For this morning, I would like to draw your attention in the portion of that Christmas story which we read together. I'd like to draw your attention to verses 12 and 15. 12 and 15. This will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in claws and lying in a manger. When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about. This will be a sign. Beloved, we all know that signs are a part of everyday life, aren't they? We can think of traffic signs alone. We depend on stop signs. We depend on sharp curve ahead signs. We depend on signs of direction. Other signs are the fact that we notice signs of the changing seasons as far as the weather conditions. And if you've been watching the weather map lately, you see that in some parts of the country, these signs are much more dramatic than in other parts of the country. If you think of Indianapolis, maybe, where they've got 18 inches of snow and one falling, and here we were sitting out just the other day eating dinner, having lunch outside in the sunshine. And there are even signs of the Christmas, or as we've heard so much lately, as some prefer to say, the holiday season. There are TV commercials and radio advertisements, lights, decorations, verbal greetings, festive holiday clothing, and many, many other things that remind us that Christmas is almost here. Those signs, you see, are widespread. You really can't miss them. Of course, there are those who protest against these holiday signs under the mantra of separation of church and state. Yet they can't escape them. They're all around. The announcement of the Savior's birth came to the shepherds with the most excellent and brilliant light display ever seen by the human eye. The glory and the radiance of the heavenly angels. A sign of something wonderful. Yet, yet there was to be found an even greater, more significant sign which would prove the truth of their announcement. This will be a sign to you. You will find a baby wrapped in claws and lying in a manger. You see, this would be the sign of the Messiah's birth. Isaiah, we know, spoke of a sign to Ahaz. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and we'll call Him Emmanuel. And Matthew adds to that, which means God with us. Notice that the shepherds are not told that the virgin gave birth, but they are told of the baby. They are told, in essence, God is now with you. Yet what an unexpected description that God was now with them. God's people, including these shepherds, had waited a long, long time for this announcement. When would it come? How would it come? What would it be like? How would they know that the long-expected Jesus had finally come? We know, of course, from our vantage point here in this year, some 2,000 years later, we know that they expected the Messiah to be an earthly ruler to come and solve their earthly troubles with the Roman emperor and his government. and of course all Israel knew that the Messiah would be a king from the royal line of David even the visitors, the kings from the Orient that we sing of the visitors from the east who later on had followed the star to Jerusalem asked where is the one who has been born king of the Jews we saw his star the shepherds heard the glorious announcement from the angel Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today, in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord. And then a bit later, the heavenly host. Glory to God in the highest and on earth. Peace to men on whom His favor rests. Wow. Truly, this was the most wonderful sermon ever preached in the history of the world. And what a preacher. Directly from heaven. Directly from the presence of God. He comes with the gladdest tidings of great joy ever to reach this earth. Tidings filled with eternal and heavenly meaning. But as of yet, that meaning, All that we know in our day as we study Scripture, all that we know was packed into the angel's announcement. That meaning was yet unclear to God's people. We know from our study of Scripture that the angel announces the Son of Righteousness who has come with healing in His wings. The baby the angel speaks of is the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. He is the one and only who would deliver His people from all of their sin and guilt and misery and death and darkness and make them heirs of eternal life and partakers of heavenly glory. This baby is the suffering servant Isaiah speaks of who is the great prophet who would bring his people to know the Lord. He is the eternal high priest who would bring the perfect sacrifice once for all. He is the great King who would fight for and protect His people, who would be victorious over Satan, sin, death, hell, and the grave. All of that was packed into this announcement of the angel, and although that meaning may have been yet unclear to the shepherds and to the world, yet what an announcement! A Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord. Now, given their expectations, the shepherds might have asked, what palace is he in? What prominent family is the blessed family chosen by God? Where in Jerusalem will we find him? After all, that was the logical place, right? That's where David sat on the throne and that was the capital city. And they might have expected the comfort of royal purple blankets wrapped around his tiny body to keep him warm. They might have expected servants attending him and his mother, tending to their every need. They might have expected noble and wise dignitaries and rulers come from far and wide surrounding his bed. As well, they might have expected gifts being brought as well from far and wide. Or certainly, there would be trumpets on every hillside passing the message back to each other on and on and on throughout the region. announcing this birth. But no. It was