Christmas Eve or Day     Luke 2:1-20             

Why did the angels sing the Gloria?  Why did the shepherds sing the Gloria? Why do we sing the Gloria?

Enjoyment of singing is one of the gifts that God has given to almost all of us.  A person doesn’t have to have a good voice in order to enjoy singing.  A person can have a common and rather ordinary voice like myself and still enjoy singing.  Or, you can have an absolutely lousy, terrible, awful voice, and you, too, can enjoy singing.  Singing is a gift of God to enjoy. 

It is a pleasure of mine from years ago to recall standing outside the door to the sanctuary where the pastor enters from the rear and listening to the voice of Howard Wills through the door.  He was a perfect, perfect monotone, and his singing voice was like a gravel truck, stuck in low gear, rumbling, grumbling along.  And he would sing to his heart’s content, not at all timidly like people thought he should.  But Howard would like to bellow out those hymns in his gravely voice.  If ever on a Sunday I picked an unfamiliar hymn, Howard was the first to complain, telling me that he couldn’t sing that particular hymn very well.  Howard is proof that you don’t have to have a good voice to enjoy singing.  You can have a voice like a gravel truck and still enjoy it. 

A favorite story of mine is that when I was a young, young, o so young man, madly in love, I would take my fiancé out and go for walks.  My heart was so young and so romantic and I would sing to her, night after night, as we walked along hand in hand. And one evening, as she was listening to me, she said:  “I love to hear you sing, but it doesn’t sound very good, but I know that you are happy.”  Well, that’s the way it goes. 

Now, one of the aspects of singing that almost all of us enjoy is the singing of Christmas carols.  I mean, some of you most crusty, ornery, hard soled people who would never open a hymn book, who would never open a mouth in order to sing, when it comes to Christmas and those Christmas carols, you people start singing songs like Silent Night.  Even you, start singing Silent Night, and your heart melts and your vocal cords loosen up and you, too, want to sing that precious carol.  My question is:  why?  Why?  Because we love the words. We love the familiar melodies. We love the emotional lift that certain Christmas carols give us. 

A favorite carol of almost everybody is the carol, “Angels We Have Heard On High,” and one reason that this carol is such a favorite is because people actually know the chorus.  And so if you are out caroling with a group of people, and you finally get to the chorus,  everybody can sing, (pastor sings) “Glooooooooooooria. In Excelsis Deo.”  When you get to the second stanza, things start to fall apart and only the better singers know the words and the words go like this:  (sung) “Shepherds why this jubilee, dadadadadadada. What glad tidings so we bring  dadaddadadadadada.”  And then finally, everyone can again belt out the chorus:  “Gloooooooooooooria.”  We all do it.  And the third stanza is even worse for us none singers, but we love it when it comes to the Gloria because we know the chorus of the Gloria very well.  We go for the Gloria.

It is with this mood that we approach the sermon for tonight and that important question:  why did the angels sing the Gloria?  Why did the shepherds sing the Gloria?  Why do we sing the Gloria?

The setting was this:  the angels had come to the shepherds, and there were shepherds out in the fields, watching their flocks by night, and an angel of the Lord came to them, and the glory of the Lord was all around them, and the shepherds were very much afraid.  And the angel said to them:  Fear not, for I bring you good news of great joy which shall be for all people, for unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign for you, you will find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.  And suddenly, there was with that angel, a multitude of heavenly hosts, hundreds of thousands of angels together, singing, with a female sound (women in choir, with organ leading, no pause): Glooooooooooooooia, in excelsis deo. (The surprise singing in this sermon is fun, and everyone enjoys the planned-in-advance surprise.)

Now, why?  Why were those angels singing the Gloria?  Why?   Because they had been told that the Christ child was for them, and understanding that the Christ child was for them personally, they began to sing the Gloria. 

