, the roads to Jerusalem would have been full of travelers. Also at this time, travelers were likely coming to Bethlehem to participate in the same census that drew Joseph to the village.

Luke says that Joseph and Mary took refuge in a place where they found a manger; that is, in a place used to shelter some animals. Where was that? Justin Martyr, writing little more than a century later, said that Jesus was born in a cave outside the village.¹⁹ What he said is reinforced by very strong tradition. In AD 135, the pagan emperor Hadrian furthered his campaign against the worship of Christ by building a grove to the Greek god Adonis over the cave venerated as Jesus' birthplace.²⁰ Yet he did not succeed in his objective, for the Christian writer Origen said, evidently on the basis of his own experience when he went to Bethlehem in AD 220,²¹ that visitors who desired to see where Jesus was born were taken to a cave near the village and shown the actual manger where He lay.²² In the next century, after the emperor Constantine became a Christian, his mother went to Bethlehem and replaced the pagan shrine with a basilica constructed directly over the same cave. The new church was consecrated in AD 399.²³ Ever since, the site has been where pilgrims find the Church of the Nativity.²⁴

In any place where animals stayed, the surroundings would have been befouled and smelly. Yet a cave or enclosed stable had the advantage of allowing Mary and Joseph more privacy than they would have found inside the inn.

On a night soon after her arrival in Bethlehem, Mary gave birth to her child, a little boy who would be named Jesus. Perhaps Joseph found a midwife who was willing to come at a late hour and work for little pay. But it is more likely that Mary was unattended by any woman—again, not an unusual circumstance in primitive societies. The mother of our Lord must have been a brave and resourceful young woman. Though faced with difficulties we would never tolerate, she meekly accepted them and did the best she could. If she obeyed custom, she washed her baby and rubbed Him with salt before wrapping Him tightly in swaddling bands, which encased even His arms (Ezek. 16:4).²⁵ Then, not willing to lay Him on bare dirt, she converted the stone manger into a rude crib. No one was there to object. Certainly the animals did not object.

The son that Mary bore was her "firstborn." The use of this word here as well as in Matthew 1:25 clearly implies that Mary was not a perpetual virgin, as the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches teach. After bearing Jesus, she had four more sons as well as daughters (Matt. 13:55–56).

The ritual of wrapping Him with cloths and laying Him in a manger is vividly symbolic. His experience at birth pictures His death, thereby showing us the purpose of His coming—to die for the sins of the world. In six particulars we see His death foreshadowed in His birth.

1. In the use of salt and swaddling bands, His body after birth was treated much the same way that it would be treated before burial. Then spices would be packed around His body, and His body would be wrapped in graveclothes similar to swaddling bands.²⁶
2. At both His birth and His death, He lay on a borrowed bed. At His birth, it was a stone manger far from His home. At His death, it was a slab in another man’s tomb.
3. In both cases, the bed was intended to serve the rich. The normal use of the manger Mary found was probably to hold either food or water for a rich man’s donkey. Jesus’ tomb belonged to the wealthy Jewish leader, Joseph of Arimathaea.
4. The tomb of Joseph was hollowed out of solid rock in the side of a hill. So it was essentially like the cave that tradition identifies as the birthplace of Jesus.
5. His surroundings at both His birth and death were used to nurture life. His manger was in a stable, His tomb in a garden. These settings furnished appropriate framing for the story of the One who is the life-giver.
6. At both His birth and His death we see Him denied His rightful place of honor among men. He was laid in a manger because there was no room for Him in the inn. Likewise, He was laid in a tomb because men despised, rejected, and killed Him.

In all these particulars, we see that His birth foreshadowed His death. He was born to die.

