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Good News Of Great Joy
Dr. Tom Hawkes
Luke 2:10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”

The angel announces that the news of the birth of Jesus the Christ is good news of great joy. But why is it such good news of great joy? 

It is good news of great joy because by Christ our spiritual conflict with God is healed. No longer estranged, no longer his secret or open enemies, we become God’s friends and more, his children, beloved sons and daughters of God. There can be no greater news, no greater joy than knowing God through Christ. The news of Christ come to save us from sin for an everlasting relationship with God is fabulously good news

It is good news of great joy because our internal conflict of self-identity—wondering, who am I? what am I? why am I?—are all given definitive answers. I am God’s beloved child, created in his very image to be like him, to love him, to live for him with every breath. We have not only peace with God but peace within our troubled breasts. 

It is good news of great joy because our relational conflicts with other people are addressed, or at least have begun to be addressed. We no longer must triumph over others, judging ourselves superior in any way we can imagine. Instead, we can see ourselves as their servant, them as more important than us. We are ready to take the low seat to lift them higher toward Christ.

News of Christ’s birth into the world is really good news of the highest joy for it means not only that we as individuals are reconciled with God, with ourselves, and with others, but that an entire people will be reconciled this way. We are reconciled as a people, a nation, a community of the King Jesus. We are no longer alone in a big world but now forever are part of the people of God, an eternal family. 

It is good news of great joy because the birth of Christ means that everything sad will one day become untrue. That everything good we have longed for will become true, one day soon, and forever and ever thereafter. All that is painful will be undone with joy! “By calling it great joy, he shows us, not only that we ought, above all things, to rejoice in the salvation brought us by Christ, but that this blessing is so great and boundless, as fully to compensate for all the pains, distresses, and anxieties of the present life.” (John Calvin,  Commentary, Luke 2:10)

This is indeed good news of great joy for all the people. For anyone, from any background, religion, language, culture, or sin may find this good news and live. “God invites all indiscriminately to salvation through the Gospel.” (Calvin, Com. Luke 2:10) 

Let me, let us, revel in the goodness of this news of greatest joy. May we always remember the joy, the greatness of the joy, of knowing Jesus.