The Glory Shone

Preaching Notes

Focus Text: Luke 2:1-14, (15-20)

“It’s always darkest before the dawn.” We’ve all heard that cliché. It is supposed to be a word of encouragement. Lord knows, we need as much of that as we can get. But it isn’t true. At least in a natural, cosmological sense. Before dawn, light begins to grow. It is almost too subtle to notice. Slowly, what was invisible begins to become detectible. What was imperceptible becomes obvious. The light grows, we say. Little by little, we see, and we understand, and we accept. It’s a process. We grow in faith; we walk the discipleship path; we’re on the way. And there is the glory.

Except that isn’t how we expect glory to shine—for us or in us or, by the grace of God, from us. We expect a moment. A flash. The angel appeared, and the glory shone around them, Luke says (2:9). Suddenly – not gradually like dawn – suddenly, there was a multitude of the heavenly host singing “glory!” That’s how glory works, we believe. That bursting in, that interruption, that serendipity. And there are those moments aplenty.

Maybe you’ve been a part of a meeting or retreat where the exercise was to share “glory sightings.” What are those? Often, they are a sudden realization, a breakthrough of some sort, a breath-catching moment, perhaps. We love those. We live for those. We live by those. That’s part of what the exercise is about – opening our eyes to the activity of the Spirit or the presence of God in our midst.

There were shepherds keeping watch, Luke tells us. But he doesn’t tell us what they were watching. It’s self-evident, we assume. They were watching the flock. They were watching for predators. They were watching one another, most likely. They were watching the hours pass. What they weren’t watching for was what happened. They weren’t watching for an explosion of angels. They weren’t watching for an incursion from the other side of eternity. They weren’t watching for the glory that shone all around them. It just happened. Suddenly. Surprisingly. Frighteningly. Glory can shock us, startle us. Glory can shake us to our core. But even so, afterward, they wanted more. Or they wanted to do something to acknowledge it was real. “Let’s go,” they said to one another, “to see this thing; this thing we are somehow a part of; this thing that spilled out all over us and our flock and the fields and the stars still seem to vibrate somehow. Let’s go.”

So, they went. Luke doesn’t say how far they went. “In the region,” he said. It could have been a field next to the town, the little town of Bethlehem. Or it might have been a hike. “What happened to the sheep?” we wonder. Did the shepherds draw straws, and some poor soul of a shepherd had to stay behind? They didn’t think about that. They were still awed by the glory. Their eyes were still vibrating; their hearts were still pounding. They were hip-deep in glory. So, they went.

And they found Mary and Joseph and the babe – this thing that was made known to them – was lying in the manger. They ran all the way from the field, scruffy, sweaty, tired, and now here it was, right before them. They didn’t know what to do. How could they? Did they kneel? Did they stand in awe? Did they move closer or shy away? We don’t know. All Luke tells us is that they talked about what they heard and what they saw. They talked about the glory that burst upon them. They amazed everyone who had gathered, and they planted deep things in the heart of the young mother, who also knew glory.

What was Mary’s experience of glory? It appears to be another instance of the sudden bursting in of this light. An angel in the living room seems sudden. A birth is a moment. One second, there is no baby, and then, there is. Sudden glory. So, yes, she had moments of glory. But it really seems as though her experience of glory was more like dawn.

There was a moment with an angel, but then there was the slow realization of what that visitation had in store for her. Then, there was the long conversation with her fiancé. We don’t know much about that discussion, that revelation, here in Luke. Even Matthew skips over much of what must have happened. But there are hints that it was not sudden. It took more than a moment. Then there was the gestation.

In our Advent observance, we read the story of the Annunciation. Then, days later, there was a birth. But this was human biology, however divinely instigated. There was growth; there was discomfort; there was blood and pain. I’m sure there were moments when it didn’t feel all that glorious. And yet. Something grew in Mary. In Joseph, too, no doubt. (Or rather, wrapped in doubt. Surrounded by, buried by, almost choked out by doubt.) But something grew. Some light began to dawn. It was hard to see at first, but it kept growing.

Glory refused to be overlooked. Glory refused to stay in the shadows. Then it was time. The glory had to cross the horizon. It had to emerge into the darkness and be born. In water and blood, glory was born. And it was seen by a tired, scared, and wounded couple kneeling next to a manger; by a group of shepherds running in from the countryside, chased by a vision they could barely believe; by the passersby who somehow got caught up in this moment, heard an impossible story, and were somehow changed in ways they would begin to grasp only in time. Or they wouldn’t at all. A dawning of glory.

Then, some thirty years later, in water and blood, the glory would be lifted up again. For the whole world.

Christmas comes suddenly at times, gradually at times. But it comes. And it offers a glimpse of glory. It offers an experience, a shared experience of glory. That’s why we surround ourselves with light, even in the dark of the night. We want to capture, to re-live, to proclaim that glory is born tonight. Thanks be to God.