Verse 8. After we have read about the central event of the story, Jesus’ birth, the scene shifts from Bethlehem to a field nearby. There shepherds are tending sheep. Many over the centuries have argued that since sheep are normally brought into the fold at night, their presence in the field suggests spring as the time of year, for in spring the weather is mild and ewes give birth to lambs. But around Bethlehem, the weather at any time of year can be mild enough to keep sheep outside at night. A friend of mine from Bethlehem has told me that shepherds might be found in the fields at any season.²⁷

Why is the date of Jesus’ birth important? When I was young, I was told that Jesus might have been born at any time of year. But for me, the uncertainty of His birth date diminished my joy in celebrating Christmas on December 25th. Our best guess as to the date of Jesus’ birth is actually twelve days later, on January 6th.²⁸ In ancient writings, the first mention of January 6th as the date of Christmas comes from about 200 AD,²⁹ whereas December 25th is absent from them until about 350 AD, when reliable sources indicate that it was the date preferred by churches in the Western Roman Empire.³⁰ It so happens that in 5 BC, the probable year of Jesus’ birth (since strong evidence points to 4 BC as the year of Herod's death), January 6th matched the 25th of Kislev on the Jewish calendar.³¹ The Jewish month Kislev overlaps the Roman month December. When the Roman church set the date of Christmas as December 25th, it was probably trying to translate the actual Jewish date into the closest Roman equivalent.³²

It so happens that the 25th of Kislev is the first day in the eight-day Festival of Lights (modern Hanukkah). Here we have a circumstance making it very plausible that this was indeed the date of Jesus’ birth, for every other major event in the unfolding of His work of redemption also fell on a feast day. He died on Passover, He rose again on the Feast of Firstfruits, and He created the church on Pentecost. How fitting that the One known as the Light of the World (John 8:12) should be born on the Festival of Lights. Jesus is called the Light because He is the Light in two respects. (1) Light is life, as John teaches us (John 1:4). Light is pure energy, and without energy there is death. (2) Again as John teaches us, Jesus is the Light that the darkness cannot "grasp" (John 1:5) "The darkness" is willful ignorance arising from sin. But just as light enables us to see, Jesus awakens the believer’s mind to truth and knowledge.

Verse 9. As the shepherds abode in the fields, an angel suddenly appeared to them. Shepherds, although they belonged to an ancient and honorable profession, were at the bottom of the social ladder, just above beggars and riffraff.³³ They were representatives of the lowest stratum of society, the very stratum that Jesus targeted when He went about preaching, for He said that He came to preach the gospel to the poor (Luke 4:18). In the readiness of the shepherds to believe the angel’s message, we see anticipation of a pattern evident throughout Jesus’ ministry. Whereas the wealthy and privileged rejected Him, the common people heard Him gladly (Mark 12:37)

The statement, "The glory of the Lord shone round about them," is highly instructive. Here is straightforward proof that glory is essentially light. When Scripture refers to the glory of God, it means primarily the unapproachable light in which He dwells (1 Tim. 6:16). When it refers to the glory of Christ, it means the dazzling radiance that emanates from His immortal body (Rev. 1:16). Likewise, when it refers to the glory of angels (Matt. 28:3) or to the future glory of saints, it speaks of the brilliant light that shines outward from their presence (Dan. 12:3; Matt. 13:43).

But notice that what the shepherds saw was not angelic glory. Yes, the angels are glorified beings, but what the shepherds saw was "the glory of the Lord," the same glory that Jews in post-Biblical times and Christians have called the shekinah, a Hebrew word that does not appear in the Bible.³⁴ Although it literally means "residence," it has come to signify the presence of God when it is made manifest by His glory. The shekinah was the light seen in the cloud which accompanied Israel (Exod. 13:21); on the top of Mount Sinai, where it was like a devouring fire (Exod. 24:17); in the Tabernacle (Exod. 40:34–35); and again, in Solomon’s Temple (2 Chron. 7:1–3). A cloud of light abode permanently above the Mercy Seat of the ark within the Most Holy Place (Lev. 16:2). But in Ezekiel’s day, the shekinah left the Temple (Ezek. 10:18ff) as a sign of God’s wrath against Israel and of His intention to bring judgment upon them. Within a short time afterward, the Babylonians destroyed both the Temple and the city.

