Glory to God in the Highest

Scripture: Luke 2:8-14 

God has created inside each of us an empty place – a place that only God can fill. Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament says, “God has put eternity in our hearts.” This eternity, this empty place God created for himself, I call the glory space. Each one of us chooses how we will fill this glory space within our souls. The glory space.

If you look around you, read the newspaper, or watch TV you can easily see how people fill the glory space within themselves.

• Some fill it with themselves. They will do anything to get the glory.
• Some fill it with a kind of celebrity worship. Look at the covers of magazines. They borrow the glory from someone else.
• Some fill it with work or ambition or sensuality.
• Some fill it with the gang, or the team, or the university from which they borrow their meaning and purpose. The glory space.

But we are most satisfied, most fulfilled, when we have opened our  glory space to God. As Augustine’s well known words express: “You have made us for yourself, oh God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.”

There was a night long ago, out on the hillside, when God came to fill the glory space of some shepherds. On that night, not far from Jerusalem they were probably the shepherds who kept watch over the Temple sheep. These were religious sheep used in the Temple for sacrifice, so they were given unusual care and protection. There may be a hidden parable here. The one who will be called the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, is born not far from the lambs who will be sacrificed. Jesus, more than any other person, has done away with the sacrifice of animals for the remission of sins. Whatever sacrifice needed to be made, he made it.  

The shepherds had posted watchmen who had their eyes and ears searching for anything that might threaten the flock that night. Suddenly in the heavens was an angel. Now friends, that would get my attention, wouldn’t it get yours? Their eyes got big. Their hearts began to beat faster. Fear swept over them. But the angel said, “Do not be afraid, for I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day a Savior who is Christ the Lord.”   

If that wasn’t spectacular enough, they were suddenly joined by a huge number of heavenly host saying, “Glory to God in the highest. . . .” Heavenly host. The word translated host was often used to describe the multitudes in an army. The word host was also used of the thousands of stars in the heaven. It is a word which means, “huge.” Peterson translates it: “At once the angel was joined by a huge heavenly choir singing God’s praises: “Glory to God in the heavenly highest.” 

Glory. Camp here with me for a while. Within each one of us is a “glory space” waiting to get out. Something within us searches for a person, or a cause, or a team, or a goal to which we can attach our affirmation, our admiration, and our applause. That is what glory is about – giving our  affirmation, our admiration, and our applause to someone or some cause.  

We humans tend to fill the glory-space in our souls in three ways.  

Sometimes this Glory is given to oneself – Of the French King Louis the 14^th it was said that he never saw anything about himself that he did not like. Not to be outdone by the French, the English had their King Henry the 8^th. His marriages never lasted, but his love for himself never faltered.  

Sometimes we fill our glory space by the glory we borrow from celebrities.  Look at any magazine rack and you will find the personalities that, for that moment, are the celebrities du jour, the celebrities for the moment. People can spend much of their lives simply living off of the details of a celebrities life. Once I spoke with one who in an earlier day arranged for the opening night of films in Hollywood. On opening night the stars of the movie were there in all of their glory. He had his pictures taken with all of them. Binder after binder of opening night pictures. Of the by-standers he said, “You would not believe the end to which people would go to touch these movie stars, or snip some piece from an article of clothing from them, or be close enough so some friend or relative could snap a picture of them with the celebrity. Something there is within us, that seeks to fill the glory space. Many borrow it from others. 

But there is another possibility. We can attach our applause, our affirmation, our gratitude to God. “Glory to God in the highest. . . .”  If you read through the Bible it is God who deserves the highest praise.  

It was the custom in ancient Israel that when a baby was born the musicians who lived close would gather together and play happy songs outside the home where the baby was born. It didn’t happen for Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. They were travelers on a journey and no one knew them. Besides, they had no home in Bethlehem. How appropriate then, for heaven to supply the music. “Glory, glory, glory to God in the highest.  

If there was any glory to be portrayed that night, it would have to come from heaven. Heaven supplied it.   

Now, the easiest way to begin understanding what glory is all about is with the word astonishment. It can be almost a slang expression. Do you remember Aunt B. on the Andy Griffith show? When something happened that would just astonish her she would say, “Glory be!” It means amazement, astonishment.  

Why were the angels astonished? Because of what was happening. They were used to praise and adoration rising to heaven from the people on earth. But now they were witnessing the Lord of Glory, the Son of God himself, coming to earth. Paul’s great vision in Philippians 2:6 paints the picture. “Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on the cross.” No wonder the angels were astonished! 

