By Chris and Rosy Redfearn, serving in Valencia, Spain
Read Luke 2:10-14
‘Good news of great joy for all people’ isn’t clickbait.
I don’t know about you, but I loathe clickbait. There was a time when I was more gullible. I’d happily click on a video link entitled ‘Biggest fail of all time’ or ‘What happens next? You’ll never believe it!’ But now I couldn’t be more sceptical. And now we know in much more scary detail how adverts generate money for the websites we click on. We know we are being used. We suspiciously withhold our interest and scroll determinedly on.
But when we read the words of the angels to the shepherds in Luke 2, we’re in danger of our scepticism affecting the way we read their glorious announcement. ‘Good news that will cause great joy for all the people.’ It sounds like clickbait drawing us in to use us. It sounds too good to be true. But it’s not.
A saviour has been born. The long-awaited Messiah, the LORD, has been born. The one whom the prophets had promised would finally rescue people from their sins has been born. Great joy for all people.
Spanish people are more sceptical than most, especially when it comes to ‘religion’. They have been let down too many times by people claiming to offer them a saviour and access to God whilst at the same time taking advantage of them. To them, it’s hard to separate ‘God’ and memories of abuses of power. They have had enough and struggle to believe there could be an alternative.
But the Christ the angels sing about confronts the Spanish and everyone else, including ourselves, who have been made sceptical by people overselling in order to draw us in and use us. This baby in the manger can actually save his people from their sins. God didn’t overpromise and underperform. He delivered exactly what he’d been promising since Adam and Eve’s first sin: a saviour who brings both joy and peace.