Glory
Commentary
King George and Queen Elizabeth once went to a London theater to see a Noel Coward/Gertrude Lawrence production. As they entered the royal box, the whole audience rose to its feet to honor them. Standing in the wings, Gertrude Lawrence said, “What an entrance!”
Noel Coward added, “What a part!”
Indeed! In this season of Christmas, we might well turn that thought in another direction: what part God has to play in the drama of time and space! Says Joan of Arc in the first installment of Shakespeare’s King Henry VI: “Glory is like a circle in the water, which never ceaseth to enlarge itself ” (I.ii). For human rulers, she pointed out, that was disastrous. Eventually the reach would exceed the substance.
But what a part for God! Isaiah draws the ever-expanding circles of God’s glory in our Old Testament reading for today, and marvels at the way in which each successive wave grows more majestic. Every element of creation, from the star-spangled skies to the thumb-sucking baby, stands and shouts at God’s entrance.
One ring, though, among the circles of expanding glory, heaves a mixed applause toward heaven. It is the circle of humanity. Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it this way:
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.
Some would say that “he who sees,” sees God. This was certainly true of Simeon and Anna at the Temple in Jerusalem on the day baby Jesus showed up. Yet because so few people see God today, their song and the cries of Isaiah have often died on our lips.
But this is Christmas, and we have seen. We have knelt in awe and worship. We have been numbed into belief by the angelic chorus. We see. And we shout “Glory!”
Isaiah 61:10--62:3
John Calvin started his magnificent survey of the Christian faith, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, by reflecting that our knowledge of ourselves and our knowledge of God are so intertwined that the one has little power to grow without the other.
C. S. Lewis thought of that. He wondered why we humans, who have so much to live for here, might ever be enticed to long for “heaven” or “eternal life.” Often religion turns worship of God into a duty that exacts a tax of begrudging acknowledgment from us. We have to go to church. We must be good. We are obligated to pray.
But such feelings arise from the pagan notion that we can somehow increase the majesty of our tribal god in the clash of worldly power plays. Rather, says Lewis, echoing David, it is God’s amazing thoughts about us that make biblical religion special. It is God who creates us in his image. It is God who loves us when we are unlovely. It is God who declares us to be kings and queens. It is God who thinks wonderful thoughts about us, even when we cannot be bothered to think much of ourselves.
When the German prince, George II, became king of Great Britain, he had a special fondness for the music of his fellow countryman, George Frideric Handel. At the premiere concert of Handel’s Messiah in 1743, the king and the crowds were deeply moved by the glory and grace of the masterpiece. When the musicians swelled the “Hallelujah” chorus, and thundered those mighty words, “And He shall reign for ever and ever!” King George (whose English wasn’t all that great) jumped to his feet, thinking they sang of him! The whole crowd followed suit—for a different reason, of course, and a different King!
The comedy of that moment reflects Psalm 8. God in heaven claps his hands and shouts of our greatness. And in the expanding circles of God’s glory, we rise, singing the “Hallelujah” chorus.
And, as Isaiah’s vision becomes ours, we find our own selves clothed with glory, adorned like the bride and bridegroom at their wedding. In fact, we are dressed as the royals we become when our parent reigns in glory!
Galatians 4:4-7
Sometime in 48 A.D. the church in Antioch held a prayer meeting during which the Holy Spirit communicated a clear message: “Send your pastors away!” (Acts 13:1-2). The Spirit’s intent, however, was not to separate Barnabas (the senior pastor) and Paul (the energetic associate pastor) from their flock permanently. Rather, the divine message was for the church as a whole to extend the witness of faith which had transformed them to others who needed to hear the gospel also.
Barnabas and Paul left for what would become a four to six month “mission trip,” the first to be recorded. Traveling first across the island of Cyprus (Barnabas’ home turf), they would eventually turn north and penetrate the coastland and highland of central Asia Minor (known as Turkey today). After many exhilarating and exasperating experiences, Paul and Barnabas returned to Syrian Antioch and brought a report of their mission journey to their home congregation (Acts 14:26–28).
