There are plenty of decorations to buy and parties to attend during this season…but how should we really celebrate Christmas? The question is important because of the significance of the day and because so many obviously do not know how to celebrate it.

I know, of course, that Jesus was probably not born on December 25 — at least there is no real evidence that He was. Nevertheless, this is the day that most people, Christians and non-Christians alike, observe as His birthday, and if we are to mark it at all, this seems to be the only realistic time to do it. But how? That is the question. What is the genuinely Christian way to observe Christ’s nativity? Quite obviously, the fact that the world often celebrates the day in non-Christian ways is no excuse for Christians to either neglect or misuse it.

How do you celebrate Christmas? If we are honest, we must admit that many persons, even Christians, celebrate it most by buying presents, decorating their houses, visiting relatives and friends, or watching football games on television. Others celebrate it by getting drunk, some beginning at the office party on the last working day before Christmas and not sobering up until sometime after the twenty-fifth or even after New Year’s. This, of course, is monstrous. These celebrations are inadequate to say the least.

But how should a Christian celebrate Christmas? Before we turn to the book of Luke, I want to say first that by far the best and greatest way to celebrate Christmas is by becoming a Christian if you have never done so. In other words, the best way to celebrate Christmas is by becoming a follower of Him whose birth we commemorate. This is why Jesus came. The Bible tells us that the birth of Jesus was unlike all other births in that Jesus existed before birth as the second person of the Godhead and He became man, not to provide us with a sweet story to tell children each winter or even as a theme for our greatest musical compositions, but in order to grow to maturity and then to die for our sin as a means of our salvation. Jesus was born to be our Savior as the carol says:

Good Christian men, rejoice,
With heart, and soul, and voice;
Now ye need not fear the grave:
Jesus Christ was born to save!
Calls you one and calls you all
To gain His everlasting hall.

Christ was born to save!
Christ was born to save! ¹

Anyone can understand Christmas in just three sentences:

• I am a sinner.
• As a sinner I need a Savior.
• Jesus Christ is that Savior.

Three sentences! So, the best way to celebrate Christmas is to believe on Jesus as your Savior. If you have never done that, then this is a great season in which to believe on Him. Come to Him! Come to Him now!

But now, assuming that you have believed on Him and that you are a Christian, what can you add to this in order to properly celebrate Christmas? At this point our Bible text comes in, for it is a report of how those who witnessed the first Christmas observed it. The passage begins by speaking of the shepherds.

“When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it wereamazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told” (Luke 2:17-20emphasis added).

This passage suggests four ways of celebrating Christmas:

• Tell others about it.
• Be amazed at the event itself.
• Ponder on its meaning.
• Glorify and praise God for what was done that first Christmas.

We need to think about each of these ways.

In the first place, we are told that the shepherds, after they had come to Bethlehem and had seen the infant Jesus, “spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child…” In other words, the shepherds became witnesses of the event. The reasons why they became witnesses are that there was an event, a great event, and that others very much needed to hear of it.

Can we doubt that the shepherds had something worth telling? Hardly! For if their story was not worth telling, then no story that has ever been told is worth telling and life has no joy or meaning. What had happened to these men? Well, they had been out in the fields of Bethlehem in the middle of the night, watching over their sheep as they had for many hundreds of nights previously and as their fathers undoubtedly had before them. They had no thought about spiritual things — at least we are not told that they did — and they certainly didn’t expect the miracle. But then, suddenly, an angel appeared with the message:

“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11).

After the angel spoke a host of angels appeared, all praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom
his favor rests” (Luke 2:14).

When the angels had departed, the shepherds decided to go to Bethlehem. So they left their flocks and came and found Jesus, precisely as the angels had indicated. In other words, what they had been told coincided with their own experience, and they could not resist speaking of such things.