The reappearance of the shekinah outside Bethlehem was therefore an event of momentous import. It was a vivid demonstration that with the child’s birth, the glory of God had returned to the nation. The child was the embodiment of God in all His attributes, including glory, and, according to John, His closest associates were able to see it (John 1:14). Perhaps he is referring especially to the manifestation of Christ’s glory that he and two others witnessed at the Transfiguration (Matt. 17:2).

The glory that illuminated the sky had another significance as well. It was the outward sign that the light of the world had come in the person of Jesus. That light had always shined in the hearts of men (John 1:9), revealing that they were creatures of a holy God to whom they were accountable, but now that light took on mortal flesh and dwelt among men so that men could see more clearly all of their Creator’s attributes, including His love and goodness (John 1:10).

The response of the shepherds when they saw divine glory was fear. Indeed, no man can be touched by the glory of God without suffering a blow both to body and soul. The body is made weak, for the energy of the light engulfing it exhausts its defenses. And the soul is made fearful, for it senses a power that reveals man’s helpless condition before God. The soul discovers that human life is no more secure than a bug under the foot of a giant. In every Scriptural record of a man beholding divine glory, we see that it plunged him into weakness and fear (Exod. 33:18-23; Ezek. 3:14-15; Dan. 8:27; Acts 22:9; Rev. 1:17). Therefore, when the account says that the shepherds were afraid, we should not view them as cowards. They were merely reacting like normal men, indeed as any sane man would react to absolute majesty and power.

Verse 10. Yet God’s purpose was not to terrify the shepherds. Therefore, the angel immediately countered their fear by speaking words of reassurance. He said, "Fear not." Why should they not fear? Because the angel was bringing not bad news, but good news. He was not come not to announce or execute judgment, but to proclaim an event that would bring joy to many. Why would it bring joy? Because God had now fulfilled a promise that He made long ago (Gen. 12:3; 22:18). He told Abraham that from his lineage would come a seed (masculine singular) who would be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. The prophecy penetrated far into the future and discerned the coming of Christ. Almost two thousand years later on this night of the angel’s appearance over Bethlehem, the promised child had come. The child who would bless all nations by providing salvation to all who believed had been born. For all believers, this salvation would be an avenue to unbounded joy forever.

Verse 11. Without delay the angel revealed exactly what had happened. A child was born in Bethlehem, but not an ordinary child. This was a special child indeed, for He possessed the name which is above all names. He was the Savior, Christ the Lord. The name that the angel gave the Savior is precisely the name we are required to believe in order to be saved. Many texts teach that we must believe on His name (John 1:12; John 3:18; Acts 2:21; 4:12; Rom. 10:13; 1 John 5:13), and many others tell us what this name is (Acts 2:36; 16:31). We must believe that Jesus is the Lord Jesus Christ. The angel substitutes Savior for Jesus. Why? Jesus means, "God is Savior." Although not pronouncing the name Jesus, the angel told the shepherds its essential meaning.

Verse 12. The angel informed the shepherds what to expect when they went to Bethlehem. The child would be sheltered not in the luxurious home of the town’s finest citizen, but in a stable. He would be cradled not in a bed as imposing as the throne He would someday sit upon, but in a manger. He would be adorned not in the fine clothes of a pampered baby, but in the swaddling rags of a baby born in poverty. What a strange entrance to the world for the world’s Savior! The shepherds must have thought the same, for the angel relieved their surprise by telling them why the Savior had to be born in humble circumstances. It was necessary as a sign. The sign bore a fourfold sense.

