The Whole Earth is Full of His Glory

For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

It seems like from the very first song we sang this morning that the theme of God’s glory was persistent. The whole earth is full of the Glory of the Lord! Earth and Sky, all created things, Angels in heaven, give glory to God! All worship in Heaven and on Earth be directed towards God. “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.”

In the past, when someone has described Heaven as continuous worship, I’ve thought, “How boring, I hope there is something else to do.” Those words make me cringe now. The problem was that in the past I’ve understood worship to be more like going to a concert than anything else. During worship, much like at a concert, I’m entertained by (hopefully) well played music and an enthusastic performance. But, that was an immature understanding of worship. The worship band is not performing a set, even though we use that terminology, they are directing our gaze towards the glory of God. Music is truly able to lift the spirit. It gives us a language, a poetry, to pour our emotions out to the Godhead.

Our worship is appropriatly expressed in beautiful music because we believe in a God who became Man. The incarnation claims the flesh and the earthly for the spiritual and the heavenly. They are not opposed, rather, the things that we can see, touch, taste, smell, and hear have been redeemed as products that can communicate thanksgiving and worship to God.This is appropriate because, as Paul wrote above the glory of God was in the face of Christ Jesus.

True, Jesus did tell us that the worship he desires is in spirit and in truth. And Paul tells us in Romans that people have long traded the glory of god for corruptible images. We are rightly concerned about the allure of the physical world. It has long been the focus of our worship. But these things, music, art, food, can all be used to display the Glory from God to us as in the sacraments: worship, communion, icons. They can also be appropriate responses from our heart to God.

As exciting as the incarnation is for our ability to taste/feel/smell the Beauty of God’s Glory in the tangable world, it is even more exciting because it calls light out of darkness. The incarnation was God becoming a man, taking on humanity. So even as God assumed humanity in Christ Jesus, He is more than eager to pour his Glory into the darkenss of our minds and spirits. The chaos of our thoughts, the darkness of our sins, can be overcome by His glory in an instant. And if that doesn’t make you want to worship, you might be dead.

Seek His Face Always.