And that is when the trouble started (Acts 15; Galatians 2). Reports of Gentile converts to Christianity sizzled toward Jerusalem. Peter came up to Antioch to celebrate this exciting mission work (Galatians 2:11), but others with less enthusiasm were soon sent by James (the brother of Jesus and leader of the Jerusalem congregation) to ensure that all was happening in an appropriate manner (Galatians 2:12). These representatives announced that Gentiles had to become Jews in belief and practice before they could become part of the Christian church. After all, Jesus was Jewish, and was being acclaimed as the Messiah foretold by Israel’s prophets.
These ambassadors of the Jerusalem church instituted separate meal and communion practices (Galatians 2:12-13), making it clear that only those who were ceremonially pure could take positions of leadership in the community. Much to Paul’s surprise, even Peter and Barnabas allied themselves with those advocating these discriminating practices. Paul, of course, was anything but timid, and accosted Peter publicly (Galatians 2:14), creating even stronger polarization among the congregations on these matters.
The disease of Jewish superiority spread to the churches of Paul and Barnabas’ recent mission journey and threatened to split the infant Christian community before it even had an opportunity to get started. In response, Paul dashed off a letter to the churches of “Galatia,” the Roman district through which they had traveled on their mission trek.
In the first part of this passionate letter (Galatians 1–2), Paul reviewed his personal journey to an understanding of freedom in Christ and lamented the recent developments that had seemingly stolen away this freedom from many of them.
Next Paul went into a lengthy Jewish rabbinic argument about how Abraham was counted as “righteous” in his relationship with God before he entered into the rituals of circumcision. Paul concluded that neither circumcision nor any other ceremonial expression was essentially necessary for a meaningful relationship with God, and that Jesus’ recent teachings, death, and resurrection only reaffirmed and expanded this truth. In fact, said Paul, the “law” (that is, the ceremonial dimensions of the Sinai covenant) was like a teacher who was no longer needed after a child became fully mature. Using a rabbinic allegory, Paul pointed to Hagar and her son Ishmael as representations of Abraham’s “slave” side of the family, regulated by the social codes from Mt. Sinai. Sarah and her son Isaac, on the other hand, were symbols of Abraham’s “free” side of the family and lived out of the delight that was expressed through ecstatic worship in Jerusalem.
In the final portion of his letter (Galatians 5–6), Paul used very strong language to urge the expression of true freedom in Christ. This is found in neither the legalism of ritual religious regimens which bind and burden, nor in licentiousness which turns us evil and ugly. Rather, true Christian freedom is experienced when we no longer consider ourselves under external demands that have no important ends in themselves, but when we voluntarily give ourselves as slaves to God and others out of love. In this context there can be no division between “Jewish Christians” and “Gentile Christians,” for the church of Jesus Christ has become the new “Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16).
The key element of Paul’s teaching is that the entire world, both Jew and Gentile, has been infected by the massive and deadly cosmic virus of SIN, and only the vaccination of divine incarnation could bring healing. This happened when Jesus came, “at just the right time…”
Luke 2:22-40
The times into which Jesus was born were dark and bleak. A usurper king (Herod) was on the throne, leagued with an aggressive militaristic invasion force (Rome). Would-be saviors and messiahs proliferated, each with a prophetic message of insurrection and divinely sanctioned revolution. And then came a baby.
When old man Simeon saw the baby in the temple, he wept and shone. When prophet Anna held that baby, although the world around her cringed in shadows, she saw the dawn of a new age.
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl remembered powerfully a day of despair turned to hope during World War II. Frankl was on a work gang, just outside the fences that hid the horrors of Hitler’s infamous death camp at Dachau. “We were at work in a trench,” wrote Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning. “The dawn was gray around us; gray was the sky above; gray the snow in the pale light of dawn; gray rags in which my fellow prisoners were clad, and gray their faces.”
Frankl tells how he was ready to die. It was as if the gray bleakness had claws, and each moment they dug deeper and colder into his soul. Why go on? What could be the purpose in “living” if, indeed, he was even still alive at this moment? There was no heaven, no hell, no future, no past. Only the clutching grayness of this miserable moment.