just in the nearby fields to these shepherds. The rest of the world knew nothing. It was business as usual. And the sign that the angels spoke of, well, really anticlimactic as far as this glorious message was concerned, to you has been born a Savior who is Christ the Lord. you will find the baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. What? No palace? No purple? No entourage of worshipping kings and nobles? No earthly riches and honor and power? Instead, the very opposite, poverty of poverty? No pomp and circumstance, but instead extreme humiliation? You see, on the one hand, the shepherds would find an ordinary-looking child. But you know, beloved, that's part of the point here. All babies, all ordinary babies, were wrapped in what we know, and many of us grew up knowing, swaddling clothes. Strips of cloth. This baby would look ordinary. Like nothing special. Except that he was an outcast. There was no room for him in a palace. No room in even one of the homes in this city of David. Not even a room in the inn. They had to borrow the living quarters of the animals. God's people are called to be in the world, but not of the world. And our Lord Jesus Christ entered the world without anything of the world. The hope and heart's desire of Israel would be found in the most hopeless of circumstances. Yet these were fitting circumstances. Indeed, this baby is the one to whom, as the psalmist says in Psalm 2, the nations would be given to Him as His inheritance, and He would possess the ends of the earth. He is the one of whom the Heavenly Father would say, this is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, and who would be anointed by the Spirit of God. Yet His kingdom is not of this world, but of heaven. It's not of man, but of God. It's not material, but spiritual. It's not a kingdom of human power and wisdom, but of the power and righteousness of God. And His kingdom would not be fought for and won by worldly warfare and human power, but through obedience, even unto death. Yes, this baby before whom every knee would bow is the one before whom every knee would indeed bow one day, but not because He came to deliver His people from the oppression of earthly enemies and from the power of foreign armies. He did not come to be a social director and to reform the lack of equality among men. He did not come to improve lousy living conditions or to raise taxes for the rich and to cut taxes for the poor. He did not come to fix Social Security. He did not come to bring worldwide peace and prosperity or any of these things in the earthly and material sense of the word. He is the light of the world come into a dark world of sin and hatred for God and as soon as the world figured out who He was and why He came, they would hate Him. He came to reveal His Father, to expose the deadly truth of sin, to bring salvation to His people by removing their guilt, by blotting out their sin, by delivering them from the power of darkness and bringing them into His marvelous light. He came to suffer the wrath and punishment of God in place of His people, and in doing so, this baby would become a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to the world. Yet without compromise, He would condemn the world's works of darkness by His righteousness. And as even His own, as His own would come to realize that He didn't fit their expectations and that His purpose contradicted their purpose, He would be despised and rejected. He would be hated. And the day would come when even the comfort of the swaddling cloths and the manger that He enjoyed as a tiny baby would in essence be taken from Him as the only room left for Him would be outside of Jerusalem on a solitary cross on a hill called Calvary. Beloved, the cloths and the manger, although they contradicted the titles the angel gave Him, Savior, Christ the Lord, yet they fit very well His relationship with the world He came to save and the manner in which He would save it. If He had been given all of the glory and glitz of an earthly king complete with the riches of an earthly palace and the glory of royal purple and the honor of men and the worship of the world, all of these things would have hid the purpose for His coming. He was an outcast from birth as He came into a world that did not recognize Him nor did it want Him. Yet even though the shepherds did not yet understand all of this, especially the kind of Savior this baby would be. And even though the sign contradicted the heavenly announcement, at least to us, they offer a faithful response. Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about. By God's grace, they believed. And they had the confidence that this message was from none other than the Lord Himself, that the Lord has told us about, and that it was a done deal. Let's go see this thing that has happened. They did not go to Bethlehem in order to find out whether the angel's words were true or false. They did not enter Bethlehem as skeptics. They never doubted the truth of what the angel had said. They took this sermon to heart and they acted on it. They responded with the desire to see the Savior, Christ the Lord. And the humble, lowly sign that the circumstances of poverty would not prevent them from believing that the long-expected Messiah had come just as the angel had said. Beloved, those who consider the Lord Jesus Christ, those who consider His coming as a baby in Bethlehem, and as they consider His suffering and crucifixion and death, Those who consider all of this in unbelief, without faith, they will be disappointed. Like Naaman, who expected Elisha, the prophet of the Lord, to come out and wave his hand over Naaman's leprosy and maybe do some great work of healing, but was then told, not even by Elisha, but by his servant, to go wash in the muddy Jordan River seven times, not even in the crystal clear rivers of his homeland. Like this Naaman, who was disappointed for a time, in a lack of great wonders done on His behalf. Those who consider the truth of Jesus Christ without faith will only see foolishness. