Day 15: Glory

The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

Luke 2:20

That feeling immediately proceeding a glorious experience like a memorable travel or vacation getaway, or an enriching fellowship with friends you know could never be recreated, or the mission trip where you knew purpose like at no time previous. Is there a word for this in the English language? It is the seed of nostalgia, while the planting of it is still too new to have yet bloomed. There is a desire to somehow bottle it up or recapture it, but it will forever elude us, living on only in the sweet aches of memory. 

The shepherds, among the first to meet the Christ face to face, have the first “Mountaintop experience” in the emerging new covenant world. Under the old covenant, the mountaintop was to be feared. To meet with God was only with trembling. There was a real anxiety that one would not survive the experience! Moses, after descending Sinai and having only glimpsed God’s back, has a shocking glow radiating from his face to the extent that the camp of Israel asks him to wear a veil to conceal God’s unbearable glory from them! 

In the new covenant world, like the shepherds, we would approach Jesus and find warmth, friendship, and reception. Fear would be replaced by something more like utter amazement. Upon our encounter with Him, we would praise God and desire to tell others about Him. We would seek Him and find Him just like the shepherds! We would recognize with surety that He is the fulfillment of the signs provided.  He would live inside of us, making us His temple. The mountaintop would come down to us and God would call everyone to join and behold Him, rather than only His anointed few. His glory would be reflected in our very lives. We would be afforded the unthinkable privilege of meeting and communing with God EVERY SINGLE DAY. Immanuel!