HEAVEN BREAKING THROUGH

Lk.2:9 – And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood near them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened.

What a night for the shepherds, their silent night had quite an interruption. First it was one angel then it was literally an army of singing angels. That wasn’t the most breathtaking thing that they experienced that night, it was the glory that filled the atmosphere. It was light but a different kind of light. This light had substance; the Jews called in kabod or shekinah. It had weight and was at the same time filled with an overwhelming different kind of love than these shepherds had never known. Describing what they experienced was impossible, human words fall short in describing God’s glory. Heaven had broken through, the Savior had been born, nothing would ever be the same. Here is how Jonathan Edwards describes this atmosphere of heaven that the shepherds felt breaking in that night.

“Here is joy unspeakable indeed; here is humble, holy, divine joy in its perfection…..It is a spring of sweetness. But here the spring shall become a river, and an ocean. All shall stand about the God of glory, the fountain of love, as it were opening their bosoms to be filled with those effusions of love which are poured forth from thence, as the flowers on the earth in a pleasant spring day open their bosoms to the sun to be filled with his warmth and light, and to flourish in beauty and fragrancy by his rays. Every saint is as a flower in the garden of God, and holy love is the fragrancy and sweet odor which they all send forth, and with which they fill that paradise. Every saint there is as a note in a concert of music which sweetly harmonizes with every other note, and all together employed wholly in praising God and the Lamb; and so all helping one another to their utmost to express their love of the whole society to the glorious Father and Head of it, and [to pour back] love into the fountain of love, whence they are supplied and filled with love and with glory.”

Good news of great joy, today in the city of David a Savior has been born. Our world is reeling, trying to find answers to their problems and something to satisfy the hunger for love that keeps nagging at their soul. The only solution is this break in that the shepherds experienced that night, your silent night invaded by the sounds of heaven. Take some time this Christmas season to be still and listen, I think the angels are still singing their song.