Suddenly, to his surprise, Frankl felt “a last violent protest” surging within himself. He sensed that even though his body had given up and his mind had accepted defeat, his inner spirit was taking flight. It was searching. It was looking. It was scanning the eternal horizons for the faintest glimmer that said his fleeting life had some divine purpose. It was looking for God.
In a single instant two things happened, says Frankl, that simply could not be mere coincidence. Within, he heard a powerful cry, piercing the gloom and tearing at the icy claws of death. The voice shouted “yes!” against the “no” of defeat and the gray “I don’t know” of the moment.
At that exact second, “a light was lit in a distant farmhouse.” Like a beacon it called attention to itself. It spoke of life and warmth and family and love. Frankl said that in that moment he began to believe. And in that moment, he began to live again.
This is the vision that inspired Isaiah. This is the cosmic perspective that changed persecutor Saul into zealous evangelist Paul. This is the illumination that brought songs to old Simeon and Anna in the Temple when they saw baby Jesus.
John Greenleaf Whittier puts it this way:
A tender child of summers three,
Seeking her little bed at night,
Paused on the dark stair timidly,
“O Mother! take my hand,” said she,
“And then the dark will all be light.”
We older children grope our way,
From dark behind to dark before:
And only when our hands we lay,
Dear Lord, in Thine, the night is day,
And there is darkness nevermore.
Reach downward to the sunless days,
Wherein our guides are blind as we,
And faith is small and hope delays:
Take Thou the hands of prayer we raise,
And let us feel the light of Thee.
Application
There is a powerful scene in Shakespeare’s drama The Merchant of Venice. Portia is a beautiful, wealthy woman. Men come from all over the world begging to marry her. They have a goal in mind, but if they want to win her hand, they must first make a choice.
Portia knows that talk is often cheap, so she has had three large caskets created, and she uses them in a test of values. Whoever would win her hand must choose the casket that contains her portrait.
Each casket is very different from the others. One is made of silver, with an inscription that reads, “Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.” Those who are attracted to the shine of that fair vessel open it only to find the head of a fool. That, according to Portia, is what seekers of treasure deserve.
The second casket is even more spectacular than the first. It is gilded, and studded with baubles and gems. The inscription on this glittering icon reads, “Who chooseth me shall get what many men desire.” The suitors who nod for this prize open it to receive a dry and lifeless skull. Riches are dead. They have no life in them.
Of course, there is the third casket, but is rather ugly. It is only made of lead and fashioned by a rather crude artisan. The message carved on the front is this: “Who chooseth me must give all and hazard all he hath.” It is, however, the one which contains Portia’s portrait.
Alternative Application (Isaiah 61:10--62:3)
There is a powerful scene in Herman Melville’s great epic, Moby Dick, where Captain Ahab stands peg-legged on the deck of the Pequod during a violent storm (chapter 119). His obsession with the white whale has carried the craft and crew to exotic and frightening locales, and now it seems as if divine providence might be unleashing furious anger against this ill-fated quest. But Ahab is a fighter, and with clenched fists, amid the lightning bolts and against the raging thunder he yells a taunt at the Creator who chastens his cause: “I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is defiance.”
Yet even Captain Ahab, torn by his demons and captured as much by the whale as he seeks to capture it, knows that there is a need greater than victory and a power more tenacious than brutal force. He falls to the deck in a tormented confession: “But war is pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will kneel and kiss thee…” He almost pleads with God to stop the awful battering of antagonistic powers and descend in kind humility so that the passions of love might be reborn and rekindled again.
This, of course, is a marvelous bridge between the often-bellicose prophecies of the Old Testament and the juxtaposed incarnation of Jesus that emerged out of them. God did indeed come down, like God had done in the times of Moses and the Pharaoh. But this time God chose the suckling child rather than the plague blasts as the means of arrival and encounter. We who marshal our forces for good or for evil are suddenly caught up short—the one who, as Isaiah says earlier in this chapter, could “rend the heavens” and “set twigs ablaze” and “cause water to boil” and “cause the nations to quake” and make “the mountains tremble” slipped in as a helpless child, and the world knelt to kiss him on a starry night in Bethlehem.
