“Singing Gloria”

Luke 2:1-20

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

Almost everyone likes to sing. 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 and still enjoy singing. Or, you can have an absolutely lousy, terrible, awful voice, and you can still enjoy singing. Singing is a great gift of God.

I had a fellow in my church in Pittsburgh who was a monotone. He also had a tin ear – he couldn’t tell one note from another, so he didn’t know he was a monotone. He was also a member of the choir. It didn’t matter what we sang, he always sang the same note, and sang it loudly. His singing was so bad that it was hard to even tell what the note was, but he sang it with gusto. It was interesting, though, that he would complain when we sang a new hymn – as if the tune mattered. You can have a voice like a gravel truck and still enjoy singing.

Almost all of us especially enjoy singing Christmas carols. Some of the most crusty, ornery, hard-soled people who never open a hymn book, who would never open a mouth in order to sing the liturgy or a hymn, when it comes to Christmas and those Christmas carols, you people start singing in four-part harmony. You start singing Silent Night, and your heart melts and your vocal cords loosen up and you, too, want to sing with the angels. Why is that?

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. 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 choir knows the words, so everyone else goes like this: (sung) “Shepherds why this jubilee, dadadadadadada. What glad tidings do we bring dadaddadadadadada.” And then finally, we get to the chorus, and everyone can join in: “Gloooooooooooooria.” We all do it. The you get to the third stanza, and it’s even worse for the non-singers, but we love it when it comes to the Gloria because we all know the chorus of the Gloria very well. We go for the Gloria.

That’s where we approach the Christmas story tonight: 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, who were out in the fields, watching their flocks by night, and an angel of the Lord came to them, and the glory of the Lord shone 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.

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.

Now, 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.”

Of course, that’s not the end of the story. Because tonight, here we are, too, celebrating Christmas. We are here, like the shepherds and the angels, waiting for Christmas – waiting for the Christ child. We’ve come here expectantly to see the baby, lying in the manger. And the angels want to take 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 leads the congregation) “Gloooooooooooria. In Excelis Deo.”

The word, Gloria, comes from the word, glory. The glory is the Jewish word, “Shekinah.” The glory is 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 of the angels in the sky. The glowing Presence of the angels in the sky becomes a glowing Presence of God in your own heart. The glow is the fire within, that gives life meaning, that gives you joy, and a zest for life. 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 your heart. And when there is a glow-ria in your heart, you begins to sing the Gloria with your lips. Let me explain:

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? Erma Bombeck once quipped that “There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.” How sad it would be for you if you didn’t wake up Christmas morning and 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: “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 old Ford Cortina. What a piece of junk! But it was mine. 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? When we were first married, we didn’t have a bed or a refrigerator, our couch was a door with legs screwed into it, and we strung Christmas lights across the living room for lights. But there was an inner glow, a glowing satisfaction. Or how about your first home? Or do you remember your first child? 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, home, and child, when these became our very own.

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 comes a glow in your heart, and you begin to sing the Gloria.

Recently, that I walked through the Gospel of Luke, and traced the word, “Gloria,” through the Gospel. 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 the story of Mary, the mother of Jesus, when an angel came to her 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 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 your lips.

Then the Gospel of Luke continues and you meet 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 healed 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 lowered the young man down through the roof and into the house in front of Jesus, and Jesus healed the young man. And when the young man realized that the healing was his very own and that he also had an inner healing of his sins as well 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 the glow of God inside of you, there is the Gloria of God on your lips.

And then, there were the ten lepers. Do you remember the story of the ten lepers? 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. But then the one, the one Samaritan leper, the outsider - 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 there is the glow of God inside of you, there is the Gloria of God on your lips.

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. There, outside of Jerusalem, there in charge of executions, a crummy job if one ever had one, a man so very far from home, watches the execution of what was known to be a common criminal, feels the ground starting to shake and realizes that there is something happening to him, and inside of him, and he sees the glory of God as never before, and that centurian exclaims, “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, too…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 you 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 begin to understand, and when you understand, there is the glow-ria in your heart, and you begin to sing the Gloria.

When there is the glow of God inside of you, there is the Gloria of God on your lips.

And then it doesn’t matter whether or not you know the whole story. It doesn’t matter whether you know all the stanzas. All that matters, is that you know the chorus, that the Gloria is yours, too. (Organ leads, and the whole congregation joins in singing the refrain of the Gloria.) Amen.