These men, poor shepherds though they were, had seen God incarnate. They had heard the music of heaven. They had seen the angels and had come to worship the angels’ King. How could their tongues be silent when they had heard such music? How could they refuse to tell what they had seen? Not only did these men have something to tell, as we do, they also knew of a world that needed desperately to hear their message. It was a sad world in their time. It was lost, confused, dying. It was lost because it lacked direction, primarily spiritual direction. It was confused because it lacked revelation and, therefore, also an awareness of truth. It was dying because it had no adequate cause for which to live. The world of the shepherds’ day was much like our world today, in which the lamps of knowledge and culture seem to be slowly flickering out.

But over against this dying world was Jesus. Who was He really? Well, later in His life He would speak of Himself in terms that spoke to precisely the world’s condition. He would say that He was the way — for a world that was lost. He would say that He was the truth — for a world that was dreadfully confused. He would say that He was the life — for a world that was dying. The Way! The Truth! The Life! The shepherds took this message, in the only form they knew, to their contemporaries. This is the perfect combination — a knowledge of the Good News and men who need to hear it. This combination, when truly grasped, produces witnesses.

Would anyone want to say that these men were not authorized to spread such a message? Will anyone argue that they were uneducated? Or that they had not been endorsed by the temple authorities? If anyone would argue in this way, he should notice that the shepherds had the most important authorization of all — possession of good news which had been revealed to them by God. Anybody who knows good news is authorized to tell it, particularly when it is news that will be the means of salvation of others. The Scriptures say, “And let him who hears say, Come!” (Revelation 22:17). In other words, the only ultimate essential for proclaiming the gospel is a knowledge of it. So everyone who knows of Christ and has become a Christian can tell others of Him.

Here then is the first lesson Luke teaches us on celebrating Christmas. Imitate the shepherds in spreading the word concerning what you know about the Christ child.

We also can celebrate Christmas by being amazed at it — “And all who heard it were amazed…” (Luke 2:18).

There are two kinds of amazement. There is one kind of amazement which is merely a tickling of the fancy. It is the kind of amazement we associate with special effects in a movie or with an Olympic gold medal winner. It is a temporary fascination with something unusual. After this type of amazement has run its course nobody gives the cause of it a second thought. The other kind of amazement is a holy wonder in response to those acts of God which are beyond human comprehension. This holy amazement is closely melded to adoration.

In one sense all the acts of God are legitimate grounds for such amazement. If we turn back to the earliest chapters of Genesis, we discover a description of the globe before God fashioned it into the kind of world we know now; and we are told that “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” What a cause for amazement! Then out of the darkness we hear God speaking to call forth life and order. We turn from that picture to the final pages of the Bible, and in those pages we find the Lord Jesus Christ high and lifted up, and all of creation is paying homage to Him. This is a cause for amazement. From beginning to end, God’s dealings with our race are cause for amazement. But of all these things, the incarnation of the Son of God is the most amazing.

That is the Christmas story — God became man! The Infinite clothed in human flesh! How can this be? We cannot understand it — but it is true, and we should marvel at it. Allow it to stretch your mind, and learn that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in any human philosophy. Crashaw wrote of this wonder:

Welcome all wonders in one sight —
Eternity shut in a span,
Summer in winter, day in night,
Heaven in earth, and God in man.
Great little one,
Whose all embracing birth
Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth. ²

This is why the wonder of children seems so appropriate at Christmastime. They aren’t all thinking of God or Jesus as they stand spellbound at the presents and tree on Christmas morning. But their amazement is fitting to Christmas — it’s a sample of what Christmas amazement should be for those who understand the Christmas story.

Let’s have a Christmas gift exchange this year. Our gift to our children will be teaching them Who Jesus is and what Christmas is all about. They must learn to love Him and to serve Him more and more. Our children’s gift to us is their example of amazement which will lead us to recapture our own sense of amazement at the incarnation.

Celebrating Christmas can also take the form of pondering it, for Mary “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

This is connected with amazement, but it also goes beyond amazement as an attempt to understand it or figure it out. It implies a diving beneath the surface. It involves an effort to enter into the heart and counsels of God. So do that. Spend some time at Christmas thinking over what you do know of God and trying to understand the ways of God more fully.

