Luke 2:8-20
December 22
David A. Davis
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Last week as I watched the Christmas Pageant on livestream, I was struck by how our young people sort of matriculate through the pageant to different roles as they grow older. Mary and Joseph (Adeline and Pierre) were both high school seniors. They were likely angels and shepherds years ago. I had a similar thought after we finished our Wee Christmas flash mob pop up pageant a few weeks ago. The last few years of Wee Christmas, members of the youth group help out with the littlest ones as they transform into Josephs and Marys and angels and shepherds and animals and wise ones. Wee Christmas has been around long enough that many of those youth group members would have been participants back in the day. I wish I remembered the kids who were shepherds several years ago. Actually, it was 2018. Some of you were there. Some of you have heard about what happened to the shepherds that day.
In 2018, I thought it would be a good idea to shake things up for Wee Christmas; to try something different. Of course, the script can’t really change. I thought we could introduce a bright shining star. I asked Edie Estrada if he could dig out one of his work lights that he uses for various projects around here and help me with Wee Christmas. As I led the shepherds around sanctuary with their stuffed sheep under their arms, we stopped here at the top of the aisle and I pointed to Ed who was standing on a small step ladder over near the piano. As I said “a angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them”, Ed flipped the switch on the small work light that he was holding up high. Well, I should have checked how bright the small work light was going to be. I think we temporary blinded the shepherds. I didn’t get to the part in the pageant describing the shepherds in fear covering their eyes because the poor shepherds had already hit the ground and covered their eyes. I guess I gave the angel line, “for see, I am bringing you good news of a great joy for all people.” That was unfortunate because the angels couldn’t see anything. It was likely the best year for the shepherds being terrified.
“The glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for behold, I am bringing you good news of a great joy for all people”. As the choir will sing in just a few minutes:
Glory to God in the highest,
and peace on earth
to those of good will.
Rejoice in God, all the earth;
serve the Lord with gladness.
Glory to God in the highest…
Come into God’s presence with joy.
Daniel Pinkham is the composer of this morning’s Christmas Cantata. “Glory to God in the highest. Come into God’s presence with joy. Glory and joy
This is a bit of an awkward thing to say on the fourth Sunday of Advent, but there is not as much “great joy” in the gospels as we would tend to think. I mean the phrase “great joy”. It only occurs three times in all four gospels. Here with the angel and the shepherds. In Matthew, it’s Easter morning when the women run from the empty tomb with “fear and great joy”. And then the only other occurrence of the words “great joy” comes again in Luke. It’s all the way at the end. After the empty tomb, after the Emmaus Road, just after the Risen Christ ascends into heaven, Luke records that the disciples “worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” That’s sort of it when it comes to “great joy”. The birth of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, the ascension of Jesus…..and a whole lot of gospel in between.
As for “Glory of the Lord”, well, that’s pretty much an expression in the Hebrew bible Exodus, Moses, Mt Sinai, and the pillar of fire, the cloud. Exodus is full of “the glory of the Lord”. The “glory of the Lord” is pretty much the prophet Isaiah’s go to. “Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed”. (Is 40) “The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard” (Is 58). “The glory of the Lord has risen upon you” (Is. 60). The glory of the Lord and the Old Testament, like hand and glove. “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea”. (Habakkuk 2:14)
When it comes to the New Testament and the “glory of the Lord”, not so much. To be sure there are plenty of examples of praise and adoration being offered to the glory of the Lord. An act of praise, a doxology offered to the glory of God, the glory of the Lord. But that’s a bit different than “the glory of the Lord shone all around”. The Apostle Paul asserts that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” But that’s not the same as blinding eyeful of the God’s glory.
Luke front loads the glory of the Lord and the great joy. The glory of the Lord and great joy bundled together. It comes here with some lowly, vulnerable shepherds in the middle of the night. Glory and great joy hovering in the sky over a birthing room that had to have been a life and death moment for both mother and child. On night when sheep, shepherds, mother, child were all at risk. Glory and great joy there at his first breath, the first cry. Glory and great joy paired not at the end but at the beginning. And the accent on glory forever shifted. The definition of glory shone forever changed. The gaze of on glory forever turned. “You will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” It is as if Luke is standing there with baby in hand, rocking the child, pointing with his head because his hands are full, cradling glory. As the choir will sing,
What a great mystery
and wondrous sacrament,
that the animals should behold
the new-born Lord
lying in a manger.
Glory. Joy. Mystery. And Wonder.