But they also had to be astonished at the time and the place. If the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, as Isaiah called him, is to be born on earth, surely they would chose for him the best place, the best time, and with the best Doctors.  But at night, in a stable, with no one important in sight? 

J. Barrie Shepherd, who grew up in England, remembered an early Christmas. He wrote in a poem:

            I remember . . . I remember . . .
            I don’t suppose I’ll ever forget
            That Christmas morning when Mum and Dad,
            In an inspired moment had pegged
            Our stockings to the banister
            With clothes pins so that,
            As we crept down the darkened stairs
            In pre-dawn shadows toward the tree,
            Our fingers stumbled across sheer delight
            Before we even had the time to waken properly.
                        (p. 86, Faces at the Manger)

He goes on to say almost everything else about that Christmas he has forgotten. I wonder if Jesus had been born in broad daylight, in the King’s house, if anyone would have remembered? As it was, even the angels were astonished. And 2,000 years later we celebrate his birth.  

And the place?  A smelly stable, a barn, or maybe even a dug-out cave.

Way back in 1635 the fastidious Queen Anne of Austria, who was building a church, a small cathedral, instructed her architect  in these terms: “The church must be a sumptuous and manificent sanctuary, in order to compensate as much as possible for the extreme vulgarity and poverty of the place where the Eternal word chose to be born.  How tasteless of the Eternal Creator God!” If only Queen Anne had been in charge! Queen Anne was one of those who filled her glory space with herself! 

Now change directions with me. Glory can often be misunderstood.  

Some years ago a very fine United Methodist Church bishop died and another one was called to preside at the funeral. Somehow the newspaper made a terrible mistake. They accidentally reversed the bishops and printed the wrong obituary. When the presiding bishop saw the inadvertent announcement of his own death, he was understandably concerned. He was especially afraid that his son, who was away at college, might see the obituary about his father and panic. Quickly, he made a long distance call. He was fortunate and got his son on the phone. “I’m so glad I caught you. Did you see in the morning paper the report that I had died.” The son replied, “Yea. Sure did, Dad. Ahhh, by the way, Dad, where are you calling from?”  

We can connect with wrong connections when it comes to glory. Glory has another dimension altogether – horizontal not vertical, with your name on it and mine, Christ-like not celebrity-like. If you trace the roots of the word glory back to the beginning you find it means reputation. To give glory to God is to increase God’s reputation. To glorify God is to give God a good name. It is not only an emotional expression but an emerging influence.  

The newspapers seem to delight in making news of religious leaders who have gone bad, who fall or who falter. Some deserve it, trying to give glory to themselves. But who will repair the reputation of God? The answer is, all of us. To give glory to God is not only to emotionally praise, but to sustain or restore the reputation of God.  

I remember being on the West Coast some years ago when Mother Teresa visited some prisoners in one of our national prisons. It was such an odd picture as the TV cameras gave it to us. Here were these huge men, all of whom were in prison for some violent crime, standing next to this small, frail, already up in years, Mother Teresa. They dwarfed her. Yet, she was unmistakably the power-center of it all. She had a peaceful smile on her face as if she was completely comfortable with what was happening. She walked and talked with those convicts who dwarfed her in stature but not in substance. She took great interest in each one. In the newspaper account the next day some of the prisoners were asked what their impressions were of this little lady, Mother Teresa, who had given her life to assist the destitute and dying in India. One said, “She is so strong.” Another said, “She has such compassion.”  Still another said, “I can’t imagine being good enough to do what she has done.”  Strong? Compassionate? Good?  She was such a tiny person, with only the armor of her faith, hope, and love, in a prison where everyone there has a background of violence. But on that day, in that place, there was the glory of God. God’s reputation took a notch upward. That little woman, so totally devoted to God, had increased the reputation of God in such an unlikely place.  

On a day 33 years later, not far from where he was born, Jesus of Nazareth, God’s Son and our Savior, rejected by almost all who mattered, died with such strength, such love, and such power, that a Roman Centurion knelt to say, “This was the Son of God.”  By what he said and how he died, Jesus our Lord defined the love of God for all of us.   The reputation of God has never been the same for those who care to look at the cross. No wonder the angels sang:        

Glory, glory, glory to God in the highest.  

We are each called in our own way to improve the reputation of God in our own way and in our own little world through our faith, our hope, and our love for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

home | calendar | newsletter | sermons | contact us

FBC exists to make disciples of Jesus Christ through joyful worship, caring fellowship, spiritual nurture, faithful service & compassionate outreach in the Richmond area and throughout the world.

This site is maintained by the Media Ministry of First Baptist Church.
Send comments or suggestions to the FBC webmaster.