Noel Coward added, “What a part!”
Indeed! In this season of Christmas, we might well turn that thought in another direction: what part God has to play in the drama of time and space! Says Joan of Arc in the first installment of Shakespeare’s King Henry VI: “Glory is like a circle in the water, which never ceaseth to enlarge itself ” (I.ii). For human rulers, she pointed out, that was disastrous. Eventually the reach would exceed the substance.
But what a part for God! Isaiah draws the ever-expanding circles of God’s glory in our Old Testament reading for today, and marvels at the way in which each successive wave grows more majestic. Every element of creation, from the star-spangled skies to the thumb-sucking baby, stands and shouts at God’s entrance.
One ring, though, among the circles of expanding glory, heaves a mixed applause toward heaven. It is the circle of humanity. Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it this way:
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.
Some would say that “he who sees,” sees God. This was certainly true of Simeon and Anna at the Temple in Jerusalem on the day baby Jesus showed up. Yet because so few people see God today, their song and the cries of Isaiah have often died on our lips.
But this is Christmas, and we have seen. We have knelt in awe and worship. We have been numbed into belief by the angelic chorus. We see. And we shout “Glory!”
Isaiah 61:10--62:3
John Calvin started his magnificent survey of the Christian faith, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, by reflecting that our knowledge of ourselves and our knowledge of God are so intertwined that the one has little power to grow without the other.
C. S. Lewis thought of that. He wondered why we humans, who have so much to live for here, might ever be enticed to long for “heaven” or “eternal life.” Often religion turns worship of God into a duty that exacts a tax of begrudging acknowledgment from us. We have to go to church. We must be good. We are obligated to pray.
But such feelings arise from the pagan notion that we can somehow increase the majesty of our tribal god in the clash of worldly power plays. Rather, says Lewis, echoing David, it is God’s amazing thoughts about us that make biblical religion special. It is God who creates us in his image. It is God who loves us when we are unlovely. It is God who declares us to be kings and queens. It is God who thinks wonderful thoughts about us, even when we cannot be bothered to think much of ourselves.
When the German prince, George II, became king of Great Britain, he had a special fondness for the music of his fellow countryman, George Frideric Handel. At the premiere concert of Handel’s Messiah in 1743, the king and the crowds were deeply moved by the glory and grace of the masterpiece. When the musicians swelled the “Hallelujah” chorus, and thundered those mighty words, “And He shall reign for ever and ever!” King George (whose English wasn’t all that great) jumped to his feet, thinking they sang of him! The whole crowd followed suit—for a different reason, of course, and a different King!
The comedy of that moment reflects Psalm 8. God in heaven claps his hands and shouts of our greatness. And in the expanding circles of God’s glory, we rise, singing the “Hallelujah” chorus.
And, as Isaiah’s vision becomes ours, we find our own selves clothed with glory, adorned like the bride and bridegroom at their wedding. In fact, we are dressed as the royals we become when our parent reigns in glory!
Galatians 4:4-7
Sometime in 48 A.D. the church in Antioch held a prayer meeting during which the Holy Spirit communicated a clear message: “Send your pastors away!” (Acts 13:1-2). The Spirit’s intent, however, was not to separate Barnabas (the senior pastor) and Paul (the energetic associate pastor) from their flock permanently. Rather, the divine message was for the church as a whole to extend the witness of faith which had transformed them to others who needed to hear the gospel also.
Barnabas and Paul left for what would become a four to six month “mission trip,” the first to be recorded. Traveling first across the island of Cyprus (Barnabas’ home turf), they would eventually turn north and penetrate the coastland and highland of central Asia Minor (known as Turkey today). After many exhilarating and exasperating experiences, Paul and Barnabas returned to Syrian Antioch and brought a report of their mission journey to their home congregation (Acts 14:26–28).
