Text:  Ephesians 3:15-18 (John 1:1-14; Isaiah 61:10-62:3)                                                      W 2 Christmas

“We Have Seen His Glory”

            In the name of the Word made flesh, dear Christian friends:  For this morning’s meditation, I’ll be drawing freely from all three of the readings we heard this morning.  And I’d like to begin by directing your attention to the first part of the Epistle, where St. Paul writes: “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.  In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will”.

            That’s a powerful concept:  God chose us in Christ before he created anything.  Specifically, he predestined us to be adopted through Jesus Christ.  That means that long before he lifted his finger to make the heavens and the earth, he chose you to be adopted as one of his children through Holy Baptism. And that means that God knew that you would need to be adopted.  You see, if there had been no sin, no fall of mankind from glory, we wouldn’t need to be “adopted” because we would have been God’s children by birth, just like Adam was. The point is that God planned to redeem you in Christ Jesus ... to buy you back from sin, death, and the power of the devil by Jesus’ death on the cross, before he began to create anything.

            And if you’ve ever given some thought to what it means to be omniscient (that is, “all knowing”), you may be thinking, “I knew that. Of course, God had to know that the fall into sin was going to happen, and he had to have known what he was going to do about it; so what?”  But my question this morning is, “Why?”  Why would God create mankind knowing full well what it was going to cost him?  When you contemplate the terrible price he would have to pay – and I don’t think we can even begin to appreciate how terrible that price really was – why would God go through with such a plan?  What sort of motivation could lie behind God’s “pleasure and will” that he would voluntarily enter into such a plan to begin with? Why would God even think up and start a plan that he knew was going to cause him to crucify his own Son?

            That’s a question that Christian theologians and laypeople alike have struggled with for twenty centuries.  Some, I suppose, are not interested in the answer – all too willing to shrug their shoulders and say,  “Well, who knows why God does anything he does?”  They are happy to consign the question to the shelf of inscrutable mysteries that we’ll just have to ask the Lord about one day.  Quite frankly, such a response smacks more of spiritual apathy and blissful ignorance than of genuine Christian humility; so I hope I don’t disappoint anyone if I say we’re going to move past it on to something a little meatier.

Besides, the Lord does indeed answer the question in his Holy Word; so we would be negligent not to pursue it.  That having been said, it turns out that not everyone who has sought to unravel the mystery of “why” in God’s Holy Word has come up with the same answer.  But a good place to begin would be with the one that is by far the most common.  And that answer is simply this:  God intends to glorify himself.  His magnificent creation, his mighty acts of redemption, the splendor of heaven, all of these are designed by him to reflect glory upon himself. We, his people, are to see and appreciate these things God has done and glorify him for them.  As one commentator that I read put it, “God’s ultimate goal is to elicit the praise of his creatures.”  Or to say it another way:  God’s purpose in creating and redeeming you is so that he’d have subjects to rule over who would tell him what a great guy he is.

            Having answered the question this way, it follows that the best thing we can do with our time is praise God, since that’s what he created us for in the first place.  Our highest and noblest calling is fulfilled when we gather in his name and sing his praise. Praising God is our principle duty and sole reason for existing.  And that’s why we come here on Sunday, to fulfill this obligation so that God can be glorified and the purpose of all creation can be fulfilled.  It’s a simple answer to the question—and just about as wrong as it can be.

            Many of you have children either by birth or adoption.  Let me ask you, why did you have them?  Was it your hope to glorify yourself?  Now, because of our fallen state, none of us has pure motives for anything, and there’s always a tendency to want to find some vicarious sense of accomplishment from the achievements of our children – but I think most of us recognize that the primary purpose for having children is to enrich our lives with love by bringing into the world someone to love.  Now, if you will allow me to borrow an expression from Jesus, if we, being evil, have children for better motives than self-exaltation, why would we want to attribute such a base motive to God?  If you follow the line of logic through to its end, it comes down to this:  you and I have something God wants, be it our praise or our conformity to his will, or whatever, and he won’t be happy until he gets it.  His ultimate goal is to get something from you and me.

             But Paul writes, “In love he predestined us to be adopted as sons”, and that puts a different perspective on everything. God’s motive is not self-glorification, but love.  God loves perfectly.  And perfect love never has the motive of getting anything except what is good for the thing being loved.  Perfect love sacrifices completely without any hope getting something in return. It’s not that you and I have something that God wants, but rather that you and I are what God wants … that he wants to be his children so that we can live forever in his love.