The glory of God come all the way down. The mystery and wonder of the Incarnation is the fancy way to say it. From the hosts of angels that served as a tent to those shepherds living in the field, a tent of God’s glory, to the child Jesus nursing at his mother’s breast. The glory of the Lord came down. Not just in the Child there in the manger, but God’s love made known in the flesh, in his life….in this life…..in this blasted life of ours. In his life, his teaching, his tears, his suffering, his death, his resurrection. Witnessing glory in his touch of sinners, welcoming strangers, caring for the sick, raising the dead, challenging power. Forgiveness unrestrained. Boundary lines crossed. The hungry fed. The oppressed lifted. The rich challenged. Widows and orphans tended to. Lepers touched. In the mystery and wonder, glory shines.
I checked in with New Testament Professor Eric Barreto about glory and great joy in Luke. Dr. Baretto pointed out to me that glory and great joy might not flow all through Luke but one theme that does is fear. Those terrified shepherds aren’t the only ones in fear in Luke. Fear is not only to angel appearances but to healings and miracles all through the gospel. For the shepherds here in chapter two, the angel of the Lord speaks of great joy smack in the midst of their fear. As the shepherds witness the glory of God made known not just in the heavenly host but in the Child Jesus there when they get to the manger, the light of God’s mystery and wonder leads them from fear to glorifying and praising God for ALL they had heard and seen. The shepherds own experience of joy in the mystery and wonder never that far from their fear. Terrified there in the field and still joy comes.
Think of the disciples at the end of the gospel when great joy comes back. They dropped their nets to follow Jesus and by any earthly measure, it didn’t go so well. Hollywood and Hallmark and call it the greatest story ever told. That’s not how to describe the storied lives of those 12 disciples. That’s not how to describe all that they witnessed along the way with Jesus. There was very real-world stuff along the way where the darkness was pulling ahead. They stood by as the crowds gathered for his torture and his murder. What Luke describes as a “spectacle”. You remember the two walking along the Emmaus Road trying to process it all before the Risen Christ comes alongside. They were walking along full of a grief most of us can understand. Amid all the fear of Luke’s gospel, still joy comes. Amid all that the darkness had to bring, still joy comes. Basking in the light of the mystery and wonder of his resurrection and ascension, great joy makes a comeback in Luke. A joy that is resistant to the word’s darkness.
I don’t need to remind you that we don’t live in a Hollywood/Hallmark world either. Amid all the real-world stuff of our lives, when darkness seems to be pulling ahead again and again, when the world shakes, when all that we witness and experience seems so very distant from the world God intends and the gospel we have learned from the lips of Jesus, still great joy comes in the resurrection hope and promise of God. God’s gift to us at Christmas, is that like the shepherds, we get to go to the manger and bask in the mystery and wonder of God’s love come all the way down. But as we stand here, by God’s grace and in the power of the Holy Spirit, we can see all the way to the great joy that comes on the gospel’s far side as well. Amid all the real life stuff that comes in between, the mystery and wonder of the Christ Child, the one who is Risen indeed, is that great joy still comes in the here and now. Or as the choir will sing
Glory to God in the highest….
Know that the Lord is God:
it is God who made us and not we ourselves.
Glory to God in the highest…
Alleluia!
Cathy and I have a Christmas tradition of attending a performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto’s each year. Every year the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center offers a performance through McCarter Theater behind me at Richardson Auditorium. We attended the performance last Monday night. We have been to the Brandenburg’s a lot, more than I can count including one year at Lincoln Center. I also listen to classical music when I write my sermons. What comes first on my play list is the Brandenburg Concerto’s. I sat there on listening on Monday night realizing the beauty of the music has been the soundtrack of my sermon writing for twenty years. I think Monday was the most beautiful performance. The rather long performance of all the concertos seemed to pass so quickly. The exuberance of the musicians touched me in a fresh way. The connection of the incredible work of art to the weekly grind of sermon writing. It warmed my heart. What I am describing is that Monday night was an experience of joy.
I am guessing that technically, musically, aesthetically, these particular musicians didn’t play Bach any better or any different than all those other performances we have heard. But when darkness seems to be pulling ahead again and again, when the world shakes, when all that we witness and experience seems so very distant from the world God intends and the gospel we have learned from the lips of Jesus, finding just a bit of the mystery and wonder, the beauty and goodness in life, well, it brings such great joy. God’s gift of joy to a weathered pastor on just a Monday night. Looking for the light of joy in the world’s darkness. A bit of joy and a taste of resistance amid the real-stuff of life.