December 18: Good News of Great Joy
♫ Music:
Wednesday, December 18
Title: GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY
Scripture: Luke 2: 8-14
In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”
Poetry:
Let Evening Come
By Jane Kenyon
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS, A CHILD COMES TO THE WORLD
It’s in the darkest places where the tiniest light gleams brightest. So it was on a cold night on a Judean hillside that the brilliance of an angel shocked some simple shepherds. Luke says it was not just the light, but the glory of God that did it. Shepherds were people of the land — accustomed to threats in the dark: robbers, predatory animals, sudden storms. They knew the night. Most shepherds, though sometimes teens, were people of courage — but not at this moment. The angel prefaces his message with compassion. “Do not be afraid,” he says. “Fear not,” is how the King James puts it. The Greek word for fear in this verse is “phobos,” translated as dread or terror. Those feelings had to be set aside before these working people could hear a message so profound, so theologically immense, it would defy the minds of religious scholars for centuries.
Fear arousal begins in the amygdala portion of the brain. It affects our bodies, putting us into a fight or flight mode. The amygdala is particularly stimulated by faces — but also by context. Fear can quickly turn to confidence, even anticipation, if one racked with fear is suddenly made to feel safe. The angel’s grasp of the human brain is uncanny: he moves from fear to joy in the same sentence.
That joy is in the form of news — the good kind. The Greek word for it is “euangelizo” and translates as any message giving cheer to the hearers. It is used here as an active verb. The angel is declaring it, showing it, and not just for these shepherds. It is for all people. As a good journalist would, he tells them what just happened, and where it happened, then why it matters. It’s about a new baby, in Bethlehem, not far away. But there’s a personal touch and an enormity to this birth announcement. First, this little one is for them — these unkempt keepers of smelly animals. Then the angel uses three descriptors to help them grasp who this baby really is. He’s their Savior (in Greek, a deliverer); He’s the Christ (the word translates as anointed, or Messiah); and He’s the Lord (the Greek denotes greatness).
The angel doesn’t tell them to go out and spread this news: no need. They’re curious already, set to follow up. Of course they will go; how could they not tell? He gives them a sign — a “here’s how you’ll know” tip. They’ll find this Savior, this Messiah, their Lord, in a feeding trough. Shepherds knew about those. Unlike Zechariah, they don’t say “This can’t be!” Rather, they take Mary’s approach, focusing on “How?” And while they ponder the paradox, the angel is joined by a multitude of other angels — probably as bright as the first. As we see in Benjamin-Gerritsz Cypup’s painting, the sight must have been blinding. And as the angels lift their voices in praise to God, this moment becomes life-changing for these shepherds, and for us.
Prayer:
O come to my heart, Lord Jesus. There is room for you. And as I gaze into the faces of my infant grand-daughters, touching their tiny fingers and toes, I’m reminded of the paradox of your coming as an infant. You hold all things together; you are God, yet you came to us helpless, in such need. I receive you again. Take all of me. And help me learn the humility you lived from the moment of your birth, to your death for us all on that cruel cross, to the beach breakfast you gave after your triumphal resurrection. Thank you for coming. Thank you for loving us before we knew you. And thank you making yourself knowable in all your humanity and all your deity.
Amen
Dr. Michael A. Longinow
Professor of Media & Journalism
Department of Media, Journalism and Public Relations
School of Fine Arts & Communication
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
Annunciation to the Shepherds
Benjamin-Gerritsz Cyup
c. 1633
83.8cm x 115.3 cm
Museum of Fine Arts
Houston, Texas
The shepherds that were “keeping watch over their flock by night” in the Biblical account were not men revered or esteemed by society. These were men marginalized by society and the religious leaders of the day. The Messiah was born into the midst of social, religious, and class prejudice. But God subverted these cultural prejudices by picking lowly, unpretentious shepherds to be the first to hear the joyous news of Christ's birth. Artist Benjamin Cyup paints the exact moment when a heavenly host of angels suddenly appear in the night skies to a frightened group of shepherds, who had been sleeping in fields near Bethlehem.