And so, initially, after the angels had sung for the shepherds, the shepherds did not understand.  They did not understand that the Christ child was for them, and therefore initially, they did not sing the Gloria.  The shepherds finally came to the manger, to the cave where Jesus was sleeping in the straw, and Mary took the child from the manger of straw and gave the child to the shepherds and said:  “For you, for you is born this day.”  And a shepherd took the baby into his arms and asked:  For me?  For us?  And when the shepherds finally understood that the Christ child was to be their very own, the Bible goes on to say, then the shepherds went home, glorifying God singing in a male sound, (men sing in choir, with organ leading, no pause) “Glooooooooooooooria. In Excelsis Deo.”

And then the angel takes us, you and me, to the manger and Mary picks up the baby, the Christ child, and the baby Jesus is placed into your hands, and you take the Christ child and you hold the Christ child to your breast, and you look into his eyes, and you realize, deeply, that the Christ child is for you.  And when you realize the Christ child is your very own, it is then that you start to sing  (pastor sings) “gloooooooooooria. In Excelis Deo.”

The word, Gloria, comes from the word, glory. The glory is the Jewish Shekinah.  The glory is the The Divine Presence of God.  In the Old Testament, the Presence of God, the glory of God, was the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. You could see the pillar of fire; you could see the cloud.   The glory is ultra bright.  The glory is firey light.  The glory is the glow-ria of the angels in the sky.  The glowing Presence of the angels in the sky becomes a glowing Presence of God in one’s own heart.  The glow is the fire within.  When you realize that Christ is for you, your very own, you then begin to sense the glow-ria, an inner glow, a glow-ria in one’s heart.  And when there is a glow-ria in one’s heart, one begins to sing the Gloria on one’s lips.  Let me explain by the following simple analogies.

I would like to ask you a question:  How many of you have Christmas trees?  Do you have Christmas trees at your house?  Would you raise your hands to show me you are awake tonight?  Good.  Now, I need to ask you another question:  How many of you have Christmas presents under the Christmas tree with your name on it?  Could I see your hands?  How sad it would be for you if you didn’t have a Christmas present under the tree with your name on it, which was your very own present. 

Some four hundred years ago, Martin Luther wrote the following words.  For me, Luther’s words are a key to Christmas.  He wrote:  “Of what benefit would it be to me if Jesus would have been born a thousand times and it would have been sung daily in my ears that Jesus Christ was born, but that I was never to hear that Jesus Christ was born for me?”  That Jesus was to be my very own.  My very own. 

Some of you children who are here tonight, do you remember your first trike?  Or how about when you grew a little older and you were given our first bike, your first bicycle?  Your own bike?  Not your neighbors.  Not your friends.  Not your brother’s or sister’s but your very own bicycle?  Do you remember the thrill, the glow that you felt about that?  Or, do you remember your first car?  I bet you do.  Do you remember the feeling inside when you drove that first car?  I keenly remember that ’49 brown Chevrolet.  I can still see it and smell it from so many years ago, because it was my first, very own car. Or, how about that first apartment, with the crumby furniture, where you could do what you wanted to do with the place in which you were living?  There was an inner glow, a glowing satisfaction.  Or how about your first home?  For those of you who have a home, do you remember that first little spot you had that you called a home?  The backyard.  The kitchen.  The old bathroom of your first home?  Do you remember that glowing satisfaction of having your first home.  Or do you remember your first child?  That first child which was born or adopted your very own, and the glow that was inside of you?  How can you forget the inner glow that accompanied your first child.  Yes, we all remember the inner satisfaction and inner glow from our first tricycle, bicycle, car, apartment, home, and child, when these became our very own.

It doesn’t seem that long ago.  It is as clear as yesterday.  It was in the morning, 6:30, a Sunday morning, and I heard the patter of little feet.  And the patter of the feet came into the kitchen, and it was dark in our kitchen except for the light above the kitchen table.  I was putting the finishing touches on the Sunday sermon, and the little child came in half asleep, and he said to me, “Where’s the scissors, Dad?”  I gave him the scissors and he went over to where there was a chain which was made of paper, a paper chain link for each of the days of Advent, and he went and cut off the chain and he said, “Dad, one more day to Christmas!”  And then that little boy got up into my lap, and he put his arms around my neck, and he just sat there and hugged me, for what seemed like five minutes of stillness and five minutes of love.  And I put my arms around his little body and that child was my very own, my very own child, belonging to the world, belonging to my wife, belonging to his family, belonging to God, but also, belonging to me, my very own. And there was an inner glow of satisfaction deep within me.