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who do not believe, and they will miss the greatest wonder ever done. Our Lord Jesus Christ suffering the eternal wrath of God unto such a great salvation. Christ's humiliation unto the death of the accursed cross is foolishness to the world because death is not the sign of one who is victorious. How can that be? One who is dead is out of the picture. They can't even pick up their weapon anymore. And after all, how can that, how can one who died, how can that help me in the here and the now? They do not understand the sign. Jesus said that a wicked and perverse generation seeks a sign, but the only sign given to them would be the sign of Jonah. Three days in the grave. But they don't understand. Those who expect the Savior, Christ the Lord, to bring earthly health and wealth, as some falsely preach, or to bring social justice or worldly peace, will be disappointed because that's not why He came. He came to bring eternal peace with God, to reconcile sinners with the Holy One. He came to rescue, save, and deliver from oppression, but not as the sinful world thinks needs to be done. He came to save us from our sinful selves and from the grasp of Satan. Those who turn to the Lord Jesus Christ by grace through faith understand their own poverty through the sign of His humble birth. They understand that He needed to become poor, as Paul says, that through Him we might become eternally and spiritually rich. Those who turn to Him in faith, knowing their own sin and misery, and eagerly expect through Him cleansing from sin, being made right with God, and having the riches and the glory and the joy of heaven, will never be disappointed, because indeed He is victorious. Satan, sin, death, and hell have been conquered for you and me. The shepherds weren't disappointed. In verse 20 we read, The shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. The truth of God's Word and the fulfillment of His promise to send the long-expected Messiah drew from them a faithful response. Beloved, may we imitate the shepherds. May we take the Word of God to heart and act upon it. May we desire to see the Lord Jesus Christ. May we glorify and praise God both now and forevermore. We've heard the truth of God's Word. We've heard the good news, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Many of us over and over and over again, the One whose birth we celebrate is the Savior, Christ the Lord. And God's Word says simply and clearly, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. The angel told Joseph that the baby would be called Jesus because he would save his people from their sin. The manger and his humble birth were a sign of his relationship with the world. A sign of God's rejection by the world and therefore also a sign of our poverty because of sin. And that manger, we know, pointed to the cross. And that cross is a sign that our sin has been eternally dealt with. Yet there will be one more sign. Another sign one day. And that sign will not just be for a few. But it will be for the whole world to see. Jesus said in Matthew 24, At that time the Son of Man will appear in the sky and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a loud trumpet call. Beloved, that's the sign of God's truth. That those who find shelter in the sign of the cross of the man of sorrows. They have the assurance that He's coming again. Not in humiliation, but in exaltation. Every knee shall indeed bow before Him. even those knees that will be crying out for the mountains and the hills to cover them because they cannot stand the sight of His glory. We, those who believe on Him, will be made like Him and we will live in His glorious presence forever and ever. When the shepherds arrived to where the baby was laying in the manger, there were no colorful Christmas lights outlining that place. There was no state-of-the-art barn system to provide comfort and warmth for the baby. There were no soft Christmas carols playing in the background. There was no warm fireplace burning. But there was the wonderful Counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. There was salvation. May we glorify and praise God for all that we have seen and heard and believed by faith. not just on this one day a year, but every day of our life that others may see through us that not only has Jesus Christ come, that it is finished, that He lives and reigns today, that salvation is real. Indeed, the Lord is come. He does live and reign. And for those who believe the sign of the cradle and of His cross and who anxiously await the sign of His coming again, Our salvation is secure in Him. And therefore, beloved, glorify and praise Him, for He is Christ the Lord. Shall we pray? Father, we thank You again for Your precious gift to this world, to Your people, the gift of salvation full and free. even as the angels heralded that message to the shepherds on the hillside, that glorious night. May it be that we as your people would herald the gospel message each and every day of our lives, that you would place people in our path who would be willing to hear and listen, that you would give to us as your people the courage to spread the good news of the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Father, continue to build your church. Prepare her as a bride, beautifully adorned for her bridegroom. Prepare each one of us for the day of Christ's coming again. What a day that will be. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.