We’ve been talking about the glory of God, and we were studying the glory of God primarily through the Exodus stories where the descriptions of God’s glory were these awe-inspiring displays of power, of majesty, the pillar of fire, God on the mountain with Moses, God seated on the heavenly throne like the all-powerful King that He is. For example, and as a reminder, from Exodus 19: “16 On the morning of the third day, thunder roared and lightning flashed, and a dense cloud came down on the mountain. There was a long, loud blast from a ram’s horn, and all the people trembled. 17 Moses led them out from the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 All of Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord had descended on it in the form of fire. The smoke billowed into the sky like smoke from a brick kiln, and the whole mountain shook violently. 19 As the blast of the ram’s horn grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God thundered his reply. 20 The Lord came down on the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses climbed the mountain.”
That is quite a powerful picture of the glory of God! But it is not the only way God reveals His glory to us. This is only a partial revelation of the glory of God, and in fact God had a plan to reveal His glory in an even more powerful, yet unexpected way.
Glory in a barn?
Without question, the most-full expression of the glory of God that we have been given is not at the mountain with the smoke billowing and the mountain shaking and the ram’s horn getting louder and louder and God’s voice thundering. No. The most full expression of the glory of God begins, instead, in a smelly barn with a couple of scared teens who were pregnant out of wedlock, surrounded not by loud horns and shaking mountains and the thundering voice of God, but by bleating goats and mooing cows. The ground beneath God is not a brilliant pure lapis lazuli but a dirt floor covered with straw and littered with animal dung. And this reveals to us the glory of God.
Why? Because God wants to be touched. God wants to be experienced. In the Old Testament portrayals we see God the King, unapproachable except by the High Priests, who come with fear at the power of God, and who generally (with notable exceptions such as King David) keep the Holy God at a safe distance. And there is truth in this; we find ourselves in much trouble when we forget that the God who wishes to be touched and experienced is not one of us, is not a “buddy”, and is certainly not our equal. But as true as that is, that God is awesome and holy, there is a deeper truth to the glory of God.
It comes to us in the form of a normal, average, completely human infant. Completely God, also, which is where the revelation of glory comes. We find it most clear in the words of Simeon, you remember the story from when Joseph and Mary go to the Temple in Jerusalem to bring the purification offering and dedicate their new-born son to God (from Luke 2):
“25 At that time there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon. He was righteous and devout and was eagerly waiting for the Messiah to come and rescue Israel. The Holy Spirit was upon him 26 and had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 That day the Spirit led him to the Temple. So when Mary and Joseph came to present the baby Jesus to the Lord as the law required, 28 Simeon was there. He took the child in his arms and praised God, saying,
29 “Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace,
as you have promised.
30 I have seen your salvation,
31 which you have prepared for all people.
32 He is a light to reveal God to the nations,
and he is the glory of your people Israel!”
“He is the glory of your people Israel”. Simeon was holding an 8 day old baby boy, but as he was filled with the Holy Spirit he saw not just the human flesh, but the reality of who this child was. He recognized the glory of God.
Now, can you wrap your head around that with me? Because it is pretty important… the glory of God is to be touched, experienced, encountered, and so it comes to us in a form that is intensely touchable, incredibly approachable, amazingly encounterable. God as a baby is meant to be held, cuddled, hugged close. This glory is intimate and approachable, so humble that He makes Himself utterly dependent on others. And He comes to you and to me, deeply desiring that we would see, as Simeon did, that this “is the glory of Israel”.
Does that change how you conceive of “the glory of God”? It is meant to. Because the incredible truth is that God wants us to experience His glory, so He made it touchable. He made it non-threatening. He made it approachable. And this is the call, the demonstration, of love – The majestic King is to be revered, obeyed, respected; the infant King is to be loved.
And that love changes everything.
Advent:
Today begins the season of Advent, which is our time of preparation for the welcoming of Jesus into our world and into our hearts. I bet many of you have already begun preparations for Christmas. Show of hands – how many of you have already made a “Christmas list”? How about put up any kind of Christmas decorations? Listened to a Christmas song (ok now that better be all of you since we have done a bunch this morning!)?