About the Artist:
Benjamin Gerritsz Cyup (1612-1652) was a Dutch Golden Age artist who painted landscapes, genre scenes, military scenes, and religious subjects in a Baroque style that appears to have been influenced by Rembrandt’s dramatic use of chiaroscuro. His nephew, Aelbert Cyup, and his uncle, Jacob Gerritszoon Cyup, were also both noted painters.
https://www.thekremercollection.com/benjamin-gerritsz-cuyp/
About the Music #1:
“The Holly and the Ivy” from the album Behold the Lamb
About the Composer #1:
Traditional English Carol
About the Performer #1:
Andrew Peterson (b. 1974) is an American Christian musician and author who plays folk rock and country gospel music. Peterson is a founding member of the Square Peg Alliance, a group of Christian songwriters. He has toured with Caedmon's Call, Fernando Ortega, Michael Card, Sara Groves, Bebo Norman, Nichole Nordeman, Jill Phillips, Andy Gullahorn, Ben Shive, Eric Peters, and other members of the Square Peg Alliance. His poetic and theologically rich music has always been honest, sometimes painful, but ever hopeful. He is the rare artist who clearly views his talent, not as a reason for pride and self-promotion, but as something he has been given to steward in the service of others.
https://www.andrew-peterson.com/
About the Music #2:
“While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks” from the album Behold the Lamb
Lyrics for Music #2:
While shepherds watched their flocks by night,
All seated on the ground,
The angel of the Lord came down,
And glory shone around.
“Fear not!” said he, for mighty dread
Had seized their troubled mind;
“Glad tidings of great joy I bring
To you and all mankind.
“To you, in David’s town, this day
Is born of David’s line
A Savior, who is Christ the Lord,
And this shall be the sign:
“The heav’nly Babe you there shall find
To human view displayed,
All meanly wrapped in swaddling bands,
And in a manger laid.”
Hallelujah, hallelujah!
Hallelujah, Christ is born!
“All glory be to God on high,
And to the Earth be peace;
Good will henceforth from God to man
Begin and never cease!”
Hallelujah, hallelujah!
Hallelujah, Christ is born!
About the Composer #2:
Nahum Tate (1652-1715) was an Irish poet, hymnist, playwright, and lyricist, who became England's poet laureate in 1692. He wrote some plays of his own, but he is best known for his adaptations of the Elizabethan playwrights. Tate is best-known for the play The History of King Lear, his 1681 adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear. Tate wrote the libretto for Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas (1689). Some of his hymns have found a lasting place in Protestant worship including “While Shepherds Watched,” “Through All the Changing Scenes of Life,” and “As Pants the Hart for Cooling Streams.”
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nahum-Tate
About the Performer #2:
Andrew Peterson
About the Poet:
New Hampshire's Poet Laureate at the time of her untimely death at age forty-seven, Jane Kenyon (1947-1995) was noted for verse that probed the inner psyche, particularly with regard to her own battle against the depression that lasted throughout much of her adult life. Writing for the last two decades of her life at her farm in northern New England, Kenyon is also remembered for her stoic portraits of domestic and rural life. Essayist Gary Roberts noted in Contemporary Women Poets, that her poetry was "acutely faithful to the familiarities and mysteries of home life, and it is distinguished by intense calmness in the face of routine disappointments and tragedies."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jane-kenyon
About the Devotion Writer:
Dr. Michael A. Longinow
Professor of Media & Journalism
Department of Media, Journalism and Public Relations
School of Fine Arts & Communication
Biola University
Michael Longinow is the former chair of Biola's Department of Journalism and the advisor of Biola’s The Chimes student newspaper. Longinow attended Wheaton College, earning a BA in Political Science, and completed a PhD at the University of Kentucky. He has not only been an educator but has worked as a freelance reporter for the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. He was a founding adviser member of the Association of Christian Collegiate Media (ACCM) and now serves as its national executive director. Longinow is a frequent workshop presenter and panelist at national conventions, has written chapters for five books dealing with journalism, history, media and religion, and the popular culture of American evangelicalism. Longinow lives in Riverside, California, with his wife Robin and their three children, Ben, Matt, and Sarah.