The fourth Sunday of Advent: Celebration

(This is the fourth in a four-part series that seeks to help Christians observe Advent, that season celebrating the coming of our Savior and leading to Christmas. This series is designed for use on each Sunday of Advent, but it can be used at any point up to and including Christmas Day.)

The incarnation -- God becoming man -- finds an appropriate response in celebration.

This is the response of two groups who hear the glad announcement on the night of the God-man's birth.

When an angel of the Lord announces to the shepherds a Savior has been born in Bethlehem, an army of angels gathers with him to praise God and declare in Luke 2:14:

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.

The human beings who witness this joyful pronouncement do not hesitate. They find this baby who is God in the flesh wrapped in cloths in a lowly feed trough in Bethlehem and share with Mary and Joseph what the angel of the Lord has told them. In his last comment on the shepherds, Luke reports in Luke 2:20:

The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.

A multitude of angels and a band of shepherds do what we all should do at this news: Celebrate.

God has become man. Let us celebrate. The Creator has become a child. Let us celebrate. The Son of the Most High has become a male infant. Let us celebrate. The Almighty God has become a needy baby. Let us celebrate. God is with us. Let us celebrate. God has come to show us what He is like. Let us celebrate. God has come to serve us. Let us celebrate. God has come to save us. Let us celebrate.

And in celebrating, may we follow the example of the angels and shepherds. How did they celebrate? By glorifying God, Luke says.

As we near Christmas, may we celebrate and glorify God for the most important development in human history that leads to the central event in redemptive history: God became man, a man who came to "save His people from their sins," as the angel tells Joseph in Matt. 1:21.

Because He is God in the flesh, the Savior, and the Risen and Ascended Lord, we await another advent. As we celebrate His first coming, may we encourage one another to look forward to His second coming -- an advent which will begin a celebration for His people that will last forever.