1. In its most basic sense, the sign was a way of showing where the child was. The shepherds easily found Him because they knew that He was in Bethlehem lying in a manger.
2. The manner of Jesus’ birth was a sign also in the sense that it gave us a unique and beautiful picture easy to remember. Has any other scene in history been portrayed as many times as the manger scene? By all its depictions it is a moment indelibly printed on our cultural memory. Few in the modern world have never heard that Jesus was born in stable, and that He lay there not in "regal estate," as the carol says, but with sheep and donkeys as His attendants and shepherds as His admirers. The crèche has become the most familiar of all tableaux, the most common of all portrayals, the most universal of all memories.
3. The manner of Jesus’ birth was a sign of His identity. It showed that He was the Messiah foretold by the prophets, for the prophets had said that He would come as a newborn child (Isa. 7:14; 9:6). He might have come as a man without any known origin, like Melchisedec (Heb. 7:3). But no, His birth from the womb of a human mother certified that He too was fully human. Also, the prophets had said that the Messiah would be a man of low social rank, not a king or celebrity (Isa. 53:2, 3). He would be so lacking in outward beauty and importance that men would despise Him. It was fitting therefore that He began His life in rude surroundings, under the care of parents who lived near the depths of poverty.
4. Lastly, the manner of Jesus’ birth was a sign of His character. He was the only man ever born who was always free of pride, the first and most insidious sin. How much trouble pride causes. How much happier we would be without it. It blinds us understanding ourselves and to understanding others. But Jesus had no pride. The proof of His humility was that although He was worthy of the exalted titles ascribed to Him by the angel—He was indeed Christ the Lord—He was willing to empty Himself of glory and become powerless and poor (Phil. 2:5-11).

Verse 13. At first the shepherds could see only one angel. But as soon as he completed his grand declaration that God had descended to the earth, a whole multitude of angels suddenly appeared. They had been hovering overhead while the first angel spoke, but had kept out of sight, as they ordinarily do when they visit the world of man. But at some prearranged cue, they removed the veils over their glory, and the shepherds saw them in all their stunning magnificence. The intensive words "multitude" and "host" suggest that the entire throng of heavenly angels had come down to the hills of Judea so that they might be witnesses to the manger scene and join in the celebration that heaven had planned for the skies over Bethlehem.

The angels revealed themselves not only to the sight of the shepherds, but also to their hearing, for the shepherds understood that the angels were praising God. In usual tellings of the Christmas story, it is supposed that the angels sang the words quoted in the next verse, but Luke says rather that the words were spoken. Yet the word translated "saying" does not necessarily exclude singing. It serves merely to identify the angels as the source of the words. Since none of us heard the angels, we cannot say what medium they used to express praise. It is entirely possible that when a host of angels speaks in chorus, the sound has the properties of music.

If we enjoy the flawed performance of an earthly choir, how much more would we enjoy the heavenly choir. The sound must be as thrilling in its beauty as it is overpowering in its magnitude. Can you imagine hearing the angels sing? How many parts do you think they carry simultaneously? Four, six, or eight, as we do, or maybe hundreds. How wide is the sonic spectrum in heaven? Just a few octaves, or hundreds of octaves? There are possibilities of musical structure beyond our imagination.

Verse 14. The words that the angels sang told why Jesus’ birth would bring joy to the world. A translation closer to the original says, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men in whom He is well pleased." The more familiar translation in the KJV has created the misimpression that the angels were proclaiming God’s general favor upon mankind, leading to peace in the world of nations. Indeed, when Christ takes up His rod of iron and rules over the world, He will be a Prince of Peace. Neither war nor conflict of any other kind will be tolerated. But in the present dispensation of history, there has never been peace, and there will never be peace while it lasts.

The words of the angels had another meaning altogether. They were a promise that God would grant peace to all who please Him. The peace intended is peace with God. Except for Christ, all men stand in hopeless estrangement from God. There is enmity, not peace, between God and man. The coming of Jesus was an occasion for us to rejoice because through Him, the estrangement would be removed and the enmity broken down. As our Savior, He would take away the barrier of sin that divides us from our Creator, so that we might live in peace with Him—indeed, so that we might enjoy Him as our heavenly Father. To win the great benefit that Christ would make available, there is the simple requirement that we confess our sins and take Jesus as our Savior. By putting faith in Jesus we place ourselves among those "in whom He [God] is well pleased." There is no other way to please God. Thus, the promise of peace is directed only to believers in Jesus. The angel speaking to the shepherds was proclaiming the gospel.

