The Glory of God in the Face of Christ: The Shepherds
An Advent Meditation
The audio version of the essay remains on hiatus this week as Dr. Horner continues his series of Advent meditations.
Apart from Mary and Joseph, the first witnesses, who looked into the face of Jesus and gained some “knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ,” were shepherds who kept flocks in the countryside near Bethlehem. After giving us a brief account of the birth of Jesus, Luke records that “there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night,” and
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, Christ, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
And suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Luke 2.8-14)
Here, perhaps more than at any other point in the story of Christ’s birth, we see the birth for the breaking-in to human history that it is. The incomprehensibly great Creator God enters our world quietly and obscurely; but for a moment, the heavens open up, and a few shepherds see God’s entrance for the extraordinary event it really is.
In his space trilogy, C. S. Lewis portrays our planet as the silent planet, shrouded in darkness, cut off from realms of being that transcend our own and blind to them; but these realms of being really are there, and on that night they came into view for the shepherds. We do live on a dark and silent planet, but in the birth of Christ, God pierced the darkness and broke through the silence. The angels saw it, and for a moment, so did a few shepherds in the Judean countryside.
It was a moment filled with glory upon glory, and as we reflect on “the glory of God in the face of Christ,” we do well to note the way that Luke’s account reveals this glory to us.
First, the story reveals the glory of the Lord both in the heavens and on earth. The glory in the heavens, we are told, was the glory of the Lord, and that same glory appeared in the manger, for the one in that manger was the Lord of glory himself. The shepherds saw the glory of the Lord in both places. In the heavens they saw the glory of his majesty, and in the manger they saw the glory of his character. They saw the glory of a God who empties himself, takes on human flesh, and makes himself utterly dependent, because he loves us. Glory upon glory.
There is, however, a second way that Luke piles glory upon glory in this story. Not only does the narrative move from the glory of God in the heavens to the glory of God on earth, it moves from the revelation of the glory of God to the declaration of the glory of God by those who witnessed that glory. We see this movement first in the heavens. When the heavens opened and the angel spoke, Luke tells us, “the glory of the Lord shone round them.” Then, upon hearing the message of great joy, “a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “‘Glory to God in the highest heaven.’” Beholding the glory of God in the heavens, the angelic worshipers responded to that glory by glorifying the one who is the source of that glory. They gave glory to God.
On earth, the shepherds repeated this pattern. Upon hearing the angel’s message, the shepherds hurried to Bethlehem and found Mary, Joseph, and the baby just as the angels had told them. Then, Luke tells us, when the shepherds had seen Jesus, “they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child [and] returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.” Having beheld the glory of God in the face of the infant Christ, the shepherds glorified the one who was the source of that glory. They gave glory to God.
There was, then, glory in heaven and glory on earth, and in both cases the encounter with glory evoked words of glory. In both realms of glory, the revelation of the glory of God led to the declaration of glory to God by those who beheld that glory. The angels praised God in the heavens, and the shepherds, spurred on by the glory of the Lord in the heavens, beheld the glory of the Lord in the manger and gave glory to him as well. On earth as in heaven, those who perceived the Lord’s glory, gave him glory.
But what does it mean to give God glory—with words—as both the angels and shepherds did?
I find it encouraging to see that while the poets agree in urging us to offer words in response to the birth of Jesus, they struggle to know just what to say. Even they are a bit tongue-tied. “The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?” George Herbert asks. John Milton, feeling the same awkwardness, implores the “Heavenly Muse” to grant him words that he might bring them as a gift to the infant God. “Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,” he begs, “to welcome him to this his new abode?” Similarly, Martin Luther, overwhelmed at the thought that “In my distress thou com'st to me,” also asks, “What thanks shall I return to thee?” What words might be adequate? What language shall we borrow to give our infant Lord the glory due his name?
Together with these who wielded words far more deftly than I could ever hope to do, I also struggle for words, so I will merely point to the example that the shepherds and the poets provide. I encourage you, first, follow the shepherds’ example of borrowing words. It is worth noting that the shepherds borrowed the angels words. They simply told others what the angels had said to them. As these short meditations demonstrate, I unabashedly borrow words all the time. I borrow from the gospels and the psalms, I borrow from the poets and the hymn writers, and I encourage you to do the same. Keep a good hymnal by your Bible and allow the “angels we have heard on high” to lead you in song.
Second, follow the shepherds’ example of bearing witness to what they experienced, what they saw, and what they knew. They give no indication of being nervous about sharing their experience, or about how best to express it, or about whether they should create a program or take a demographic survey first, or about whether they would be able to answer people’s questions, or about how weird it would sound, or about how people would respond; they just shared what they knew about Jesus and about their personal experience of him.
Third, I encourage you to draw deeply on the poems and carols whose authors wrote with such insight and artistry. Reflect, for instance, with George Herbert on the experience of the shepherds outside Bethlehem on that night of nights. “My soul’s a shepherd too,” Herbert writes, “a flock it feeds of thoughts, and words, and deeds.” The pasture, he continues, is the Word of God, and the streams that enrich that pasture are the streams of God’s mercy and grace. Here is an image well worth cultivating as a way of being in the world. My soul as a shepherd of being. My thoughts and words and deeds as the flock for which my soul cares. The word of God as my pasture, and his mercies as the streams from which I draw life. Here, in such green pastures and by such still waters, both shepherd and flock can flourish, making music that outshines the sun and outsings the daylight hours.
