GLORY TO GOD

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day, a meditation for

Let us seek to enter into the experience of the shepherds who were out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night (Luke 2:8ff.).

Let us suppose that they were employed by the Temple in nearby Jerusalem to provide lambs for the sacrifices required by the Law of Moses in order for the people to worship and serve the Lord God according to his declared will. Let us further suppose that they were pious Jews who were looking for the advent of the Messiah.

All of a sudden the blackness of the night was replaced by brilliant light and the presence of a messenger from heaven. They were filled with amazement and fear for they knew that they were in the near presence of the God of their fathers, the holy and righteous Lord before whom all creatures tremble!

The shepherds did not know that already the greatest event in the history of Israel/Judaism had occurred not far away in the town of Bethlehem. The long expected Messiah of Israel had been born.

So the proclamation by the angel was “NEWS of a great JOY”! “Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you [the descendants of Abraham] is born this day in the city of David [Bethlehem] a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.”

Heaven declares that the Messiah [the Christ] is born and that he is both Saviour and Lord. As such he is given titles and a work that belong to the Lord God himself! This Messiah is no mere man!

Then the shepherds are instructed to go and find the babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. (Bethlehem was a small town with only a few inns and so to find a new born babe in the stable of one of the inns was not a difficult task.)

But before the men could arrange for the safety of their sheep and begin their walk down the hill into Bethlehem, they were further amazed by the granting to them of a wonderful vision into heaven.

What were they given to see? A sight of the heavenly choir of angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim praising the LORD God in song with words which were addressed first to God himself and then to the world. Heaven was celebrating the Incarnation of the Son of God, the entering into space and time of the Messiah, the Saviour and the Lord.

What we may call the benediction of the heavenly choir expressed that which had occurred – God had sent forth his only-begotten Son. Thus, Praise be to the Lord God and Peace [Shalom] to his covenant people.

To God in the highest, GLORY.
To his people on earth, PEACE.

[We may recall that the Church has expanded this angelic benediction into the Canticle that we call the Gloria.]

When they had recovered from this overwhelming experience, the shepherds set off to see with their own eyes the One who brings Peace and is the Saviour, Lord and Messiah. And finding the babe, they told Mary and Joseph what the angel had declared to them.

Mary, the mother of the Lord, Peacebringer and Saviour “kept all these things in her heart and pondered them.” Thereby she sets for us an example of constant meditation and faithfulness.

Her meditation was of the personhood, nature, vocation and character of her Son, who is also God’s Son for he is the Son of God incarnate: One Person made known in two natures, divine and human. And Mary is Theotokos, the birthgiver [mother] of God, the Son.

Let us join with the heavenly choir to glorify God the Holy Trinity and to exalt his saving and peacemaking work on earth amongst men.



The Rev’d Dr. Peter Toon Peter@toon662.fsnet.co.uk Dec 20, 2001

The Revd. Dr. Peter Toon
Christ Church Rectory
Hot Lane, Biddulph Moor
Stoke-on-Trent ST8 7HP
England