Verse 15. When the angels departed, the shepherds were filled with excitement. Each spoke to the others and expressed a strong desire to see the wonderful baby in Bethlehem. The angels had not actually commanded the shepherds to find and worship this newborn child. They had merely told them about His birth and given directions to His birthplace, leaving the shepherds free to decide for themselves whether they would go into town and look for Him.

Yet it is obvious that God wanted them to see Jesus. Why, then, did He withhold a direct command to visit the stable? Because He wanted them to go there with the right motivation. He did not want it to be fear of disobeying the mighty angels who appeared in the sky. Rather, He wanted them to be driven by their own desire to see the child, so that they would be ready to respond to Him with love. He wanted them to see their visit as an occasion for worshipping and adoring the newborn babe.

We may assume that the shepherds were granted the great privilege of joining the Nativity scene because God knew that in every respect, they would participate with good hearts. They would come to the manger not with a sense of duty, but with a sense of their unworthiness to be chosen for the privilege of seeing the One who was no less than the Savior of mankind. Their hearts would be filled not with mere curiosity, but with delight at the wonderful sight before them, for it was a festive occasion.

As the shepherds talked among themselves about the heavenly message, they agreed that it came from the Lord. So, their response was not clouded by any doubt. And there was no dispute, for they spoke with one voice. And there was no delay, for they set out immediately to see the child. Here we have a good model for any congregation of saints. When God gives them clear direction, they should respond without doubt, dispute, or delay.

Verse 16. Anyone reading this verse aloud must be careful to pause after "Joseph" so as to avoid the impression that the whole family was lying in the manger.

To show that the shepherds approached the child with those feelings that God wanted—feelings of gladness and eager expectation—the text emphasizes that they came with haste. They hurried because they did not wish to postpone the thrilling experience of seeing Christ.

What they found was exactly in agreement with the angel’s announcement. Mary’s curious choice of a cradle was indeed a manger. Here we see illustration of the principle that God’s direction is always correct. The child they found by looking for Him in a manger was the right one. Moreover, we see another principle illustrated—that the only way to reach the outcomes in life that will bring us joy is to go where God sends us. As John Bunyan taught in his wise allegory Pilgrim's Progress, the purpose of life is not to settle down and have a good time, but to journey as a pilgrim through dangers, toils, and snares in the work of God until we reach the celestial city.

Inside some sort of a rude stable, with animals all around, the shepherds found the baby attended by His two parents, Mary and Joseph. Joseph had not gone away to seek better lodgings or buy food or conduct business, but had stayed by Mary’s side, held there both by his desire to watch and protect his little family and by his own sense of awe as he beheld not his own son, but the very Son of God.

What did Mary and Joseph, the most famous couple in all of human history, look like? The usual pictures of Mary show her as a young adult. But the rabbis taught that a father should find a husband for his daughter within six months after she reached puberty. If no other match was available, he should free one of his slaves and betroth him to his daughter.³⁵ To assure that the high priest would marry a girl who was morally pure, rabbinical law forbade him to betroth any girl who was more than six months beyond puberty.³⁶ The age of puberty has been declining in our society for various reasons. Good health and nutrition tend to lower it, as does early sexual awareness. But in Jesus’ day, a girl was assumed to enter puberty at age twelve.³⁷ After betrothal, a girl normally married her espoused less than a year later.³⁸ A boy generally became married at age sixteen or seventeen, seldom after age twenty.³⁹ Thus, although we cannot say for sure, our best guess is that on the night of Jesus' birth, Mary was still in her early teens and Joseph was not far beyond his middle teens.

