“And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host…”

            Merry Christmas!!

Our family just finished reading the CHRISTmas Boy.  About a boy many years ago that grew up in the Tennessee mountains and never heard of Santa or Christmas.  Only of the Christ Day celebration.  When he moved to town.  He wondered why people called the Christ Day celebration Christmas.  “Why don’t you call it CHRISTmas?”, he asked.

So perhaps I should have declared, Merry CHRISTmas!

Perhaps no other text is more endearing than this piece of historical record.  Perhaps no other writing has prompted more joyous celebration in the history of mankind than the first 16 verses of Luke 2. 

The first born being passed over by the judgment of death, the Passover had been celebrated far longer.  But the joy of having been preserved in this life cannot and has not exceeded the joyous celebration of the arrival of Heaven’s Perfect Lamb; of the narrow passageway, the straight gate to eternity.  The pure joy that comes from having seen the Father’s salvation, as Simeon would later declare.

No event has prompted more joyous celebration in the history of mankind.

Something to Celebrate

Now you might be thinking, the resurrection.  Perhaps no other event has caused more reverent gratitude and heartfelt thanks than the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

“And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host…”

In our family devotions we asked the question why?  Why did they show up on the scene like that?  Would it not have been enough for the angel of the Lord to appear to the shepherds to make such an announcement? 

It was enough for Mary.  She didn’t need a multitude when she was told she would be carrying a boy, conceived by the Holy Spirit.  If there ever was a need for a multitude to reinforce one of God’s announcements I would think Mary deserved it.

Where else did a multitude – too many to number of the heavenly host - appear on the scene in such fashion?

No where. 

So why did they come?  They were there to celebrate the arrival of the Word in the flesh.  The Word.  That which caused everything to come in to being.  All that we touch, all that we see, hear, and smell.  Was brought forth by the Word.  Spoken into being.  Now in the flesh of a manchild.

Mary had just wrapped her arms around the Lord of all Creation!

Nowhere else do we see such a vivid celebration from heaven itself.  The arrival of the Savior. 

The resurrection just would not happen until the Shepherd of man would come as a Lamb to take away all of our sin.

I have been looking forward to this season, this day for a year.  Actually, I’ve been anticipating Christmas since just before Thanksgiving – O’ Holy Night, Angels We Have Heard on High.  Cutting the tree. 

You see, one year ago today we were not celebrating Christmas with our loved ones, taking in the sights and sounds of the Christ-Day celebration.  We were sitting in a courtroom to the sound of Russian being read at break-neck speed, page after endless page.

When it was all done, the judge declared  Maria to now be

 Madeline Joy DeVowe. 

It was a blessed moment. 

Yet bittersweet as Christmas Eve and Christmas Day passed while the rest of our children gathered without us.

It was bittersweet too in a culture where Christmas; the Christ-Day celebration has no bearing, no meaning, no marking of reverence to a Holy God that loved his creation so much, that He would solve the problem of sinful man by sending his Son in the flesh.

Let’s look closely at the celebration first initiated by the heavenly host:

Suddenly

A celebration isn’t something that happens every day.  It is a moment in time.  Perhaps a day.  Or even a week.  But it is something special; marked out as separate, extraordinary, unique, set apart from all other days of the year.  This is the Christmas day celebration.

Suddenly had to be quite the surprise.  First of all, the Angel of the Lord had their attention.  How surprising was that!

It reminds me of Carolyn’s 29^th birthday.  I asked her mother, who lives in California to call her that morning to wish her a happy birthday.  Her mom inquired about the weather, talked about her garden in CA while Carolyn was knee deep in snow.

Actually, Carolyn’s mom was in a hotel that morning just a mile or two away from us.

Imagine Carolyn’s surprise when she came home from lunch with a friend and I was there and several of her friends were there.  Happy Birthday!

That was surprise enough.  But suddenly I put a blind-fold on her, had her stand at the bottom of the stairs while her mother came down from the bedroom and stood a mere 8” in front of her face.  Now you can remove the blindfold – surprise!

The Angel of the Lord had riveted the shepherd’s attention.  Then SUDDENLY!

Surprise!  This is a really big deal.  And we’re here to celebrate, to praise God, to sing to his glory!

Multitude

God invited a multitude to this birthday celebration.  With our kids, we might celebrate with the family.  Other’s might say, you can only invite 3 friends.  Most of us have more than that with siblings alone, so we’re already over the limit.  A sudden surprise at this celebration with the arrivial of say, six more angels praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest!” might have been surprising enough.  Plenty of emphasis to compel the shepherds to go check it out.

