Christ The Incarnate Son Series

Christ the Incarnate Son

John 1:14

Rev. Brian Bill

December 23-24, 2023

This week, I read an article from a pastor giving advice to fellow pastors about preparing their Christmas sermons: “Dear partner in preaching, here’s a word of advice as you prepare your Christmas Eve sermon: keep it short, sweet, and simple.” I’m going to aim for two out of three. I think I’ve managed to keep the message shorter (we’ll see how that goes), hopefully you’ll find the sermon to be sweet, but it will not be simple, or shallow, or superficial. I’ll do my best to explain some deep theological truth, and if you do your best to follow along, we’ll never look at Christmas the same way again.

Incidentally, while I was working on this sermon at a coffee shop, I ran into someone who has been watching online and another guy I’ve gotten to know. They asked me about the message I was preparing for Christmas Eve, so I sat down at their table and tried my best to explain what I was planning to preach on. When I was done, I was feeling pretty good about my sermon summary until one of them started frowning and said, “That was all pretty confusing!” I told them I needed to go back to the drawing board and invited them to come this weekend to see if I can make things any clearer.

My friend’s reaction motivated me to come up with a one-sentence summary of today’s sermon: The story of Christmas is all about the return of God’s glory.

Let’s begin by defining the word, “glory.”

1. Glory defined. The word “glory” literally means, “Heavy in weight, important, significant, having a great reputation and splendor, brightness and beauty, worthiness and honor.” God’s glory is the sum total of the weightiness of all His attributes. It has to do with the fame of His name and represents His presence and power.

God’s Shekinah glory is the transliteration of a Hebrew word meaning, “the one who dwells.” When the invisible God manifests His presence, He makes His glory visible in profound and powerful ways by descending to dwell among people.

When God made His glory known, He often did so through a thick cloud or by displaying the bright light of a fire as we see in Exodus 13:21: “And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night.” God guided and guarded His people through His presence.

2. Glory displayed. According to Exodus 25:8, God instructed Moses, “And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.” This portable sanctuary was a tent where God’s Shekinah glory shone over the mercy seat between the two golden cherubim. Cherubim are winged angelic beings who protect and magnify the glory of God. Outside, above the holy place, was the manifested glory of the pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night, visible reminders that God was always present with His people while they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.

Exodus 40:34-36 describes how God demonstrated His powerful presence with an unforgettable display of glory: “Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out.”

440 years later, after Solomon finished constructing the temple, God reiterated His promise in 1 Kings 6:13: “And I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel.” 1 Kings 8:10-11 adds: “And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.” This glory cloud had filled the tabernacle and now it filled the temple.

Unfortunately, even though God displayed His presence in a powerful way, God’s people began to take God’s glory for granted.

3. Glory departed. When the people became spiritually sloppy, they started sinning in big ways. Once, when they were losing a battle to the Philistines, they brought the Ark of the Covenant with them. This was a wooden box, covered with gold inside and out. This is where God was said to dwell (this is what Harrison Ford was searching for in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and is totally different from Noah’s Ark). According to Numbers 4:15, only the high priest could touch the Ark. Since God won’t be treated like a good luck charm, He allowed the Ark to be captured by their enemies and 30,000 soldiers were slaughtered.