Most pictures of Mary wrongly show her as Caucasian, but in fact she was a brown-eyed, raven-haired Jewish girl. Was she pretty? Nearly every artist who has painted the Madonna and Child has portrayed her as a beautiful girl. But there is no reason why she had to be beautiful. One trait evident in her song of praise known as the Magnificat is outstanding intelligence (Luke 1:46–55). I have never known a young teenage girl who could compose anything equally brilliant. But another trait also evident in this hymn is humility. Although it is possible that Mary was humble as well as beautiful, a girl normally finds it easier to be humble if she is not beautiful. To teach our children that Mary was probably ordinary in appearance helps to counteract the habit in our culture of using beauty to measure personal worth. Young people need to understand that whether they are good-looking makes no difference to God. Indeed, this kind of excellence on the surface is often a spiritual handicap.

Verse 17. The first witnesses for Jesus Christ were the shepherds. After seeing the child, they immediately went throughout the countryside and told what they had just heard and seen. They stressed the message of the angel that the newborn child was none other than the Savior who is Christ the Lord. His hearers understood that the title "Christ" (Luke 2:11) referred to the long-awaited Messiah.

Perhaps long after the grand event of Jesus' birth, the shepherds continued to speak about Jesus. The Babylonian Talmud informs us that sheep pastured outside Jerusalem as far away as Migdal Eder, which was near Bethlehem, were considered property of the Temple.⁴⁰ If the flocks outside Bethlehem on the night of Jesus’ birth were indeed Temple sheep, the shepherds would in the natural course of things have taken them to Jerusalem and sold them to people making sacrifices. There they would have been strategically placed at the center of Jewish worship to tell about the Christ child.

Verse 18. The place where the shepherds would have found multitudes interested in the glad news they were carrying was Jerusalem, only six miles away. Perhaps that is where they went first. If Jesus’ birth fell on the first day of Hanukkah, as we have argued, the city was crowded with pilgrims coming to the Temple for special services. The throngs that gathered for Jewish religious festivals were always full of hope that the Messiah had come or was coming soon. Therefore, the news of the shepherds would have excited much discussion and debate.

Luke’s account says specifically that all who heard the news greeted it with wonderment—wonderment but no more. No one hurried to Bethlehem to see the child, who, as we know, remained there for some time. Many may have regarded the shepherd’s tale as just another of the sensational rumors that swept through the crowded streets of Jerusalem during a festival. It might be true, or it might not. Even the less skeptical decided that it was not credible enough to act upon. The source was not very impressive—dirty bedraggled shepherds straight from the fields. Besides, joining the admirers of a little baby who was being presented as Christ the king and therefore as a rival to Herod the Great would have been a dangerous move.

Application

So it has often been when the gospel is preached. Many listen with curiosity, perhaps even under great conviction. But when they look closely at the preacher, they see that he is nobody special. How could such an unimpressive man be the conveyor of the most significant truth they could ever hear? Since the human heart is always looking for excuses to ignore God, the next step in their thinking is to dismiss the message as well as the messenger and to turn away.

What other excuses do people today use to reject the gospel?

1. The church is full of hypocrites. Yes, there may be a few, but why are they there? Perhaps to please other family members, or to be seen associating with good people, or to fulfill another self-serving purpose. In today's sad world, the motive of some who pretend to be Christians may even be to create a trap for good people. The presence of false brethren in the church is exactly what the New Testament predicts (2 Tim. 3:1–5), proving itself to be a source of truth. Yet if there are a few hypocrites in the church, there are many more at a tavern or rock concert. At such places, many people pretend to love their companions when they know that they are bonded to them by no more than lust or a need to escape loneliness. Also, many pretend to be full of joy when they cannot erase a nagging sense that they are empty of real joy. And many pretend to know it all when, if they are honest, they must admit to themselves that they lack truly satisfying answers to the basic questions of life.
2. Someone seeking to justify his rejection of the gospel might say, "Educated people don't believe the Bible." Well, I do, and so do thousands of other professional scientists and scholars. This claim can be documented.
3. Or he might say, "I can't live the Christian life." Yes he can, not by his own power but by the power of God (Ps. 51:10; Phil. 2:12–13; Rom. 8:9–14).

