Christmas Eve December 24, 2019 The Nativity of our Lord

Christmas Eve 6pm
Luke 2:14
December 24, 2019

“Gloria”

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Gloria in excelsis Deo. We sing it in Latin. Why do we sing in a language that most of us don’t even know? We translate practically everything else into English. But not this. Why? The hymn Angels We Have Heard on High is originally French. Yet in the original the refrain isn’t French, but also the Latin Gloria in excelsis Deo.

Might it be that we intuitively recognize there is something so high and so holy and so angelic and so majestic and so glorious about this first Christmas carol of the angels that we sense its language also ought to reflect its beauty and glory. Could we sing it in English? Of course. And we often do. But we know there is something beyond our words about this angelic song, Gloria in excelsis Deo.

In the very beginning the angels also sang. God told Job that while He laid the foundations of the earth, while He determined its measurements, while He sunk its bases and laid its cornerstone, the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy. They sang joyous songs of praise and glory to God while He stretched out the heavens, placed the sun and moon and stars, and filled the earth with good things. They shouted to His glory as He took dirt and fashioned it into man, made in His image and likeness, breathing His very breath of life.

And all creation still sings the praise and glory of God. He’s glorified by the beauty of the snowflakes covering the ground white. His glory is magnified in the morning sun rising to its full height. God is glorified when the birds sing their springtime melody. The waters clap their hands for Him and the thunders shout His power and strength.

And yet that glorious song of angels and creation hit a dreadfully ugly note on one inglorious day in the Garden of Eden. The angels sang a song of sorrow as they sent Adam and Eve walking out of Paradise and stood guard with a flaming sword. Those same angels who had once been so friendly with man were now holding a weapon against them.

And now while this creation does still sing a Gloria to God, it simultaneously groans under the weight of our sin. Fires, floods, earthquakes, and tornadoes. War, corruption, lies, and greed. Viruses, plagues, disease, and death. Idolatry, selfishness, immorality, and hatred. Our sin is so great that during the Passover the angels took such a hideous name as the Destroyer (Ex. 12:23).

But on Christmas night, on this night, the angels found notes of praise higher than they had ever sung before. They reached for the highest strains of divine melody and angelic music to praise God’s highest work. (Think of Handel’s Messiah chorus of Hallelujahs.) As great and glorious as His creation truly is, stretching galaxy upon galaxy to the furthest stars, this night the angels had Hallelujahs of a far greater glory to sing. There is more song and music in the Baby lying in the manger than there is in the highest and highest heavens. (See Charles Spurgeon’s sermon “The First Christmas Carol.“)

God has become man! Just try to find words which will aptly glorify God for this act of divine mercy! How will you thank God? How will you honor Him who has become your flesh and blood to take your sin and death upon Himself and give you the kingdom of heaven? Gloria in excelsis Deo!

If I tell you that you are a creation of God Himself, that He planned and purposed you, that He knitted you together in your mother’s womb, that He breathed into you the breath of life, that He gave you this whole earth for your pleasure and your benefit—then you have something to sing about. Hallelujah! “I praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made!” (Psalm 139:14)

But then if I tell you that you have deserved suffering, death and hell for your grievous sins, that you have angered God by your conduct, that you have accumulated a debt before God that you will never be able to repay, and that God Himself has rent open the heavens and come down in your very flesh and blood to take the suffering, death, and hell, to appease His own anger, and to pay your debt in full with His very own precious blood—then you have something even more glorious to sing about. Then your Hallelujahs reach to even greater heights. To the heights of heaven. Then you reach for higher and higher notes of praise—Gloria in excelsis Deo! Then you sing with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.

You have something to sing about tonight. We sing of the greatest work that God has ever done! He has become man. And man has thus become God! And now the heavens are opened to us and the angels are ascending and descending on the Son of God and Son of Man—Jesus Christ the Holy One.

And, finally, if God has become man, then what sort of man must we become? There is another time the angels sing Gloria in excelsis Deo. Jesus says, “I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). The angels sing when we sinners live in Christ every day and He lives in us. When we turn from sin and find all our glory in the Christ child.

You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. The price of that child in the manger. Therefore, glorify God in your body. While He gives you life and breath here on this earth, sing your Gloria to Him in word and deed while the angels keep watch over your soul and prepare you for the heavenly choir.

This night we sing with the angels, “Gloria in excelsis Deo!”

Amen.