Glory in the Highest

One angel was terrifying enough. Then, suddenly, there are thousands. The whole sky is full of them. And every one of them is praising God.

On the hills outside Bethlehem, a group of shepherds have just heard the most astonishing news of their lives. An angel of the Lord, standing in a blaze of glory, has told them that a Saviour has been born tonight in the city of David, Christ the Lord. He has told them where to look: for a baby wrapped in cloths, lying in a manger. They are still on the ground, hearts pounding, trying to take it in. And heaven is not finished yet.

Luke writes: “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God.” A multitude. Not a choir of a dozen. A crowd beyond counting. And the word host means an army. These are the armies of heaven, the ones the prophets called the Lord of hosts. If anyone had reason to march out in power, it was them. Yet tonight, this army has not come to fight. It has come to praise.

Luke does not actually say they sang; he says they were praising God and saying these words, though Christians have sung them ever since. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” Two halves. Up there, in the highest heaven, glory to God, because of what he has just done. And down here, on earth, peace. Not just the absence of war, but the deep peace the Hebrew word shalom means: things put right, people made whole, friendship with God restored. The birth of this baby means good for heaven and good for earth at the same time.

Picture the shepherds' faces, lit up by that light, hearing that sound. Out of all the places heaven could have held this celebration, over the temple, over Caesar's palace, over the crowds in Jerusalem, it chose a field outside a little town, and an audience of shepherds and sheep. Luke does not say how long it lasted. But some things, once heard, are never forgotten. And then, just as suddenly as they came, the angels went away into heaven. The sky was dark again. The fire still crackled. But nothing would ever be the same.

In Rome at that time, the emperor Augustus was praised for bringing peace to the world after years of civil war. The Senate even built a great marble altar to the Peace of Augustus, which can still be seen, rebuilt from its ancient pieces, in Rome today. Augustus mentions it in his own record of his achievements. It was peace won and kept by soldiers. Luke's readers would have noticed that heaven's army announced a very different kind of peace, from God, through a baby in a manger.

The angels' song is in Luke chapter two, verses thirteen and fourteen. An army of heaven that came to sing, not to fight, glory to God and peace on earth. So here is a question to carry with you. Where in your life, your home or your world would you love to see God's peace this Christmas?