Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying:

Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and peace on earth to people He favors!

(Luke 2:13-14 HCSB)

 

Recently, a lady in my adult choir announced to everyone that her grown daughter had made the Dean’s List for this semester. She was so proud of her daughter that she had to tell everyone. She couldn’t keep it in. Can you think of a time when you were so excited about something that you had to tell someone?

 

My dad, who is a preacher, recently told his congregation that he wasn’t good at keeping secrets. Several weeks before Christmas, he had bought my mom something, hid it in his closet, knowing she wouldn’t find it, but after about a week he couldn’t stand it. He told her what he had gotten her and gave it to her.

I’m much better at keeping things like that to myself. I don’t like telling people too soon. It takes away all the excitement of the coming moment. As I have said in a previous post, my favorite part is seeing the excitement on a person’s face when they get their gift or are given a gift. Any good news I receive I generally keep to myself and only tell those people who are closest to me.

When Jesus was born, it wasn’t enough to send just one angel to announce His coming. God sent a choir of angels to sing praises. What an incredible sight that must have been. I can’t even imagine a night sky lit up and filled with angels singing perfectly in tune with each other.

Luke 2:9 says, “Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.” Why is the glory of the Lord so terrifying? Well, imagine with me; it’s night, the stars are out, there are no street lights to lighten the sky, no city lights, only a sleeping little town of Bethlehem in the distance. It’s barely visible in the darkness. Suddenly, a man stands before you. Light shines out from his body so brightly that it looks like the sun is shining from his body. Gone is the night sky and stars.

We understand God’s glory to be like this because of the way the New Jerusalem is described in Revelations 21:23. The Bible says the new city doesn’t need the sun or moon because God’s glory illuminates it.

I wonder how it is that only the shepherds are reported to have seen this astonishing sight because when the sky was filled with angels singing, surely it was lit up brighter than the sun. That much light in the middle of the night would wake anyone, wouldn’t it?

I suppose it wasn’t the time and place. God didn’t reveal Jesus’ birth to everyone because it wasn’t time. Not everyone in the world was ready for the Messiah. After thirty years of walking on Earth, the many still weren’t ready.

Even today, there are those who aren’t ready, yet it is all working out according to God’s plan. Like a plot in a great book, certain things have to take place before we get to the end of the book.

When a person is ready, it is my prayer that God will use me and other’s to guide that person to where they need to be.

Lord, thank You for the announcement of the birth of Jesus Christ. Thank You for the little glimpses of what Heaven will be like. Use me wherever You need me. May Your glory be revealed to everyone on Earth.

Can you think of a time when you were so excited about something that you had to tell someone? Tweet This.

“Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them” (Luke 2:9 HCSB) Tweet This.