And when you finally realize that Christ is your very own, not only for all the world, not only for all the shepherds, not only for all the angels, but when you realize that Christ is your very own, then there becomes a glow in your heart, and you begin to sing the Gloria.

It was interesting for me recently, that I walked through the Gospel of Luke, and I was tracing the word, Gloria, in the Gospel of Luke.  I was trying to decipher when people were feeling and singing the Gloria in the Gospel of Luke, and there are seven stories, seven places where people felt and sang the Gloria in Luke’s Gospel.  All seven stories are very much alike.  The first one was this:  it was a story of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and an angel came to Mary and said:  “Mary, I am going to give you a baby for your very own who will be the Messiah, the Son of God.”  And Mary, realizing the child was to be her very own, started to rock back and forth in her rocking chair and  she started to sing (one soprano voice, no organ, no pause) “Glooooooooooooooria.”  When there is the glow of God inside of you, there is the Gloria of God on one’s lips. 

And then the Gospel of Luke continues and you meet a little boy who had become an eighteen year old, or a nineteen year old young man.  He had been paralyzed all of his life, if you can imagine that, and Jesus had come to his village one day and seemed to heal all of the people who were sick.  His friends, his big strong friends, went and cut a hole in the roof of the house where Jesus was teaching, and his friends lowered the boy who was now a young man down through the roof and into the house in front of Jesus, and Jesus healed the young man.  And when the boy who had become a young man realized that the healing was his very own and that his inner healing came from God, he turned and looked at Jesus, according to the Gospel of Luke, and said (one tenor voice, no organ, no pause): “Glooooooooooria.”  When there is a glow of God in your heart, the Gloria is found on your lips.

And then, there were the ten lepers.  Do you remember the story of the ten lepers in the Gospel of Luke?  All ten lepers were healed, and all ten lepers left Jesus.  None of them sang the Gloria.  Not one of them sang the glorious song.  They had all been healed.  And then the one, the one leper, it finally dawned on him, and he went back and he realized the gift of healing had come from Jesus.  The healed leper went back to Jesus with a glow in his heart.  He said to Jesus, “Thank you.”  And according to the Scriptures, he left Jesus, singing with all his heart (one alto voice, no organ, no pause): “Glooooooooria.”

When the glow of God is in your heart, you begin to sing the Gloria. 

There are other stories in the Gospel of Luke, but we come to the last story.  It is the concluding story in the Gospel of Luke and it is the story of the centurian, that crusty soldier from Rome, thousands of miles from his home, living out in a desert, in the Middle East.  And there outside of Jerusalem, there in charge of executions, a crummy job if one ever had one, a man so very far from home, seeing the execution of what was a common criminal, seeing the ground starting to shake and knowing that there was something happening to him and inside of him, and he saw the glory of God as never before, and that centurian said, “Certainly, this is the Son of God.”  And miraculously knowing that the Son of God was for him, that centurian out there on a remote deserted hill, quietly sang so only a few around him could hear (one bass voice, no organ, no pause):  “Gloooooooooooria.”  Do you see?  Do you understand?  Do you finally realize that the Christ child is for you, …that the gift of eternal life is for you, …that the gift of God’s healing is for you,…that the gift of God’s forgiveness is for you, …that the gift of a new birth of love is for you.  When finally understand that Christ is for you, you take Christ into your arms and you hold him.  You hold him in your arms and you understand, and when you understand, there is the glow-ria in your heart, and you begin to sing the Gloria. 

Let us sing, the Gloria.  (Organ leads, and the whole congregation joins in singing the refrain of the Gloria.)  Amen.

(Choir sings a Christmas anthem with the word, Gloria, in it.)


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