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“An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.'”

Luke 2:9-11 NIV

This is a classic Christian text remembered at this time of year about the birth of the Christ child. The birth of Jesus in the town of David would have drawn the attention of 1st Century Hebrews who knew their Scripture. The significance of that understanding is preserved for us today by Luke, the traveling companion of Paul the Apostle.

Bethlehem was the birthplace and early home of King David, who is Israel’s most venerated and celebrated king. (1 Samuel 16:1, 1 Samuel 17:12). The prophet, Samuel, who presided over the coronation of David, foretold that God would establish from the lineage of David a kingdom that would last forever. (2 Samuel 7:12-16)

The prophet, Isaiah, lived about three centuries after David. Fourteen kings reigned between David and King Hezekiah, Isaiah’s contemporary. After a span of time longer than the United States of America has been a country, Isaiah repeated and expanded on what Samuel foretold:

“For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace
    there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
    and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
    with justice and righteousness
    from that time on and forever.”

Isaiah 9:6-7

The prophet, Micah, a contemporary of Isaiah, He riffed on the same theme:

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
    though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
    one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
    from ancient times.”

micah 5;2

According to the biblical chronology, these predictions of a coming kingdom and a king “whose origins are from ancient times” were declared 700-1000 years before the birth of Jesus. Those predictions were memorialized in the writings we identify with Samuel, Isaiah, Micah and others, and they were preserved for many centuries before Luke penned his own words tying them to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, who was born in Bethlehem.

Though it was an ignoble birth by all accounts, we still remember back almost 2000 years now, recalling the prophecies declared from of old. We remember the birth of Jesus, lying in “humble estate” in a manger in the same space where the animals lived.

Hold that thought…. because today, I want to focus on the first half of the verse with which I introduced this article. The passage began with these words:

An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified….

This may seem like a strange twist to the way I have started this article, but I will bring it back around. I think you will be glad to stick with me as I take seems like a left turn.

Why were the shepherds afraid? This is a question posed in an advent Bible study I am reading this holiday season.

The significance of the juxtaposition of the “glory of the Lord” that accompanied the angels visiting the lowly shepherds in a field near where the vulnerable Christ child was born should not be lost on us. So much can be said, but these are my thoughts today.

“The glory of the Lord” is what made the shepherds fear. It wasn’t the startling appearance of the angels, but the glory of the Lord that caused them fear.

The glory of the Lord seems like an odd phrase to modern ears. When we talk about glory, we often remember some human feat with faded memory. The biblical concept of the glory of God couldn’t be more vividly different.

Think of Isaiah, who recalled a day when he “saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple.” (Isaiah 6:1) Isaiah was terrified in the presence of God. All he could say was that he was “undone”. (Isaiah 6:1-5)

The response to Isaiah’s awe-inspired fear was to put him at ease (Isaiah 6:6) (as much as a human being in the flesh can be at ease in the presence of God and His angels). This is the same response demonstrated by the angel to the shepherds in the field that night, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news….”, they said.

The glory of the Lord is variously described in biblical narratives as a “consuming fire” (Exodus 24:16-17), a presence so great that Moses could not enter the Temple (Exodus 40:34-35), a radiance like a rainbow so overwhelming that Ezekiel fell on his face at the appearance (Ezekiel 1:28).

The glory of God has a weight and heaviness to it that defies adequate description. We sense it not so much in the words, but in the response of the men who lived to tell of it.

John the Apostle knew Jesus in the flesh. He was one of the closest companions to Jesus for several years before his death. John is the writer who said that Jesus is the Word of God, who was in the beginning with God, and who was God. (John 1:1) John describes Jesus as the Word God, who is God, and who became flesh and lived among us. (John 1:14)

John described the appearance of Jesus to him one day many years later in Revelation 1:12-17. We don’t know exactly when Jesus appeared to John, but Revelation is believed to have been written 50-60 years after the death of Jesus.

John described Jesus with hair white as wool, white as snow, with eyes of blazing fire, feet like bronze glowing in a furnace, and a voice like rushing waters. He held stars in his hand with a sharp, doubled-edged sword extending from his mouth, and his face shone brilliantly like the sun. (Rev. 1:14-16) When John saw Jesus, he “fell at his feet as though dead.” (Rev. 1:17)

Such is the natural response of a mere human in the unfiltered, unveiled, unmediated presence of the Glory of the Lord. Humans for all our abilities are created beings. When God pulls back the veil, the film, the filter that hides us from the presence of the Almighty God and Creator of the Universe, we are undone by it!

This is not some commentary on morality, but a reality as sure as the gravity that holds objects in space in relation to each other. As I think of the dark, vast expanse of space that is uninhabitable to humans, the terror I imagine thinking of the tether holding me like a lifeline to a spaceship breaking and sending me off drifting into the yawning expanse of infinite space. That feeling may be like the terror a person feels who finds themselves suddenly in the unveiled presence of the Almighty God.

We live in a world that is “distant” from God. God’s Glory is largely ineffable and hidden to us. God can be known from the world that He created, but He does not often unveil His presence to people like He did in the Temple with Isaiah, or the shepherds in the field, or John when the glorified Christ appeared to him.

When I say this world is distant from God, it is hard to capture in words what that means. God is not actually distant. God is ever-present. We could go nowhere in all the universe that God is not there. Nothing is hidden from God. He is imminent in the world, sustaining it by His power.

But we “see through a glass darkly”, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13. (The King James Version) We do not presently have a clear view of God or the reality of which God is both architect and creator, both imminent and transcendent.

God largely is veiled (hidden) to us in this world. If God were to expose us directly to Himself here and now, we would be completely speechless, utterly overwhelmed, overcome, and undone.

As with John, our reflex would be to hit the ground in abject awe and sheer terror at the surpassing greatness of God compared to us. This is the natural reaction of finite beings before an infinite God.

The difference between God and us is the difference between a being that lives maybe a 100 years and a being that is timeless and infinite, having no beginning nor end. The difference between God and us is immeasurable.

The entire human “footprint” in this universe is a very faint mark. The entire span of human life barely registers on the scale just before midnight if we measured all of time with a 24-hour clock. An individual is hardly a mist in the yawning chasm of never-ending space, and God is infinitely greater than that.

How could we ever hope to understand and know such a God? The answer lies in what we celebrate at Christmas. God deigned to empty Himself of His Glory – of that immeasurable distance between us and Himself – to become human.

In Jesus, God distilled Himself down to finite human form. He became Emmanuel: God with us. We could not approach Him as He is, so he stripped Himself bare and came to us. Thus, John says,

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

JOhn 1:14

God, who appears foreboding and unapproachable in the Old Testament becomes approachable in Jesus. God does not change, and Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The difference in the New Testament is in God closing the distance between humans and Himself. We are able to see God’s love for us in Jesus that we have difficulty comprehending when we encounter Him in all of His glory.

God is always triunal. God is love; and love is always relational. God is relational within his own existence, and His will is to extend Himself to us to draw us into relationship with Him.

When God reveals Himself to people without mediation, the response is always the same: people are paralyzed in fear. God’s response is also the same to those who fear Him: He offers grace, and mercy, forgiveness of sin, and the words, “Do not be afraid.”

This is God’s heart for us, but the difference is great, and God is unapproachable until God empties Himself of His glory and becomes human. This is what we celebrate at this time of year.

“For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given….”