Wednesday, December 16, 2015
SILENT NIGHT, HOLY NIGHT: SHEPHERDS QUAKED AT THE SIGHT
Can you imagine that? It was the glory of the Lord--and the Shepherds quaked! Think for a moment of the most glorious Christmas tree you have ever seen in your life. Then put it in the house of your dreams. Everything is perfect! With every light shining and golden warmth surrounding you, it's all yours to enjoy! Even then it is only earthly glory.
What the shepherds saw was heavenly glory, the glory of Him who created everything earthly and everything heavenly by the breath of His mouth! How glorious that must have been! And the shepherds were terrified!
The angel was so far above them, but not because they were shepherds. Some thirty-three years later at the tomb of this Child, Rome's finest -- world rulers -- would also quake and fall down like dead men before an angel of the Lord. No, these shepherds quaked because these visitors were "out of this world" above them!
Yet for all the glory that accompanied them, these angels were just messengers, errand-spirits, reporting the coming of their Lord, the Christ! He was so far above them! He was their creator! How terrifying would His coming be!?
But no! He has become a helpless human infant! Could anything be less terrifying? He is the poorest of humans, born in a stable and laid in a manger! If He were born in a palace, access to Him would be limited, but now even shepherds can run in from the fields and come to Him unhindered! And so can you and I.
O come! Let us adore Him!
