Advent Glory

Advent is a powerful season, especially when one reads and absorbs the import of the Nativity account. For someone of Jesus’ importance, we would expect more details and commentary on His birth. The records are brief, just enough to challenge our thoughts and whet our desire to know Him. While men search, ache with dissatisfaction, parched with monotony’s dryness, Jesus, with holy, other-worldly ingenuity bursts in with “Glory!”

From the introduction of Eugene Peterson’s translation of the New Testament, “God entered history in a personal way, and made it unmistakably clear that he is on our side, doing everything possible to save us. It was all presented and worked out in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It was, and is, hard to believe — seemingly too good to be true. But one by one, men and women did believe it, believed Jesus was God alive among them and for them.”

One line from John One has been pivotal in my faith journey, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Sometime in eternity past the Godhead determined how He would make Himself known, the Son would be sent to put God Himself on exhibit.

“Glory” entered the drudgery, darkness, and death common to life. Glory burst into the shepherd’s night by way of angelic announcement. Glory was revealed to Magi so hungry for relief from the routines of their vocation that they would travel for months following a star. Jesus presence, Glory, interrupted the hard work of commercial fishermen, the monotony and contentions of tax collecting, and tedium of medical practices. Persona non grata, demonized Legion, feared, naked, crazed -- and then, Glory! Freedom! Sanity! Family! When the “Word made flesh,” appeared blind men could see, the deaf could hear and speak, and a hemorrhaging lady all knew “Glory!”

The Jewish hit man who “went about breathing out murderous threats” was arrested with Glory en route to another ethnic cleansing in Damascus. Saul of Tarsus’ new name written in glory is Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ.

And then, “Glory” came to me!

The legendary Nazarene publisher, Haldor Lillenas collaborated with Avis Christensen, penning the Gospel song, “It is Glory Just to Walk With Him.”

It is glory just to walk with Him Whose blood has ransomed me;
It is rapture for my soul each day.
It is joy divine to feel Him near where’er my path may be.
Bless the Lord, it’s glory all the way!

Refrain

It is glory just to walk with Him, It is glory just to walk with Him,
He will guide my steps aright
Through the vale and o’er the height,
It is glory just to walk with Him.

“Glory!” is something really special in Advent! Maybe we ought to assign the “Happy Holiday” vs. “Merry Christmas” argument to others and become ambassadors of “GLORY!”