“Glory to God…”

A meditation based upon Luke 2: 1-14

Preached by Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Christmas Eve, , December 24th  2018 

This sermon adapted from Ed Markquart

http://www.sermonsfromseattle.com/christmas_gloria.htm

On this most holy of all nights I have a simple question for you: Why did the angels sing?  Why did the shepherds sing? Why do we sing the Glooooooooria, in excelsis deo?

Enjoyment of singing is one of the gifts that God has given to almost all of us.  You don’t even have to have a good voice in order to enjoy singing.  A person can have a very ordinary, or even an absolutely lousy, terrible, awful voice, and can enjoy singing too.  Others might not enjoy it, but you still can.  Singing is a gift of God for everyone to enjoy. 

A young, young, man, so madly in love, would take his fiancé out and go for walks.  His heart was so young and so romantic and he would sing to her, night after night, as he walked along hand in hand.   One evening, as she was listening to him, she said:  “I love to hear you sing, but it doesn’t sound very good, but I know that you are happy.”  Well, that’s the way it goes.

Now, aspect of singing almost everyone enjoys is the singing of Christmas carols.  Some of the most crusty, ornery, hard nosed people, who would never open a hymn book or would never open a mouth in order to sing, when it comes to Christmas and those Christmas carols, they, you start singing songs like Silent Night.  You hear this, or another familiar Carol and your heart melts, your vocal cords loosen up and you want to sing.  My question today is simply:  why?  Is it because we love the words?  Is it because we love the familiar melodies?  Do we love the emotional lift that certain Christmas carols give us?  Why do even non-singers like to sing at Christmas?

One favorite carol of almost everybody knows is the carol, “Angels We Have Heard On High.”    Perhaps it’s such a favorite carol because people, like it or hate it, everyone knows the chorus.   If you are out caroling with a group of people, and you are staggering through the lyrics, when you finally get to the chorus, everybody can sing: “Glooooooooooooria. In Excelsis Deo.”  When you get to the second stanza, things start to fall apart and only the better singers know the words and the words go like this:  (sung) “Shepherds why this jubilee, dadadadadadada. What glad tidings so we bring  dadaddadadadadada.”  Then finally, everyone can join in again belt out the chorus:  “Gloooooooooooooria.”  We all do it.    And it is the third stanza that is even worse for non-singers, but we love it when it comes to the Gloria because we know the chorus of the Gloria very well.  We go for the Gloria.

It is with this mood that tonight; on this very special, holy, sacred, wonderful night, that we ask this one important question:  why did the angels sing ‘glory to God in the highest?  Why did the shepherds sing too?  Why do we sing ‘glooooooooooooria, in excelsis deo, which means ‘glory to God in the highest?  Why?

Well, we are told in the text that ‘there were shepherds out in the fields, watching  over their flocks by night, and an angel of the Lord came to them, and the glory of the Lord was all around them, and the shepherds were very much afraid.  And the angel said to them:  Fear not, for I bring you good news of great joy which shall be for all people, for unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign for you, you will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.  And suddenly, there was with that angel, a multitude of heavenly hosts, hundreds of thousands of angels together, singing: (women singing) Glooooooooooooooia, in excelsis deo.

Now, finally, why?  Why were those angels singing ‘glory to God?  Why did the Shepherds finally start singing too Why?   Because they had been told that the Christ child was born for them.   As the traditional text says:  “For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior, which is Christ the Lord” (11).  Understanding that the Messiah was born for them, personally, they sang.    Initially, the shepherds did not fully understand.  They did not, at first understand that the Christ child was for them, so they did not sing, but listened to the angels.    But after the shepherds went to the manger, to the place where Jesus was sleeping in the straw, and Mary put the precious little child into the shepherds rough and calloused hands,  and then Mary repeated:  “For you, …for you is born this day.”  And the Shepherds took baby Jesus into their arms saying:  For me?  For us?   It is right there, when the shepherds finally understood that the Christ child was to be theirs, their very own holy child too, that the Bible goes on to say, that as the shepherds where returning home, they were glorifying God singing (ask the men to sing) “Glooooooooooooooria. In Excelsis Deo.”

So, tonight, on this holy night, can you imagine the angels appearing to take us, you, and me,  right up to the manger and where Mary picks up the baby, the Christ child, the Messiah, our LORD, and the baby Jesus is placed into your hands, and you take the Christ child and you hold the Christ child close, and you look into this baby’s eyes, and you realize, deeply, that the Christ child is ‘for you’.   When you fully and finally realize that this Christ child is yours; you very own, you too will start to sing, not just with your lips but from your heart: (pastor sings) “gloooooooooooria. In Excelis Deo.”

The word, Gloria, comes from the word, glory. The glory is what the Jewish rabbi’s called ‘the Shekinah glory’, which comes from Deuteronomy 33:16: ‘to dwell in the bush’, SHAW-KAN SEN-AH (Hebrew), thus the Shekinah’, the Shekinah ‘KAWBOD’ (glory).   This term from the Rabbi’s refers to The Divine Presence of God.   As you know, in the Old Testament, the Presence of God, the glory of God, first appeared in the bush that burned, but did not burn up, and then that Divine Presence was the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. You could see the pillar of fire; and you could see the cloud.   The glory was ultra-bright.  The glory is fiery light. The glory was the glow-ria of the angels that appeared in dark of their night.    

