Handel’s ending to Part I of The Messiah takes a look at a familiar passage. Handel considers the story in Luke 2:8–14 with the angel’s proclamation to the shepherds and the good news of great joy that is provided therein. The refrain sounds over and over again:
“Glory to God in the highest, and peace on Earth, goodwill towards men.”
It is easy at Christmas to read familiar passages, sing familiar songs, and slip into sentimentality as rote or routine. We may even intellectually assent to the truths we hear, but they do not penetrate our hearts with the love and affections that they ought. How can we not fall victim to the temptation to make Christmas-time about us and not our great God? The answer lies in what Handel brings to the fore as “good tidings of great joy.”
The term “joy” is found often in the Scriptures (193 times in the ESV), but “great joy” is not as common.[1] In the Gospels, for instance, it appears only in the stories of Matthew and Luke concerning Jesus’s birth and again in his resurrection. In the Old Testament, this language is used to describe an instance where God graciously reverses a dire situation by providing what the people need.
1. Nine times in the English Standard Version (ESV): 1 Kings 1:40; 2 Chr. 30:26; Neh. 12:43; Matt. 2:10; 28:8; Luke 2:10; 24:52; Acts 15:3; Jude 1:24.
For example, in 1 Kings 1:40, Solomon is established as Israel’s king after significant upheaval and battles for the throne. Second Chronicles 30:26 sees Israel celebrating the Passover in a way that “nothing like this in Jerusalem had been done before” during Hezekiah’s reinstatement of temple worship. Nehemiah 12:43 shows the Israelites sacrificing in the rebuilt temple after returning from exile. In each instance, Israel returns to a state of gladness from a state of continual sorrow due to their sin. If what we see here in Luke, and what Handel sings in The Messiah, is akin to these types of reversals, it’s important to investigate what that reversal might be.
I believe the key to setting our affections on this text in the proper way relies upon a proper grasp of what the “good news” is. The good news I received at the birth of my sons brought great joy to only a small group of people: me, my wife, and some close family were the only ones to “greatly rejoice” when my sons were born. The “good news of great joy” in Luke 2:10, however, is for “all the people.” The birth of this son is different than the birth of mine or yours. The question becomes: what could possibly be such good news as to the birth of one human baby boy that it would bring great joy to so many? Using Handel’s text as a starting point in this article, I plan to unpack what the angel proclaims in Luke 2:8–14 about the Davidic savior, his divinity, and the peace he brings to his people.
A Davidic Savior
The first thing we should consider is the identity of the child. As Luke 2:11 says, he is described as a savior from the city of David. A savior implies the need of salvation. Reading Scripture must always consider the audience. The good news here is not being given merely to Mary, Joseph, Herod or the religious leaders. It’s given to common people with their common need in view. In other words, they are standing in as an extension for all the people. Who needs a savior? All of us. You, me, everybody.
Next, the city of David brings in a whole new element. God had risen up “saviors” before. The book of Judges is full of examples where God brings a deliverer to rescue the nation from their dark moments. This savior, though, is different. He’s the one identified with David’s city, and he carries with him promises of more than just a temporary reprieve from sinful repercussions. That savior is from of old, from ancient of days. He will rule, but not as a tyrannical despot. He will be a shepherd in the strength of the Lord and in the majesty of the name of Yahweh. He will not just be known to Israel, but shall be great to the ends of the earth. God is realizing and fulfilling his covenant to David that a ruler will be over his house and kingdom before him that will have no end (2 Sam. 7:4–16).
The Lord
There is a second description as to the child’s identity in that he is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:11). We are told later in the story that the people “wondered” at what the shepherds told them, and there is little doubt this title had something to do with it (Luke 2:18). The Christ was the promised Anointed One who would rescue and redeem Israel. This would not have been particularly difficult to accept. False Christs had arisen in the recent past trying “save” Israel from foreign occupation (Acts 5:36–37). Some even succeeded for a short time. Understandably, the nation was waiting for the true Anointed One.
What would have been difficult to comprehend was how this human Christ was going to be the divine Lord. When the Septuagint—the Hebrew Bible translated into Greek—translates Yahweh into Greek, they settled on the word kyrios, meaning Lord. Although the word could mean “master” or “sir” (as it is sometimes translated), the Jewish practice settled on using this word to refer to the covenant God of Israel. The baby born here, his identity, was the Anointed One sent to save a people as the covenant God of Israel himself. Although prophesied in the Old Testament that it would work out this way (as Christ proved in Luke 24), this would have caused even the most learned men of the day to “wonder.”
A Proclaimed Peace
Third, and finally, we need to consider what the good news that is actually heralded. Christmas can too often settle on and only celebrate the identity of the child. This is a truly wonderful grace that God provides, but it is only half the story. Simply knowing the facts surrounding the child’s identity will become lost on us unless we fully comprehend what he came to do. The good news, if you caught it, is wrapped up in the simple word “peace” (Luke 2:14). All the people with whom God is pleased need to be saved from something. The peace accompanying this child is our key to understanding the desperate condition from which we need saving.
When I joined the military, the word “enemy” took on a whole new meaning. When a person, group, or nation was designated an “enemy,” my squadron’s mission centered on one thing: the enemy’s destruction. The national security of the United States was so threatened by that particular entity that negotiation and peace was no longer an option. I can’t help but take this concept and apply it to Scripture’s declaration that we were at one time God’s “enemies” (Rom. 5:10). We were party to those “raging” against him (Ps. 2:1) and we served his enemy—our father the devil (John 8:44). There is no worse news in all creation than to understand yourself to be the enemy of the one true God. As the Scripture rightly says, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). If there is to be any real, true, lasting joy in our lives, this warring against God must be stopped.
The angel declares peace on earth at the pronouncement of the Son’s birth. That word can get convoluted these days. We say and hear things that describe an emotional settledness, like, “God has given me peace over this/that situation.” Sure, a peace like this should be a part of the Christian life, but it is not quite the “great joy” we see described in Luke 2:10. The peace in our passage, the peace that brings “great joy” is that which stops the war between us and God. And the war does not merely cease—we are invited to the king’s court as his friends.
The prophecy in Micah 5, which identifies Bethlehem as the place of the messiah’s birth, ends with these words: “And he shall be their peace” (Mic. 5:5). Likewise, the famous declaration of Isaiah 9:7, that the child born to us and the son given is this: of the “increase of his government and of his peace there will be no end.” So too, Romans 5:1 says those who have justified by faith have “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The prepositions here are important! We don’t merely have peace “in” God—a tranquil, inner satisfaction. We have peace “with” God (Rom. 5:1) in that our eternal destruction is not his intention for us any longer (Rom. 5:9-11). Colossians 1:20 states that Christ reconciled all things to God through himself in that he “made peace by the blood of his cross.” In coming to us as Immanuel, “God with us,” the Lord Jesus Christ began the work of turning his enemies into sons and daughters of the living God. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29)!
Conclusion
In this section of Handel’s work, he moves from our text in Luke 2:8–14 to one near the end of Jesus’s life and his victory on the cross . He repeatedly commands:
Rejoice O daughter of Zion!
Behold thy king cometh unto thee!
He is the righteous Saviour, and
he shall speak peace to the heathen,
He shall speak peace, He shall speak peace, peace,
He shall speak peace unto the heathen. (Zech. 9:9–10)
With these words of Scripture in mind, let us go with Handel’s command in view. Let us rejoice not in sentimentality, nostalgia, or even biblically intellectual assents. Instead, let us fall in love all over again with the good news of great joy that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Let us set our affections on the truth that God began the work of peace by sending us Immanuel to turn us from enemies into sons.