Exposition

Verse 19. We learn from this verse that our source for Luke’s account is Mary herself. How Luke obtained it, we do not know. Perhaps it came to him second-hand from the daughters of Philip the evangelist. The man so named by tradition was not the same Philip who was one of the original twelve disciples of Jesus. Rather, he was among the seven first appointed to the office of deacon (Acts 6:5). His daughters, famous for their gift of prophecy,⁴¹ may have been personal acquaintances of Mary who studiously memorized her account of Jesus' life and ministry. Luke visited Philip and his daughters at their home in Caesarea when he was traveling with Paul on the apostle's last trip to Jerusalem (Acts 21:8-9). Then a few weeks later, when Paul was brought back to Caesarea for trial before Felix, Luke probably accompanied him (Acts 21:15–23:35). We have good reason to believe that he remained close to Paul during the following two years of Paul's imprisonment in the same city.⁴² He therefore had ample opportunity for further conversation with Philip's daughters as well as with Philip himself. One likely result is the full treatment of Philip's early ministry that Luke provides in the Book of Acts (Acts 8:5–40).

The verse could be translated, "But Mary kept all these sayings, pondering them in her heart."⁴³ The wording indicates that Mary remembered everything not because she kept a written record, but because she lodged it permanently in her mind. That is, she memorized the facts in detail. Moreover, through divinely aided meditation, she came to understand their significance.

We need not suppose that the task of keeping a true memory of events exceeded her capacity. As the actual human mother of Jesus, she was doubtless a woman of rare gifts. Besides, in the ancient world, where people did not have easy access to all kinds of literature including historical records and religious writings, people were much better at memorizing than we are today. The education of a rabbi, for instance, involved very little reading of books. Instead, he listened to long oral presentations of wise sayings coming from revered teachers in the past and he committed these to memory. It has been said that any seven rabbis could reconstruct the entire Talmud, which in modern editions runs to over twenty volumes.

It is very possible that besides the birth narratives in the first two chapters of Luke, certain passages later in the same Gospel also come from Mary. The Lukan passages unparalleled elsewhere include many stories recalling how Jesus dealt specifically with women (Luke 7:11-17, 36–50; 8:3; 10:38–42; 11:27–28; 13:10–13). Such stories are rare in the other Gospels apart from their accounts of women coming to Jesus' tomb on Easter morning and from John's references to the sisters of Lazarus. Moreover, the unparalleled Lukan passages speak either of events in Galilee that may have been reported to Mary, or of events late in Jesus' ministry when Mary may have been among the women who accompanied her son (Luke 8:3). Based on Luke's testimony, we know that at the very least she was among the 120 who gathered in the Upper Room after Jesus' ascension (Acts 1:14). We conclude that she, perhaps through the medium of Philip's daughters, may have served Luke as a primary source of information. If so, she was of course merely an instrument of the Holy Spirit. Her labor of preserving the story of Jesus was accomplished through the Spirit’s guidance and inspiration.

Verse 20. After spreading the news of Jesus’ birth to places far and wide, the shepherds returned home to Bethlehem. They came back with heartfelt gladness erupting in words "glorifying and praising God." They rejoiced at the beautiful child they had seen, at the salvation He would bring to all men who believed, at the vindication of all the ancient prophecies of His coming, at the mighty waves of music they had heard in the cathedral of the sky, at God’s breathtaking kindness and grace in giving nameless shepherds a role in this great event. There was more to be happy about than a human mind could comprehend. Their hearts burst with sheer enjoyment of this moment in their lives.

The enthusiasm of the shepherds anticipates another great event in history, Jesus' resurrection from the dead. Just as the witnesses of His birth were thrilled to see Him alive in a manger, so His disciples would be thrilled to see Him alive after His burial in a tomb (John 20:20). Both events—the first showing that God could become a living man, the second showing that this living man could not be held by death—testified that Jesus is the Lord of life (Acts 3:15).