Scripture: Luke 2:8-20

Title: "Unveiled Glory"

The glory of God -- the awesomeness of His being, His character and His acts -- compel us to worship him. The glory of God is the beginning, the end and the focus of all worship:

1. The beginning of worship -- God's glory experienced (vs. 9)

2. The focus of worship -- God's glory manifested (vss 10-16)

3. The end of worship -- God's glory joyfully reflected (vss. 17-20)

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Intro. --

We put up our Christmas tree this week. We went out on Monday afternoon and chose a beautiful fir tree -- about 8 feet tall. But when we got it home and got it up and ready to decorate we ran into a small obstacle -- a disagreement over lights -- colored lights or white lights?

It was a big problem. Even worse it turned out to be a gender thing. Stephen was the champion of colored lights, and my sympathies were with him. The women of the family wanted white. We were at an impasse. We tried compromises -- start with colored and change to white -- but finally went over to the other side, I abandoned .

You have never seen a more gloomy 6 year old. All the joy had gone out of Christmas. He was in the depths of grief. And I was not so filled with joy myself.

So Stephen and I grimly unpacked the white lights -- a new set all nicely arranged in its box. I plugged them in to test them -- and the instant they lit up, everything changed. They were awesome --hundreds of bright, dazzling lights. Stephen said "Wow!" and all of his excitement and enthusiasm and joy returned. The colored lights were forgotten -- What could be better than this! He was overwhelmed by the brightness & beauty of the white lights and, in an instant, he was won over.

Some experiences overwhelm us -- they compel us to respond with awe and wonder and praise.

And That is the way it is with a true experience of God. A true apprehension of the Glory of God compels us to respond with awe and wonder and praise and joy -- God's glory compels us to worship. And if we come to worship distracted, half-hearted, and with little enthusiasm or joy it is because we are like Stephen before the lights were plugged in -- we have not grasped the glory of God -- we have not grasped the awesomeness of his presence.

So how can we plug the lights in? How can we experience the glory of God so that our worship is like Stephen's response to the Christmas lights -- spontaneous, awestruck, enthusiastic, joyful?


Our passage today is about common people like us -- a group of poor shepherds -- who experienced the Glory of God and became worshippers.

Read Luke 2:8-20

This passage is filled with talk of glory. The glory of the Lord shone around the shepherds -- and they were terrified. The angels sing "Glory to God in the highest." The Shepherds go away at the end "glorifying and praising God."

Our theological vocabulary also filled with talk of glory. We sing about the glory of God. We voice our desire to glorify God. We all know the theologically correct answer to the question, what is the purpose of our church. And many of us have memorized the correct answer to the question, "what is the chief end of man."

So since we talk so much about glory, and about glorifiying, we ought to know what it means, right? So what does it mean?

If experiencing God's glory is central to our worship, we had better figure it out. Glory is a word that is almost completely foreign to our everyday vocabulary.

Put most simply, glory means weight or worth. To understand how these fit together you might want to think of a sumo wrestler. For a sumo wrestler weight and worth often correspond. The glory of the sumo wrestler is to be BIG.

Or you may want to Think about a diamond. How do you measure a diamond's worth? cut, clarity, carats -- a diamond's glory is that which draws attention to it -- that which gives it worth --its size, its quality, its brilliance.

Similarly we might talk about a persons glory -- the qualities which draw attention. What is a wealthy person's glory -- his money! What is the glory of an athlete? Her skill or strength. The glory of an artist is his creativity. The glory of a scholar is his knowledge.

So what is the glory of God? It is all of these in infinite quantity -- infinite beauty, infinite strength, infinite creativity, infinite knowledge. God's glory is everything that makes him awesome and majestic -- everything that displays his infinite worth.

But it will do little good to our worship to simply talk about the glory of God -- no more good than it did to try to persuade Stephen of the glory of white Christmas tree lights. He had to experience them first hand to be won over -- and the same for us. If we are to worship with all of our hearts we will need more than just an intellectual understanding of the Glory of God -- we need to experience it.

And so, to help us to consider what it means to experience God's glory. I'd like to suggest a few different images of Glory:

1. First, the glory of the thunderstorm.

On our anniversary this past Summer Carol and I stayed one night in a little Inn a few miles outside of Williamstown. A place called Field Farm. We arrived late and it was pitch dark, but just after we got there just in time to look out on a spectacular sky show of thunder and lightning -- the sort of lightning that for a moment makes everything seem as bright as day -- that makes the 4th of July fireworks displays that we spend so much money on seem puny. It was an awesome reminder of the power and glory of God.

When the men and women of scripture experienced the glory of God, they often experienced it like a thunderstorm.

When God spoke to Job he spoke out of a thunderstorm

When God led the Israelites out of Egypt he led them with a pillar of cloud and of fire

When God revealed the law to Moses at Mount Sinai:
Ex. 19:16 --On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning , with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled.

Ex. 20:18 -- When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stood at a distance and said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die."

Ex. 24:17 To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire.

When God's presence came to the Tabernacle
Ex. 40:34 Then the cloud covered the tent of Meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it.

Now a bolt of lightning is awe-inspiring -- fear inspiring -- glorious to look at -- from a distance. The thing about lightning is not to get to close to it. Keep your distance and you might enjoy the sensations of wonder, awe, terror -- but you don't exactly build a relationship with a bolt of lightning -- not a very lasting relationship anyway.

The same is true of God's glory experienced in lightning bolt fashion. Human beings simply cannot handle God's undiluted glory. We are constantly reminded of this in the Old Testament -- the Tabernacle and the Temple were set up in such a way as to PROTECT worshippers from coming directly into the presence of God. The few people who do come directly into the presence of God -- like Isaiah or Ezekiel -- respond with fear.

And so it is with the Shepherds. You know the story: An Angel of the Lord appeared to them and the Glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were -- sore afraid? No that sounds too polished -- they were TERRIFIED. Scared out of their wits. You see, their first experience of the Glory of God was of the lightning bolt variety and it left them quaking in fear, shaking in their boots.

Now after they have calmed down, what is their response to this experience? Wow! What a trip! Do you think we can get Him to do that again?


Signs of God's glory are all around us -- but to experience His glory we must have the veil removed so that we know his manifest presence.
For the shepherds it was physical eyes -- for us it is usually spiritual eyes that need to be opened

There is a difference between knowing God's glory intellectually and being overwhelmed by it spiritually.

But the experience of God's glory is not the focus of our worship -- we do not glorify an experience, but a person.

Trying to have a relationship with a lightning bolt.

The real unveiling of God's glory that night was not out in the fields, but in the stable. The focus of our worship -- and the focus of the shepherd's worship -- is on God's glory manifested in Jesus.