And that is when the trouble started (Acts 15; Galatians 2). Reports of Gentile converts to Christianity sizzled toward Jerusalem. Peter came up to Antioch to celebrate this exciting mission work (Galatians 2:11), but others with less enthusiasm were soon sent by James (the brother of Jesus and leader of the Jerusalem congregation) to ensure that all was happening in an appropriate manner (Galatians 2:12). These representatives announced that Gentiles had to become Jews in belief and practice before they could become part of the Christian church. After all, Jesus was Jewish, and was being acclaimed as the Messiah foretold by Israel’s prophets.
These ambassadors of the Jerusalem church instituted separate meal and communion practices (Galatians 2:12-13), making it clear that only those who were ceremonially pure could take positions of leadership in the community. Much to Paul’s surprise, even Peter and Barnabas allied themselves with those advocating these discriminating practices. Paul, of course, was anything but timid, and accosted Peter publicly (Galatians 2:14), creating even stronger polarization among the congregations on these matters.
The disease of Jewish superiority spread to the churches of Paul and Barnabas’ recent mission journey and threatened to split the infant Christian community before it even had an opportunity to get started. In response, Paul dashed off a letter to the churches of “Galatia,” the Roman district through which they had traveled on their mission trek.
In the first part of this passionate letter (Galatians 1–2), Paul reviewed his personal journey to an understanding of freedom in Christ and lamented the recent developments that had seemingly stolen away this freedom from many of them.
Next Paul went into a lengthy Jewish rabbinic argument about how Abraham was counted as “righteous” in his relationship with God before he entered into the rituals of circumcision. Paul concluded that neither circumcision nor any other ceremonial expression was essentially necessary for a meaningful relationship with God, and that Jesus’ recent teachings, death, and resurrection only reaffirmed and expanded this truth. In fact, said Paul, the “law” (that is, the ceremonial dimensions of the Sinai covenant) was like a teacher who was no longer needed after a child became fully mature. Using a rabbinic allegory, Paul pointed to Hagar and her son Ishmael as representations of Abraham’s “slave” side of the family, regulated by the social codes from Mt. Sinai. Sarah and her son Isaac, on the other hand, were symbols of Abraham’s “free” side of the family and lived out of the delight that was expressed through ecstatic worship in Jerusalem.
In the final portion of his letter (Galatians 5–6), Paul used very strong language to urge the expression of true freedom in Christ. This is found in neither the legalism of ritual religious regimens which bind and burden, nor in licentiousness which turns us evil and ugly. Rather, true Christian freedom is experienced when we no longer consider ourselves under external demands that have no important ends in themselves, but when we voluntarily give ourselves as slaves to God and others out of love. In this context there can be no division between “Jewish Christians” and “Gentile Christians,” for the church of Jesus Christ has become the new “Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16).
The key element of Paul’s teaching is that the entire world, both Jew and Gentile, has been infected by the massive and deadly cosmic virus of SIN, and only the vaccination of divine incarnation could bring healing. This happened when Jesus came, “at just the right time…”
Luke 2:22-40
The times into which Jesus was born were dark and bleak. A usurper king (Herod) was on the throne, leagued with an aggressive militaristic invasion force (Rome). Would-be saviors and messiahs proliferated, each with a prophetic message of insurrection and divinely sanctioned revolution. And then came a baby.
When old man Simeon saw the baby in the temple, he wept and shone. When prophet Anna held that baby, although the world around her cringed in shadows, she saw the dawn of a new age.
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl remembered powerfully a day of despair turned to hope during World War II. Frankl was on a work gang, just outside the fences that hid the horrors of Hitler’s infamous death camp at Dachau. “We were at work in a trench,” wrote Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning. “The dawn was gray around us; gray was the sky above; gray the snow in the pale light of dawn; gray rags in which my fellow prisoners were clad, and gray their faces.”
Frankl tells how he was ready to die. It was as if the gray bleakness had claws, and each moment they dug deeper and colder into his soul. Why go on? What could be the purpose in “living” if, indeed, he was even still alive at this moment? There was no heaven, no hell, no future, no past. Only the clutching grayness of this miserable moment.