I got the first hint of Christmas back at the end of July. Right – that is when I saw the first Christmas displays show up in Costco. Then someone sent me an Advent reading. My wife and I planned a post-Christmas vacation, knowing we wanting to get away after the various stresses of the year and the specific stresses of the Christmas season. All the same week…
It never ceases to amaze me how much cultural effort goes into the celebration of Christmas, and while I used to resent that and worry about how it might overshadow the “real meaning of Christmas”, I’m growing to see it as more of an opportunity for us as followers of Jesus to actually embrace the cultural emphasis while celebrating it in a significantly different way. Amid the “glorious” cultural celebrations with feasting and abundance and beauty and this excitement about “putting on your Christmas best” and making this the pinnacle of the year, we have a different picture of glory. And we have a deeper, more powerful story of love. So rather than resist or resent the cultural celebrations, rather than rant and rail about “putting Christ back in Christmas” and condemning other practices, I’ve got a much easier and I think much more effective suggestion for how to be counter-cultural (with is far different from being anti-cultural). My suggestion is that we grab hold of the opportunity and conversations and celebrations and using them to demonstrate – witness – to something far deeper, far more meaningful, and far more powerful than a guy in a red suit catering to dreams of materialistic bounty. We use them as opportunities to share what we have experienced of the glory of God revealed in an infant.
For example, Christmas lights are part of the cultural effort. It is so dark in our city at this time of year that the pretty lights make really good sense. Now as a family, we always put up Christmas lights, and as Christians we understand that this cultural tradition flows out of the symbolism of light and of Jesus as the “light of the world”. This is why we light Advent candles, and why we have a candlelight service on Christmas Eve. Now culturally this becomes light-up santas and inflatable decorations and neighbors competing for the most Christmas lights. Last year at home we decided that it needed to be more, so now I have a nativity scene as the centerpiece of my Christmas lights display. Hopefully it is a small reminder for neighbors walking by that points them to Jesus.
More than the lifeless decorations, though, the conversations at this time of year are natural and normal opportunities: “so, what are your plans for Christmas?” “Got all your Christmas shopping done?” “So, was Santa Claus good to you this year?” All very normal, expected questions that are part of everyday conversation with people around us. The “safe” answers are also normal – “spending time with family”, or chatting about Adventures in Parking at the Mall, or about gifts we are excited to give. But these questions open up a whole bunch of easy, genuine answers if we just choose to look at the season with a different priority.
See, if Christmas really is about Jesus for those of us who follow Him, and if we actually take the Advent period to prepare not just for the cultural celebration but also for the spiritual celebration, we have some really exciting and markedly different answers to those questions.
“So, what are your plans for Christmas?” Instead of meals and gift openings, this is an opportunity to say “A highlight for me is always
Now, I’m going to get you to do something a little out of the ordinary for a Sunday sermon, I want you to actually practice this for a brief moment with your neighbor in your seat. First I’ll give you a moment to think about something Christmas-related, which for you is a highlight in your celebration of Jesus’ birth. Go ahead, think of that now (pause). Next, turn to your neighbor and take turns – one of you ask “are you looking forward to Christmas” or some similar question, and the other respond with the answer that genuinely ties in the celebration of the birth of Jesus to the cultural Christmas
Do you see the point? We don’t have to start the conversation, it is all around us. Christmas is everywhere, everyone is talking about it, what do you and I have to offer that conversation that actually points people towards Jesus? There are lots of ways to do that, and now is the time to decide and plan it, because we will soon run out of time and energy and just slip back into celebrating as we always have. That is my challenge for us this first week of Advent.
Glory at the cross:
This morning we get to take this upending of our normal ideas of “glory” one step further. As if being born in a barn was not a lowly enough demonstration of glory, dying on a cross is even lowlier.
To celebrate communion on the first Sunday of Advent is a powerful reminder of the truth that the story of the birth of Jesus is the opening chapter in a greater story, which leads through the cross and to the empty tomb. Jesus was born to die for us, and enable us to really touch the glory of God and be transformed by that glory. To know what it means to be truly loved, and to truly love others.
This morning as we celebrate this act of worship together, I wonder if you might try to be open enough to really touch it. Keep those three portrayals of glory together – the glorious King of Exodus, the glory of the infant in the manger, and the glory of the Savior on the cross – and open your heart and Spirit to touch and be touched by the glory of God.
