Glory under wraps

 

Taking a shortcut through an alley, I notice this Christmas tree.  I am expected in a meeting soon in downtown Columbus, OH, but I am wandering a bit.  I have opened myself to the Lord, asking him to teach me something about his incarnation along the way.

I chose the alley because of its grunginess.  Rightly or wrongly, I find the rough reality of the back of buildings more genuine than the polished fronts.  But here is something fascinating: a glimmer of festive decorations behind the grunge.  Elegance hidden in the midst of flaking paint.

How much like Jesus this is.  In our depictions of the newborn Savior wrapped in simple rags, it’s easy to lose the incongruous nature of what I just wrote.  The angel’s announcement to the shepherds gets to the point.  This is the sign: you’ll find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.  It is meant to produce incredulity.  The long-awaited Messiah, to be found in a feed trough?  What??

Then the angel chorus underlines the point, singing:  Glory to God in the highest! Think of all the things they could be praising God for in that moment.  His mercy.  His kindness.  His wisdom in conceiving this plan.  His power for enacting it.

But they celebrate his exaltedness.  The Most High.

In a nearby park, I find a dramatic sculpture of an angel hovering over Civil War generals.  It reminds me that Jesus wasn’t announced to the “most-high” rulers of the age.  Herod got the news offhandedly. The veil of heaven was pulled back for the benefit of simple shepherds, not the kings and emperors.

Reaching the lobby of the corporate high-rise, I wait for a colleague.  And in a moment of almost humorous happenstance, a short-sleeved Santa slowly descends on the escalator in all his rotund redness.  Set against the living green wall, he couldn’t be more conspicuous.  And yet, no one pays him any attention.  (Well, except for me.)

How unlike the descent of Jesus -- born in obscurity yet celebrated by angels.

Finally, as the day ends and I am hard at work at my easel on the 35^th floor, I notice a ray of the sun streaming from the heavens over the Scioto River.  I am reminded that Jesus is, as Hebrews 1:3 tells us, is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”

He is the Most High, born as a baby into a back-alley world.

It’s hard to wrap my mind around it.

Radiance of God’s glory, we worship you.  Jesus, you are God, Most High.  And yet you are also the Christ Child, wrapped in swaddling cloths.  Use the greatness of that contrast to guide our worship, our Savior and radiant King.

Reader: What helps you keep Jesus’s exaltedness as a part of your Christmas celebration?