Luke 2:8-12:

And there were shepherds living out in the fields near by, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

But the angel said to them, "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 Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

The Christmas story is a story of great joy - a story to make us smile and laugh in amazement and astonishment at the good news.

But why? "What's so great about a baby being born?" you might ask, "They're born all the time. And yes, they're special to their parents and family, but the whole world isn't expected to celebrate their birthdays! We'd never get anything else done - millions of birthdays to celebrate every day! And we wouldn't want to celebrate some birthdays - Adolf Hitler's or Joseph Stalin's!" But isn't that exactly the point? We remember Jesus' birth because it's special - because he is special. He's the Saviour, Christ the Lord.

'The angel said to them, "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 Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord."'

But what does that mean? 'Christ' means Messiah - the long promised King of the Jews who would set up God's kingdom. 'Lord' means he is no mere man - he is God come among his people - Immanuel (God with us). The meaning of 'Saviour' is more immediately obvious. He has come to save, to rescue, to liberate.

But that's where we have another problem with the Christmas story. We instinctively feel this is some kind of insult. I don't need to be saved, rescued, liberated - other people perhaps, but not me.

Until we get over that initial bristling indignation, we'll never understand the good news of great joy. Until we see that we need a Saviour, we'll never understand the fuss about the birth of Jesus.

Over these next few weeks I want to explore what the Bible means by calling Jesus the Saviour - the Saviour of the world. And I want to begin this morning by thinking about Jesus, the Saviour of the poor.

Because the Christmas story has become a kind of sugary fairy tale for many of us, we've lost sight of the gritty realism of the original texts, the eyewitness accounts recorded by Matthew and Luke. The Saviour of the world was not born in a palace or mansion or even in a house. Under the oppressive Roman regime Joseph and Mary were compelled to travel the 75 or so miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem to register for tax, although Mary was nine months pregnant. And when they got there, none of those already in the local hotel would give up their place for a woman about to give birth; so when Jesus was born his first cot was an animal feeding trough.

From his birth to his death Jesus identified with the poor, the oppressed and the despised. He entered the world among the homeless and the dispossessed; he was a refugee in Egypt before he was two. He met his death condemned as a criminal, in the place of a terrorist and along with two thieves. And in all the years in between he had more time for beggars and prostitutes and lepers than for the wealthy, the powerful and the self-satisfied. This was clearly a new kind of King and a new kind of Kingdom.

This emphasis on God being the Saviour of the poor is strikingly present in the birth stories in Luke's Gospel. In Mary's song of praise known as the Magnificat, she says,

"My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant . . .
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty."

The coming of the Son of God into the world was revolutionary. He came without the permission and approval of kings and emperors. He set up a kingdom where a man would be judged not by the cut of his clothes or the size of his bank balance, but by the intrinsic worth of his soul. A kingdom where all would stand equal before the King of Kings. Thomas Chalmers, the great nineteenth century preacher and church leader, in laying the foundation stone of New College here in Edinburgh in 1844, said that there would be one equality that would be strenuously taught in this new theological college - "the essential equality of human souls; that in the high count and reckoning of eternity, the soul of the poorest of nature's children, the raggedest boy that runs along the pavement, is of like estimation in the eyes of heaven with that of the greatest and noblest of our land". This is the note introduced by Bethlehem. God has set up a kingdom where the issues of poverty and oppression will be addressed and where the homeless, the handicapped and the addicted will be cared for.

Right from the start of Jesus' public preaching he emphasised this by quoting from the Prophet Isaiah:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour."

And he said "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." In these words he is describing his own work. He has a message of good news, freedom and vision for the poor, the oppressed and the blind.

But Jesus is the Saviour of the poor in an even more radical sense than being Saviour of the socially impoverished and the materially deprived. He is Saviour for the spiritually poor. And he tells us that in spite of what we may think to the contrary, we are all poor. He said to the Church in Laodicea, "You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked." In the Sermon on the Mount he said it was to the poor in spirit that the kingdom of heaven belongs. The message of Bethlehem is that we are all impoverished and oppressed in spirit and we all need to realise it. We need to admit we are poor before we can see our need of a Saviour.

But isn't all this talk of spiritual poverty, just an excuse for ignoring real poverty? Just a way of getting round the hard things the Bible has to say about rich men not inheriting the kingdom of God? No, both emphases are there in the Bible, in the words of Jesus. And in fact we can say that the real key to solving physical poverty is in dealing with spiritual poverty. The Russian philosopher Nicolai Berdyaev said, "Bread for myself is a material problem. Bread for my neighbour is a spiritual problem." Our attitudes have to be changed before we will really want to alleviate deprivation and oppose oppression. And there is nothing better for changing our attitudes than knowing that we are spiritually poor and we can look down on no one. It's the same as the shepherd who knows the Lamb of God. He is more, not less likely to be kind to the woolly variety. Grasp of spiritual truth deepens our appreciation of physical realities. It does not weaken it. Think of Zacchaeus the cheating tax collector. When he came to see his own spiritual poverty and he was accepted and transformed by Jesus, the first thing he did was to compensate those he had cheated and to give half of his wealth to the poor.

But what is spiritual poverty? What does it mean to be spiritually poor? It means your spiritual bank account is in the red and you have no resources to pay off the debt. All the things you need to be in fellowship with God you don't have: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Instead you have all the things that make you offensive to God: impurity, idolatry, greed, hatred, rage, selfish ambition and envy. I must realise I am the spiritual equivalent of the homeless down-and-out begging for a few pence for another drink.

Not long ago I attended the funeral of a friend who once had been at the very top of his profession. He died a down-and-out on the streets of Edinburgh. He once said to me it was the two A's that had led him where he was - Alcohol and Ambition. Yes, and there was also a good bit of a third A we all have as well - Arrogance. The arrogance that won't accept that we are wrong and we need help - real help, the help that only the Saviour can give.

Jesus came among the poor, the anonymous, the marginalised and despised and he made them rich. Not rich in money or things. He didn't make them millionaires. But this is how the Apostle Paul described what Jesus did:

"You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich."

This is the good news of great joy. The Son of God became poor - so poor he was born in a stable, so poor in the end that he died forsaken, despised and rejected, alienated even from God the Father. But he did it for us. He paid out every loving moment of his life and every excruciating second of his death for those who were too poor to pay the price, too weak to win the victory.

If you know something of your own spiritual poverty, your desperate need to be reconciled to God, admit it to him and accept the rich gift offered you by Jesus, the Saviour who is Christ the Lord.