“We Beheld God’s Glory:

In the Death of Christ”

John 12:20-33

Many, many years ago there was a theologian – an Old Testament scholar – whose main ambition in life was to shed some light on God and God’s relationship with the world. He hoped to translate his detailed studies into books and papers that people would read and be inspired by. Unfortunately, that never happened. Few of his theological studies were published, and his scholarly work is largely unknown. But in one last attempt to share his deepest thoughts with the world, he offered these profoundly intellectual words:

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse!

And with those words, Clement Moore became a household name, and “The Night Before Christmas” became a highly valued seasonal tradition that is recited in millions of homes every year. In fact, so highly valued is the poem that Sotheby’s – the auction house – recently put up for sale one of only four copies in existence that were autographed by Clement Moore himself. Because it is the Christmas season, they thought the poem would fetch a great price, so they established a minimum bid of $200,000.

Surprisingly, there were no bidders. Not a one. And when Sotheby’s was asked why they thought no one would bid on such a famous poem they revealed a little-known fact. Do you know the story-behind-the-story? Well, it seems now that the authorship of “The Night Before Christmas” is in some dispute. Family members of Major Henry Livingston, Jr. – an American Revolutionary War figure and poet from Poughkeepsie, New York – claim that he is the true author of the poem whose real title is, “Account Of A Visit From St. Nicholas”. This claim has also been advanced by Donald Foster who has written about the true identity of many anonymous authors, and the weight of that claim seems to be gaining considerable support. And, of course, the descendents of Major Livingston are adamant about it. You may be interested to know that those descendents of Major Henry Livingston include none other than Presidents George Herbert Walker Bush and his son, “W”. And isn’t that some weird kind of justice? Where Al Gore can claim the Internet, George W. Bush can claim “The Night Before Christmas”!

Will the real author please stand up? Isn’t it a shame that such a sacred and special time as Christmas should be disrupted by a dispute about what is genuine and what is not? And yet, if you can stand a little truth today, that is precisely what Christmas is about!

Will the real God, please stand up? That’s the question behind Christmas. In a multi-cultural world that is full of competing ideas and religions and deities, how can we find our way? How can we know who and what to follow? Is there anyone or anything we can entrust our lives to?

This is the question of Christmas, and it is the ultimate question of life. This is the question Moses asked in Exodus 33 when everything seemed to be falling apart and he confronted God on the mountaintop and said, “Show me your glory!” As we shared last week, the word GLORY means “weightiness” or “gravitas”. Moses is asking God to show him once and for all that God IS God, the one true God – the God of gods and Lord of lords. “Before I take another step into the agonizing hell of this desert wilderness you’ve sent me and these cantankerous Israelites into, I need to know if YOU ARE THE REAL DEAL!” Will the REAL God, please stand up?

I’m glad Moses asked to see God’s GLORY. I’m glad he asked to see the truth about God. It gives me courage to ask the same kind of questions. “God are you REALLY God? Are you REALLY the author and source of my life? Are you REALLY the Way, the Truth and the Life? Are you really worth following and staking my life on?”

These questions are important because we live in a world where many gods – both religious and secular - lure us to come and follow and give our lives over to them. Materialism. Science. Humanism. All the religious “isms”. Power. Popularity. And even Self. For many people in our day, satisfying Self – meeting MY needs, MY desires, and exercising MY rights, MY will – is the god we are staking our lives on. And yet, what if these gods turn out to be false and ultimately destructive to us and our families and our world?

Do we dare ask these gods to prove themselves? Do you dare ask the god or gods you follow to stand up and give account of themselves? “Show me your GLORY!” Moses had the courage to ask. Show me that you are the TRUE WAY TO LIFE in a world full of pretenders who wreck havoc with our lives and our children and our world..

And Moses’ question – along with our own - is answered in the birth of the baby in Bethlehem.

“Hark! the herald angels sing, GLORY to the newborn King!”

“Silent night! Holy night! Shepherds quake at the sight; GLORIES stream from heaven afar…”

Over and over and over again, the word GLORY anoints the story of the birth of Jesus. And the men and women who were eyewitnesses to his life, and death, and what happened afterwards, make an amazing claim about what they saw in him:

“We beheld God’s GLORY!”

