Lk.2:11,12 – For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.
Good news of great joy, what could qualify in this category? Maybe you just made a deal on the house of your dreams, or your team won the Super Bowl, or possibly your candidate was just elected president. What the angels were singing about was a different category of good news and a totally different kind of joy. This good news is that the Savior, Jesus the Son of God, had come to redeem us from our sins which is good news that is far behind any words we have to describe it. When you embrace this good news you are filled with an unspeakable joy, joy that can only be described as a supernatural joy. The angels were introducing God’s eternal plan and it is better than anyone can imagine, we would not only be forgiven and reconciled to God, we would become sons and daughters of God. Here is how Martin Luther describes this announcement.
“But the angel shows most clearly that nothing is to be preached in Christendom except the gospel, he takes upon himself the officer of a preacher of the gospel. He does not say, I preach to you, but “glad tidings I bring to you”. I am an Evangelist and my word is an evangel, good news. The meaning of the word Gospel is a good, joyful message, that is preached in the New Testament. Of what does the gospel testify? Listen! The the angel says: “I bring you good tidings of great joy”, my Gospel speaks of great joy. Where is it? Hear again: ‘For there is born for you today in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord”. Behold here what the gospel is, namely a joyful sermon concerning Christ, the Savior. Whoever preaches him rightly, preaches the gospel of pure joy. How is it possible for man to hear of greater joy than that Christ has given to him his own? He not only says Christ is born, but he makes his birth our own by saying, “to you a Savior”.”
Every Christmas season I am taken back to that first Christmas I experienced as a newborn Christian. I reflected on the Old Testament prophecies of the birth of Christ for the first time. What happened to me is that I became to grasp that Jesus was actually God Himself as a man. I already knew that but it hit me that year. What was the result? Well the result was that those glad tidings filled me through and through with exceedingly great joy.