We are told that as they, the shepherds, were ‘keeping watch over their flocks by night’ , 

 ‘the angel appeared’ and this ‘glowing’ angel reflected the ‘glory of the Lord’ which allowed  God’s ‘glory’ to shine around them’.  It says: “And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. (Lk. 2:9 KJV).   At first it looked like God’s glory ‘surrounded them’ or, as one Spanish translation says, ‘enveloppa’; it enveloped them.   This ‘glory’ was so definite, so distinct, and so distinct that it made them ‘sore afraid’;  that is, so ‘frightful’ that it started to hurt them physically.  We would say ‘it made my skin crawl’.    But that was only a split second, because the very first words out of the angels mouth was, “Fear Not!”  “Don’t Be Afraid! I bring you good tidings of great joy’; GOOD NEWS (2:10).

So, here is why the singing started:  The angel said, “FOR I BRING YOU GOOD NEWS… FOR YOU IS BORN THIS DAY…  THIS SHALL BE A SIGN FOR YOU.  YOU SHALL FIND THE  BABE…   THIS CHILD IS BORN FOR YOU.    When you realize that JESUS is for you, your very own, you then begin to sense the glow-ria, an inner glow, a glow-ria in one’s heart.  And when there is a glow-ria in one’s heart, one begins to sing ‘gloria’ on one’s lips.  

I would like to ask you a question:  How many of you have Christmas trees?  Do you have Christmas trees at your house?  Would you raise your hands to show me you are awake tonight?  Good.  Now, I need to ask you another question:  How many of you have Christmas presents under the Christmas tree with your name on it?  Could I see your hands?  How sad it would be for you if you didn’t have a Christmas present under the tree with your name on it, which was your very own present. 

Some four hundred years ago, Martin Luther, the one who invented the Christmas tree, wrote these words that are the right ‘key’ to singing Christmas.  He wrote:  “Of what benefit would it be to me if Jesus would have been born a thousand times and it would have been sung daily in my ears that Jesus Christ was born, but that I was never to hear that Jesus Christ was born for me?”    The right key of Christmas is that Jesus is born to be my very own.  

Some of you children who are here tonight, do you remember your first trike?  Or how about when you grew a little older and you were given our first bike, your first bicycle? Your own bike?  Not your neighbors.  Not your friends.  Not your brother’s or sister’s but your very own bicycle?  Do you remember the thrill, the ‘glow’ that you felt about that?  Or, do you remember your first car?  I bet you do.  Do you remember the feeling inside when you drove that first car?  I keenly remember that ’70 Plymouth Duster.   I can still see it and smell it from so many years ago, because it was my first, very own car.  Or, how about your first home, your first crumby furniture, where you could do what you wanted to do with that place whichyou’re your space?  Wasn’t there an inner glow, a feeling of peace and satisfaction?   Or do you remember your first child?  That first child which was born or adopted as your very own, and the glow that was inside of you?  How can you forget the inner glow that accompanied your first child.?  

It doesn’t seem that long ago.  It is as clear as yesterday.  It was Christmastime 1989.  Why do I remember that Christmas?   We were trimming the tree, and a little girl was climbing up and down the steps on our carport.   Once, she fell and hit her chin, and Teresa picked her up and comforted her in her arms.   Then, Christmas came, and were all playing with the LITTLE TYKES slide, with water in our kitchen.   She was crashing, splashing, and laughing as she came down the slide time after time.   We had to mop the floor, time and time again, that evening, but it was so much fun.  That evening, we put our own little girl in her bed, realizing that now, this child was our very own child.   There was an inner glow deep within us, that this was a moment God had given, just for us.

When you finally realize this ‘baby’ is your very own, not only for all the world, not only for all the shepherds, not only for all the angels, but when you realize that Christ is your very own, then your heart will glow too. You too can sing ‘gloria’.    When there is the glow of God inside of you, the ‘glory of God’  ends up on one’s lips.   GLOOOOOOOOORIA!

But this is not a given.  If you study Luke’s gospel closely, you can decipher 7 times when something like ‘gloria’ was on people’s lips.   But it wasn’t automatic.   Do you remember the story of the ten lepers in the Gospel of Luke?  All ten lepers were healed, and all ten lepers left Jesus.  None of them sang ‘gloria’.  Not one of them sang this glorious song with their lips.  They had all been healed, but only one leper, when it finally dawned on him, not just what was done for him, but who did it for him,  went back when he fully realized that this gift of healing love had come from Jesus.  The healed leper went back to Jesus with a glow in his heart.  He said to Jesus, “Thank you.”  And according to the Scriptures, he left Jesus, singing with all his heart: “Glooooooooria.”  When the glow of God is in your heart,  and when it hits you, when the light shines around or in you, you will begin to sing Gloria too. 

There are other stories of God’s glory being felt in the Gospel of Luke, but the concluding story was about a crusty soldier from Rome, thousands of miles from his home, living out in a desert, in the Middle East.  And there outside of Jerusalem, there in charge of executions, a crummy job if one ever had one, a man so very far from home, seeing the execution of what was a common criminal, seeing the ground starting to shake and knowing that there was something happening to him and inside of him, and he saw the glory of God as never before, and that centurian said, “Certainly, this man was righteous (KJV).”   Other gospels are even more specific, saying ‘the was God’s Son’.    Through the death of this innocent man,  he came to realize that this righteous man,  was the Son of God for him, and in the very next line you hear him sing (bass):  “Gloooooooooooria.”  

Do you see?  Do you understand?  Do you finally realize that the Christ child is for you, …that the gift of eternal life is for you, …that the gift of God’s healing is for you,…that the gift of God’s forgiveness is for you, …that the gift of a new birth of love is for you.   When you finally understand that Christ is for you, you take Christ into heart and you hold him close.  You hold him because the glow-ria in his heart, is now transferred into your heart, and you begin to sing glooooooooooria.    

Let’s conclude by singing the Gloria all together:  Glooooooooria.  Amen.