As the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.
Luke 2:15-16
A couple weeks ago my parents and I went to see a performance of Handel’s Messiah put on by a small baroque music group here in San Diego. It was especially well done and I enjoyed the evening. Snatches and phrases of the oratorio are still running thru my head. Recently it’s been the aria and accompanying chorus:
But who may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth? For He is like a refiner’s fire.
And He shall purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.
These two are almost verbatim from the prophesy of Malachi 3:2-3.
This advent season, I find myself pondering where I am and where I should be in my Christian walk. I have found myself at times musing on what I think of God and how I relate to him. It seems that, often, I think small of God. He is not looming in my consciousness and heart as much as I suppose He truly is in real life.
The more I read, the more I am convinced that my heart’s view of God is often lukewarm: that He is small, distant, and that I am coming to worship him…that I, as a man, can stand before him. Yet, this is an inaccurate – no, a sinful – understanding of God.
As such, I am especially thankful this season that God bequeathed his written word to us and that it is a testimony of his character and love. It reminds me of reality, and who He really is. The reality is that God is far from small and his interactions with and comments of his people down thru history show otherwise.
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When God appeared to Abraham (ca. 1800 BC), He said “I am the Almighty God; walk before me and be thou perfect.” And, Abraham fell on his face (Gen. 17:3).
When Moses beheld the burning bush, in the presence of God, God instructed him to “put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God. (Ex. 3:6).
When the Israelites arrived at Mt Horeb after leaving Egypt (ca. 1300BC) and God descended on the mountain in clouds and darkness, so “terrible” was the experience that Moses said (rendered eloquently in high King James English) “I exceedingly fear and quake” (Heb. 12:21).
When a much bolder Moses talked with God and asked him to show his glory, God replied, “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live” (Ex. 33:20).
When King Solomon dedicated the temple, the visible presence (shekinah) of God descended, filling the temple, and the priests could not perform their duties due to the “glory of the Lord” (2nd Chron 5:14).
The prophet Nahum described God’s presence on earth as “the mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein” (Nah. 1:5).
When Isaiah saw a vision of the Lord “high and lifted up”, he said the posts of the door moved at the voice of the angels that spoke, and house was filled with smoke. And he said, “Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclear lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isa. 6:5).
When John the Baptist came, people pondered whether he was the Messiah. He answered by saying “One mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose” (Luke 3:16, emphasis mine). John, the greatest of all the prophets, said he was not worthy to even be Jesus’s menial servant.
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As I’ve been pondering the words of Handel’s Messiah and been mulling over these other verses, it adds more meaning for me to the passage that Paul wrote to the Philippians about Jesus:
…Christ Jesus: who, though never ceasing to be the full nature of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” – Phil. 3:5-7 (ESV, amplified mine)
Looking at the earth or heavens or contemplating them: to do so, God says He must humble himself (Ps. 113:6). Yet, in the incarnation, more than just beholding the earth, God-the-Son came to earth as a servant – born first a helpless little baby.
The Christmas season does not mark the birth of a just a good person. It marks the point where God the Creator, pure spirit, became flesh, and lived as a man among us (Jn. 1:14). It is a mystery – that is, something we can’t comprehend. Words fail to adequately describe the profound meaning of this. It’s easy for the natural man to say “so?” and be dismissive. It’s easy for us to say “the birth of Jesus Christ our Savior” and leave it at that – but that’s my point. I fear my view of God far too often is not biblical…that is, it is incongruent with full reality. To be morally congruent, these facts demand a serious response.
The shepherds that the angels appeared to at Christ’s birth, didn’t say after the encounter “angels, wow, what a level ten experience! that is great news! we’re going to have this one for the history books”, and then go on tending sheep. No, they left the sheep and went “in haste” to seek the Child. It was a serious response.
What should my response to God be like? Well, Habakkuk the prophet said “Let all the earth keep silence” before the presence of God (Hab 2:20). It is saying that to relate to God properly, there must be reverence and fear – the right heart and state-of-mind. The first verse from the associated hymn, Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, hints to this understanding well:
Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly-minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.
Interestingly, in his vision of the Lord, Isaiah says that the angels hid their faces with their wings. Does it mean that even the holy, pure messengers are accustomed to hide their faces from the presence of God? Perhaps. The scene shows the magnitude of God’s true glory, at least.
In the beginning, God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. It must have been wonderful: Adam and Eve, albeit finite beings, in perfection in a perfect world, walked with God in the cool of the evening as friends speak to each other (Gen 3:8). Once they sinned, whether at once or gradually, God distanced himself from mankind. Like a divorce, the fellowship between God and mankind was over.
Thus, God could not show his fully glorified face to Moses: Moses as a finite and sinful being could not survive the encounter. It would have destroyed him. The answer to Malachi’s question “who will stand when He appears?” thus seems that no human being will be able to stand before God of themselves.
However, God’s promise thru Jesus Christ, is that one day regenerated men and women will see him as He is (1st Cor 13:12). This is partly the truth that we celebrate every Christmas. While we celebrate the birth of the King, we are also remembering that it is because of the life and death that He lived and died that his birth has so much significance to mankind: Jesus paid the perfect sacrifice and opened the way – the only way – for man to see the LORD face-to-face, as a man speaks with his friend, and live to survive the encounter.
Behold, my servant shall deal prudently,
Isaiah 52:13,15
he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high….kings shall shut their mouths at him: for that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider.