But this was a REALLY BIG DEAL.  Something worth celebrating in a demonstrative fashion.  God sent a multitude.  Not even numbered in scripture.  Perhaps God let everybody off work that day to attend this party.  Something to Celebrate.

It appears that for some, it has become more fashionable, more holy to celebrate Thanksgiving than to celebrate Christmas.  To give more pause, to express more joy over the provision of food than the provision of life eternal.

Some say, well we don’t even know that December 25^th was his birthday.  There’s evidence that Jesus was born more towards fall sometime.  This is true, so the traditional Christmas day isn’t even his real birthday, therefore we celebrate Christmas every day.
Do You really, Celebrate Christmas everyday?

 The multitude didn’t abide with the angel every day of the year.  THIS was the Great I AM whose lungs had just inflated.  Taking his very first breaths.

Something to celebrate.

We’re quite sure the birth date of one our girls is not correct.  We’ve chosen to celebrate her life on that day anyway.  She’s that special to us.

How special is Jesus to you?  How do you celebrate his arrival each year?

Heavenly host

These were the heavenly host.  Called to a birthday party.  What had they been doing up to that time?

Revelation 22:4

And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.

And his servants shall serve him.

It occurred to me that if we don’t really like serving.  We’re not going to like heaven much at all.

These were God’s beloved.  The dearest celebrations happen with loved ones.  Your closest of friends, family, serving one another.

Praising and saying

Attendants to this party were not quiet guests.  Praising God.  Giving glory to him.  those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart;  Tongues revealing the heart of his servants.

Some would say that they don’t celebrate Christmas because it has heathen roots. 

The celebrating of Christ does not have heathen roots.  Perhaps the time of year, some of the symbolism, even terminology may have its roots there. 

(harvest celebration for Halloween)

God is looking at your heart.  I am quite sure my heart is not turned toward lights or worshiping an idol or a false god with an evergreen tree.  
  Mark this time of year with joy – the true Joy that a longing world is looking for. 

Good will

Celebrations come because of something good.  Something we love to recall.

I loved Christmas as a heathen.  That’s before I was saved.

It was different then.  The excitement was about getting.  But is was about giving too.  The excitement lived out in traditions we had year after year, unchanging.  Exciting.  Even if it meant that Christmas Eve dinner at Grandma’s house was always oyster stew.  Anything else just wouldn’t have been the same.

Christmas was always the same.  But then something happened.  At 34 years old; I was saved.

I remember that first Christmas.  Oyster stew at Grandma’s a gift opened on Christmas Eve.  But amidst all of the tradition something important was vividly missing.

I went in the laundry room.  Put on my coat and my boots.  And slipped outside.  There I wept, blinking up at the numberless stars and sang all the verses of O’ Holy Night.

There was something celebrate  Something new to celebrate.  All of the tradition would not be discarded, but God would be exalted in the midst of it, as each Christmas I would offer up to Him, an open heart.

We know how to give good gifts unto our children as scripture reports, and so we do at times of celebration, at Christmastime, knowing how much more our Father which is in heaven gives good things to them that ask him.

Affect on the shepherds

You know, it wasn’t the shepherds or the multitude that was the first to celebrate the coming of the Christ child.

It was John.  He leaped for joy while yet in the womb.

How much joy do we exude about the Christ child?  Can others see us delight in Christ’s birth? 

Or are we caught on the grim side of the pendulum, in disgust over the commercialization, the secularization of our Lord?

What positive impact might you and I have if others were to see us, in a sense, leaping for joy when the whole world is just a bit more aware of the One who split time in two?

The celebration begun by the multitude had a profound impact on the shepherds.

Immediate departure

Went with haste

Then began to tell others.  Did they, perhaps exude joy?  Might they have brought wonder of this Christ-day celebration to others because of the joy, the excitement  they displayed about such an event?

Then they came back.  Still glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen.

That’s how it ought to be at Christmas.  For those of us that have seen the Lord’s salvation, which God has prepared before the face of all people.

Today and tomorrow,  consider how you might leap for joy.  Having seen the light to lighten the gentiles.  And the glory of God’s people, Israel.

We can praise, thank,and honor, Him everyday.

For a moment...................
                                   ..............ponder in your hearts like Mary did. 
                                                         The magnitude of it all
                                                               A Joyous time. 
                                                                  Something to celebrate.