Day 11: Revelations
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest…”
Luke 2:13-14a
Those poor blessed shepherds! How sudden the revelations sometimes come! At one moment the shepherds are captivated, perhaps disbelieving their own eyes. The glory of the Lord shines around the singular messenger causing them to marvel at a thing they’ve never seen before in all of their collective years. Nor had anyone else for that matter. An angel of the Lord appears to certain chosen men in isolated times and places in the old covenant world. In the new covenant world, the glory of the Lord accompanies the angel, and then a heavenly host is revealed! The miraculously multiplied announcement of Messiah would correspond to the many miracles to come. God would no longer hold back His hand, He would no longer gather Himself only around the edges of human reality. He burst in through the door separating earth from heaven with all of His company, the heralds of His arrival removing any uncertainty about the purpose of His coming. It was not for the reasons likely expected. Not to dispose of kings or pass judgment on the wickedness of mankind, not to punish evil and the rebellion running roughshod over his laws and commandments, and neither to reward those who pleased Him. He comes to reveal Himself, to demonstrate His goodwill toward mankind, His goodwill toward those who show Him none.
The misinterpretation of His silence would be no more.
Nevertheless, misinterpretation would continue to be the curse of all ages of men. We would disfigure Him and then distort His words. We would misconstrue His meaning to our own benefit and then mistake Him for the monster of our own imagining. How idolatrous the heart which makes God either the fulfillment of its own carnal wishes, or the fiend at fault for all displeasures!
May the revelation of His heavenly messengers straighten our vision and may our own faith-filled repentance produce the righteousness for which Messiah came.