Suddenly, to his surprise, Frankl felt “a last violent protest” surging within himself. He sensed that even though his body had given up and his mind had accepted defeat, his inner spirit was taking flight. It was searching. It was looking. It was scanning the eternal horizons for the faintest glimmer that said his fleeting life had some divine purpose. It was looking for God.
In a single instant two things happened, says Frankl, that simply could not be mere coincidence. Within, he heard a powerful cry, piercing the gloom and tearing at the icy claws of death. The voice shouted “yes!” against the “no” of defeat and the gray “I don’t know” of the moment.
At that exact second, “a light was lit in a distant farmhouse.” Like a beacon it called attention to itself. It spoke of life and warmth and family and love. Frankl said that in that moment he began to believe. And in that moment, he began to live again.
This is the vision that inspired Isaiah. This is the cosmic perspective that changed persecutor Saul into zealous evangelist Paul. This is the illumination that brought songs to old Simeon and Anna in the Temple when they saw baby Jesus.
John Greenleaf Whittier puts it this way:
A tender child of summers three,
Seeking her little bed at night,
Paused on the dark stair timidly,
“O Mother! take my hand,” said she,
“And then the dark will all be light.”
We older children grope our way,
From dark behind to dark before:
And only when our hands we lay,
Dear Lord, in Thine, the night is day,
And there is darkness nevermore.
Reach downward to the sunless days,
Wherein our guides are blind as we,
And faith is small and hope delays:
Take Thou the hands of prayer we raise,
And let us feel the light of Thee.
Application
There is a powerful scene in Shakespeare’s drama The Merchant of Venice. Portia is a beautiful, wealthy woman. Men come from all over the world begging to marry her. They have a goal in mind, but if they want to win her hand, they must first make a choice.
Portia knows that talk is often cheap, so she has had three large caskets created, and she uses them in a test of values. Whoever would win her hand must choose the casket that contains her portrait.
Each casket is very different from the others. One is made of silver, with an inscription that reads, “Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.” Those who are attracted to the shine of that fair vessel open it only to find the head of a fool. That, according to Portia, is what seekers of treasure deserve.
The second casket is even more spectacular than the first. It is gilded, and studded with baubles and gems. The inscription on this glittering icon reads, “Who chooseth me shall get what many men desire.” The suitors who nod for this prize open it to receive a dry and lifeless skull. Riches are dead. They have no life in them.
Of course, there is the third casket, but is rather ugly. It is only made of lead and fashioned by a rather crude artisan. The message carved on the front is this: “Who chooseth me must give all and hazard all he hath.” It is, however, the one which contains Portia’s portrait.
Alternative Application (Isaiah 61:10--62:3)
There is a powerful scene in Herman Melville’s great epic, Moby Dick, where Captain Ahab stands peg-legged on the deck of the Pequod during a violent storm (chapter 119). His obsession with the white whale has carried the craft and crew to exotic and frightening locales, and now it seems as if divine providence might be unleashing furious anger against this ill-fated quest. But Ahab is a fighter, and with clenched fists, amid the lightning bolts and against the raging thunder he yells a taunt at the Creator who chastens his cause: “I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is defiance.”
Yet even Captain Ahab, torn by his demons and captured as much by the whale as he seeks to capture it, knows that there is a need greater than victory and a power more tenacious than brutal force. He falls to the deck in a tormented confession: “But war is pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will kneel and kiss thee…” He almost pleads with God to stop the awful battering of antagonistic powers and descend in kind humility so that the passions of love might be reborn and rekindled again.
This, of course, is a marvelous bridge between the often-bellicose prophecies of the Old Testament and the juxtaposed incarnation of Jesus that emerged out of them. God did indeed come down, like God had done in the times of Moses and the Pharaoh. But this time God chose the suckling child rather than the plague blasts as the means of arrival and encounter. We who marshal our forces for good or for evil are suddenly caught up short—the one who, as Isaiah says earlier in this chapter, could “rend the heavens” and “set twigs ablaze” and “cause water to boil” and “cause the nations to quake” and make “the mountains tremble” slipped in as a helpless child, and the world knelt to kiss him on a starry night in Bethlehem.