In the Gospel of John, there are many stories of how the GLORY of God was revealed in Jesus: for instance, he revealed a new kind of faith that has one commandment only – love God and love your neighbor as yourself; and he lived that faith, opening his arms to everyone, embracing them with redemptive love, making broken people whole, giving hopeless people hope, reconnecting people – even those who seemed most lost - with the God who makes all things new. In the life of Jesus, you can’t help but see the GLORY of God!

“We beheld God’s GLORY!”

But then he died. At only 32 or 33 years of age, his life was taken from him. He was falsely accused, wrongly convicted, mercilessly beaten, and violently executed by crucifixion on a cross. And though most of the world to this very day sees his death as an utter tragedy, his followers came to see something more.

“We beheld God’s GLORY!”

You see, Jesus himself taught us something amazing about his death. As he journeyed to Jerusalem for the last time, into the waiting grip of a Roman crucifixion, this is what Jesus said:

“The hour has come for me to be GLORIFIED!”

In his death, Jesus tells us, we will see GLORY. In his death, as well as his life, we will see what Moses sought to see and what we all need to see ourselves – that the God of Jesus Christ IS God – the God above every god – the God who is the source of our lives – the God who we can stake our lives and our families and our future on! And then Jesus teaches us about the GLORY of his death:

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

There is a wonderful hymn that sings:

“In the cross of Christ I GLORY,

Towering o’er the wrecks of time;

All the light of sacred story

Gathers round its head sublime.

Even here in the season when the colors of Advent are richly before us, and the symbols of Christmas decorate the sanctuary, there still stands above it all…the old rugged Cross. You see, all the wonder of Christmas ultimately flows to the Cross where God’s GLORY is most clearly seen.

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

I’ve often thought that what began as an executioner’s instrument of death became a wonderful symbol of life through the death of Christ. When you look at the Cross, you notice its two directions. One is a vertical upright that seems to stretch from heaven to earth, from God to us. And the other is a horizontal crossbar stretching from me to you, from us to others.

And this symbolizes the bitter reality of life as it really is. The power of sin and death have separated us from both God and each other. Disconnected from God, we human beings live aimlessly and destructively, inflicting devastating injury and death upon each other, upon nature, and upon life itself. Our psyches, bodies, marriages, families, neighborhoods, nations all suffer the consequences of our disconnect from God, the source of life. We are inwardly lonely. And full of heartbreak. And unable to find the thing that will truly satisfy us. So we we go from relationship to relationship, possession to possession, activity to activity. We drift from one form of brokenness to another, seeking unsuccessfully to find wholeness. And all that drifting puts us in conflict with all the other drifters out there. So we learn to reject, and despise, and hate, and kill. We are lost, and we know it. Soon, despite our best efforts, we will die and become nothing more than dust.

Oh, the cross – in one way - symbolizes the inner truth we know about ourselves: our disconnect from God and from each other.

But listen now to Jesus:

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

What an amazing image! Into the middle of that cross where we are separated from God and each other goes the One born a child in Bethlehem. And with a crown of thorns placed upon his head, and nails driven through his feet and outstretched hands, HE DRAWS YOU AND ME TO GOD, AND ALL OF US TO EACH OTHER!

GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST, AND ON EARTH PEACE, GOOD WILL TOWARD ALL!

No other god has ever done anything like this! No other god has ever taught anything like this! No other god has ever invited human beings to be part of such an amazing enterprise of saving the world!

Will the REAL God please stand up?

While all the competing gods of this world call to us with gospels of god’s contempt for the infidels, god’s rejection of sinners, god’s disdain for us unless we keep some law, god’s invitation to remove ourselves from the world, and other empty promises that serve mainly to separate us further from god and each other, THIS God is born in the stable of Bethlehem, lives a life of beautiful GLORY loving God and neighbor alike, goes to a Cross where he draws God and all of us together…

…and then invites us to come to a table…eat some bread and drink some wine…and join him

Will the REAL God please stand up?

God IS standing before us in the life and death of Christ.

Come, and behold…his GLORY!