Pondering is work. It is not just brooding or getting into a pious frame of mind. It is an attempt to take what you know and then by an exercise of the mind to build upon it. Think what it involved in the case of Mary, Jesus’ mother. First, it involved her memory; for we are told that she treasured up all these things. Second, it involved her affection, for she treasured these things in her heart. Third, it involved her intellect; for she treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

Can you do that? Of course, you can — and you should! You can remember these events. You can remember the moment in which they became real for you personally. You can sharpen up your affections; indeed, you must, for it is a terrible thing to have your love for the One who is the Lord of love grow cold. Then, you can think about these things and allow God to teach you more about Himself. I know that Christmas is a busy time. But our time is poorly spent if we allow the bustle of Christmas to eclipse our times of Bible study and of pondering upon God’s Word.

Finally, our text suggests that we can celebrate Christmas by glorifying God and by praising Him. “The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told” (v. 20).

Do you do that? To do so is to worship God both by words and in song.

I love this word “glorify.” It is one of the great words of the Greek language. Long ago, when the Greek language was in its infancy, the word from which the word “glory” came meant “to have an opinion.” Later it came to mean only “a good opinion.” The noun form of the word is doxa, which we have in our words “orthodox,” “heterodox,” and “paradox.” These words mean “a right opinion,” “a wrong opinion,” and “a contradictory opinion” respectively. Finally, by an obvious extension, glory meant a person’s true “worth.” Now when you acknowledge a person’s true worth or express a proper opinion of him, you may be said to be glorifying him. And, of course, this is the sense in which we glorify God. Moreover, since acknowledging His true worth is the essential meaning of worship — it means to acknowledge God’s worth — to glorify God is to worship Him by words. It is in this sense a doxology, which means to express a right opinion of God verbally.

Now this is what the shepherds did. And it is this in which we are to imitate them. Do you do it? You can tell if you do by attempting to rehearse God’s attributes. What are they? Well, the birth of Christ itself teaches us of God’s love; for God loved us so much that He became man in order to die for us. It also teaches us of God’s power, for an incarnation is beyond our ability even to conceive, let alone to bring into being. In the birth we see God’s wisdom. We learn of His mercy. We see His disposition to use little things, to exalt the humble and to subdue the proud. We see His grace. Have you seen those things? Have you confessed them to God and to others? To do this is to glorify Him, an act which is, as the Catechism states, one aspect of man’s chief end.

Moreover, you can do it in song. For praising God is essentially an act of glorifying God with the whole being and, in this, music quite naturally takes a part. This is why carols are so much a rightful part of Christmas; for, when sung by those who understand them, they are a means of praise.

Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King.” ³

Joy to the world! The Lord is come. ⁴

O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;

Come and behold Him
Born the King of angels;
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord. ⁵

If these four means of celebrating Christmas are new to you and if you are now desiring to put them into practice, I suggest that you begin not with the first verse, verse 17 of Luke 2, but with verses 18, 19, and 20. Verse 17 suggests that we are to tell others what we have seen and heard; but we can hardly do that effectively until we have first been amazed at Christ’s birth, pondered its meaning, and glorified and praised God for it. You cannot tell that which you have not first felt and experienced.

So begin with amazement — be amazed at the fact that you have not suffered the just punishment of your sin, that God has loved you, that Jesus came and died for you, that God called you to faith in Himself when you were yet without hope of salvation, and that you are now God’s child and are secure in His love.

Continue by pondering these things. Ponder the great doctrines of the Christian faith — doctrines of the incarnation, atonement, grace, sanctification, heaven, perseverance, and others — so that you begin to grow strong in doctrine.

Then glorify and praise God for what you know. Sing God’s praises.

Finally, when you have done these things and are truly qualified to speak, go back and tell others what you know.

Furthermore, do not think that you need to go back to church in order to do these things, but learn rather to do them wherever God sends you — in your home, school, or business. This is what the shepherds did. We are told of them that they “returned glorifying and praising God.” To what did they return? Why, to their sheep obviously. And there, where they had first heard the angels’ song, they themselves were heard to be singing God’s praise.

May God give you grace to do that. If you and I and all others who call upon the name of our God should do it, I suppose that the whole world would then rightly resound with His praise.

This sermon was submitted by Bill Smith