            Does that mean that we shouldn’t praise God?  Of course not.  Praise and worship are the ways God has given us to express our appreciation for his loving kindness, because as his children, we will want to do that.  But you need to see that even praise and worship are a gift God has given to us to fulfill our need to tell him how much we appreciate his love – they are not his goal; they are the necessary result of his love.

            Well, then, does it mean that God doesn’t want us conform to his will? Again, of course not.  But why does he want us to conform?  Is it because he has this need to control your life?  Does it bring him glory when we are subject to his will?  Is he on some kind of power trip?  You who have children enforce your will on them, don’t you? Why do you do that?  Is it to get something from them?  It is their obedience itself that you are after?  Or is it that by getting them to conform to your rules and instructions you know that they will be safer and happier, and because you love them you want them to be safe and happy.  Are the rules for your glory or for their good?  God knows, better than any of us, what perfect happiness is all about; and because he loves us, he gives us his rules so that we can be safe and happy.

            In fact, God loves us so much that he wants us to be “holy and blameless” in his sight.  That’s why he made us and redeemed us by the blood of his Son.  Isaiah writes, “The nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory ...  You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.” Listen to what he says:  your righteousness, your glory, your splendor.  And now I ask you:  is God’s goal to glorify himself, or you?  God is glorious all by himself, thank you very much, and he certainly doesn’t need anything you or I might offer to make him more glorious.  No, it’s we who lack righteousness, glory, and splendor – and these are the rich inheritance that God is even now wanting to give us.

            First, he wants to give you righteousness.  He does that by communicating the righteousness of Jesus his Son to you.  That’s why we have Baptism, Confession and Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper.  By these means he assures you that your sins are forgiven for the sake of Christ Jesus, and to quote Isaiah again, he “clothes you with the garments of salvation and arrays you in a robe of righteousness”; that is, he puts Christ’s righteousness on you.  In this way we stand before him “holy and blameless in his sight”.

            Next, he wants to make you glorious.  What exactly does that mean?  We normally associate glory with bright light and illumination.  Does God want us to glow in the dark?  Well, not exactly; but in a way he does.  Referring to Jesus, John writes, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  Now, it’s true that on one occasion Jesus did shine with brightness, on the mount of Transfiguration; but I don’t think that’s what John means here.  Jesus said he was always the Light of the world, but he didn’t walk around glowing like a lantern.  What he did do was continuously show forth the love of God in his words and actions.  And at no time did he show God’s love more clearly than when he was crucified for our sin. When all the world was dark, God’s love stood like a blazing torch on Calvary.  It didn’t make a very bright light ... it would have made you turn away with disgust to see it; but the light of God’s love shown in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it.  But it was here that the glory of God was revealed in its brightest splendor.

            Now, made righteous by that glorious light, God wants us to be glorious by reflecting it.  This will be our glory:  to shine God’s love in the darkness; by giving ourselves in love and selfless service for one another like he gave himself for us.  It isn’t very attractive, this sort of glory.  It’s a glory that shines while serving in humility. It shines when we forgive those who offend or hurt us.  It shines in wearisome, mundane, and often thankless work.  The more brightly it shines, the more the dark world won’t understand it.  But it is exactly how God revealed his glory to us.

            Incidentally, this will be the highest form of praise we offer God.  If you have children, or students, or anyone who looks up to you, you know that what they say about how much they appreciate you is one thing; but you really know that you’ve made an impact when you see them imitate your behavior.  It works the same way in God’s family.  You are the “crown of splendor in his hand” when you do what he does.  And you’ll notice that Isaiah says he holds this crown in his hand.  He doesn’t put it on his head so that he can stare in a mirror and see how glorious it makes him look; rather he holds it before him in his hand where he can admire it.

            God wants us to be that crown of splendor by doing what he does, and to help us better understand what he does he has given us his Word.  It’s a record of his loving acts of creation and redemption throughout history; so that reflecting upon the accounts of his actions we might come to know him better, as St. Paul says:  “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.”  By his Spirit of wisdom and revelation he opens the Scriptures to us so that we will perceive him not as an angry God who wants to manipulate us for his pleasure or gather praise for himself at our expense; but rather as the loving Father who desires only the very best for his children - and to prove it, he gave his very best for us, his Only Begotten Son. God’s purpose in all things is to show us his love so that we will know him as our loving Father.

            We are now moving into the Epiphany season.  The word “Epiphany” means, “to show forth”, or “to shine forth”.  The idea is that the Word made flesh in Bethlehem didn’t stay hidden in a small Judean village, but went out to reveal the glory of the LORD to the world by his acts of love and selfless service to us. So may we, this coming Epiphany, by making use of God’s gifts to us, reveal the glory of the LORD in our actions and so be the crown of splendor in his hand.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!