Angels from the Realms of Glory – The Sunday after Christmas Day

Merry Christmas!

Yes, you heard me correctly: Merry Christmas! Christmastide has just begun, and the Christmas feast continues through Epiphany. The world does not understand salutations of “Merry Christmas” after December 25—much less keeping up the decorations—as the nations have fallen back into the dark bleakness of midwinter. Meanwhile, the Church rejoices, for Christ is born!

The Church is called to proclaim, not hide, but shout, yell, and tell it on the mountain that “Jesus Christ is born.” May we join our voices in the most holy and humble proclamation that God who made us hath become one of us by joining our voices with:

Angels, from the realms of glory,
wing your flight o’er all the earth;
ye, who sang creation’s story,
now proclaim Messiah’s birth:

No mere babe has been, born – this is the long-expected Jesus – God who saves. This is Messiah. He is the One whom the Angelic host proclaims – not to kings, but to the filthy, dirty, and smelly shepherds on the hills. These sons of god preach unto the sons of man that the Son of Man has visited His people to make them like unto the Son of God. The angelic army descends like stars in the night sky and invites unclean shepherds of the Chosen People to join their heavenly chorus with:

Refrain:
Come and worship, come and worship
Worship Christ, the newborn King.

Shepherds in the field abiding,
watching o’er your flocks by night,
God with you is now residing;
yonder shines the infant Light: [Refrain]

Yet the good news is not for keeping within the tribe of Judah. This “infant Light” is a beacon in a creation blanketed by midnight. Alas, midnight has now passed! Dawn nears us even in this dark hour. For Christ has entered into Bethlehem and light goes forth from Judah unto the ends of the earth. This light, like the light He commanded to “let there be,” permeates the cosmos, even beckoning the Gentiles to draw near:

Sages, leave your contemplations;
brighter visions beam afar;
seek the great Desire of nations;
ye have seen his natal star: [Refrain]

The Gospel of God’s incarnation is not limited to those of the blood of Abraham but is gracious news to all the Gentiles who have been in rebellion since the Tower of Babel. Magi from afar, hailing from distant Persia are now in pursuit of the living embodiment of Truth. Ironically – nay poetically – they travel from the same realm home to Babel. “Alas, alas that great city Babylon,” where the Tower was built and the Gentile rebellion began, sends forth her Magi delegation seeking after the newborn king, who is the King of kings, Lord of lords, and Most High God above all so-called false gods, especially those who rule Babylon.

The Magi begin their long journey – they will not conclude until Epiphany – and we join alongside them. We are invited throughout Christmastide to forsake the false gods of Egypt to the west and the idols of Babylon to the east and glorify the One born in the cave. The entire Angelic host descends and proclaims aloud to the Hebrew shepherds that Messiah is born, but to the Magi, God sends a lone representative – a star that defies the starry host of wanderers and Watchers with the Magi are well-acquainted. But these wise men know something – nay, someone – great is born. So they pursue “his natal star” seeking the unknown “great Desire of nations” planted in our hearts.

Saints before the altar bending,
watching long in hope and fear,
suddenly the Lord, descending,
in his temple shall appear: [Refrain]

The Levites in the temple serving, know Messiah’s Day is near. Just as the Magi are gifted with Daniel’s prophecies from when he resided exiled in Babylon many years ago, so too are the Levites calculating and seeing the end of the 40-weeks draw nigh. Little do they realize that soon their temple will host the Lord God. The same God who cannot be contained by any temple shall introduce Himself within the flesh of men. There are echoes of the coming celebration of the Purification of the Virgin Mary (Candlemas), where Jesus appears in His temple and is dedicated to God. Behold in twelve short years the temple again shall witness the Christchild teaching the teachers in His Father’s house. Flash-forward thirty-three years, and these Levites who once were “watching long in hope and fear” are now old men who shall glimpse Jesus – the temple in flesh – being condemned to die by the Sanhedrin. The temple which they so dearly love shall see its destruction in 70 years as they missed beholding the temple enfleshed before them. Let us not miss who Jesus is. Let us read, attend, and understand that the God-man in the flesh tore His own temple down and the temple curtain with it so that we might have union and peace with Him.

The flesh of the Christchild shall be torn by our nails and spears so “that we might receive the adoption of sons.” (Epistle lesson, Galatians 4:5, KJV). It is shocking that we, sinners, from the shepherds on the hills to the enlightened Gentiles journeying from afar, shall be elevated and redeemed to become adopted sons of God. Shocking, because our sins are exceedingly sinful and our unholiness knows no bounds, until Christ touches us unclean ones and stops our bleeding, rendering us whole, and yes even holy ones – saints. What glorious love for God to descend so that we may ascend! Journey upon the mountain joining our voices this day and every day in this life, in death, and the resurrected life to come, “with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious Name; evermore praising thee, and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory: Glory be to thee, O Lord most High.”

Therefore, o sons of God, “because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father.” (Epistle lesson, Galatians 4:6, KJV). Let us shed off our “bondage under the elements of the world” for “the fullness of the time [h]as come” and “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law” so “thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.” (Galatians 4:3-7). Our inheritance is the Lord God Himself. No treasure on or under the earth is greater than the riches of renewed and glorified humanity united to our Lord. He has become the New Adam, so we sons of Adam may become sons of the Most High. No longer are we slaves and servants of sin, but we are redeemed to be revealed as glorified saints. “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” (Romans 8:19, ESV). Let us not keep creation waiting, let us join our voices together, O Church, with the angels from the realms of glory, singing:

Come and worship, come and worship
Worship Christ, the newborn King.