During last weekend’s Christmas events I had wonderful opportunities to spend time with friends and family. They were very full few days and I felt blessed. Driving home in the wee hours of Christmas morning I found myself contemplating what really happened that night some 2,000 years ago. After spending an evening singing about warm fires, good cheer, and “tidings of comfort and joy,” I looked over to see a lit manger scene in front of a house and realized that while there was some joy that night, there was little comfort. In fact, there was probably much fear: shepherds frightened by angels, an inn with no room, a newborn child laid in scratchy straw, a young girl turned mother with no women around to help and support her, a husband beholding a child that was not his own. No, there was little comfort that night.
The word for glory in Hebrew is “kabōd.” It carries in its meaning the idea of weight something very heavy. It’s a new way to consider God’s glory. It is not all happiness and light—it is a weighty matter. God’s glory is too much for us to bear. This is why God only allowed Moses to see his back (Ex. 33:21-23). It also explains the seriousness the Israelites had when they beheld just a tidbit of God’s glory. They knew it was enough to crush them.
Just like when a heavy brick breaks through a pane of glass, God’s glory breaks into our lives. It leaves nothing unchanged, no stone unturned. It is an uncomfortable feeling. The world looks completely different. You have to reorient yourself.
On that first Christmas night, God’s glory came to earth in the tiny babe named Jesus. From that moment on, nothing was the same: a virgin gave birth, Jewish shepherds and Gentile kings were equally welcomed, a carpenter’s son became a man of great renown, a guiltless man was crucified, and all of humanity was offered the gift of forgiveness.
© Michelle Scott 2005
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