Recognizing the Subtle Glory of God
Over the last few years, my desire for God can be summed up in a simple prayer: “Open my eyes.” My conviction is that the living Christ is truly at work in every area of creation, culture, and my own life through the Spirit. But, to be brutally honest, my experience of life feels anything like that most days.
On the days when the coffee is burnt, the heater in the car doesn’t work, and a good night's sleep feels unattainable, my focus for the day quickly moves from communion with the Trinitarian God to surviving-without-majorly-messing-up. Sure, the moments of quiet I have before I go about my day hold a kind of Presence. The words of the Bible running through my car stereo sometimes remind me of a bigger Story. The times I have to worship and pray in the prayer room or at my local church sometimes take me past myself. But even in the most spiritual moments of my week, the thoughts that take up the most space seem bent on grinding my altruistic heart in the dust of survival.
Grocery lists. Work project deadlines. Bills on the table. Leaves on the lawn. News articles. Football stats. Light bulbs that don’t work— these are the places my mind gravitates toward. It takes incredible mental effort to burst through the endless areas grabbing for my attention to do what the author of Hebrews implored all believers to do: “[Keep my] eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.” (Hebrews 12:2, NLT)
I’m a young man with an even younger marriage, a six month old baby, and only a few years of following Jesus under my belt. In other words, I don’t have anything figured out. But in my young life, I’ve noticed something about the God I serve: He doesn’t often use mega-phones or Times Square billboards to communicate His Presence. Why, I have no clue— well, that’s not exactly true: I do have a hunch.
Do you shout at the people seated next to you at the dinner table? What about your closest friend when you’re in a large gathering? Shouting assumes one of two things: anger or distance. Whispers assume two polar opposite things: closeness and trust.
Perhaps we are so busy shouting at God, demanding that He shouts back, that we keep missing His whispers. Perhaps we assume a distance that does not exist and therefore a loudness to the Presence of God that is not often needed. Of course, God does shout sometimes; the Bible is full of those stories. From Moses splitting the Red Sea to Elijah’s burning altar on Mt Carmel, it’s clear that God can make His power and goodness evident through unmistakable signs. But reading these highlight reels alone can cause us to miss the centuries between the wonders.
Israel had forty years in the wilderness full of miraculous experiences that were remembered in song for thousands of years. But Israel also had four hundred years of prophetic silence after Haggai. Did God leave His people? According to the Psalmist, that isn’t a possibility: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” (Psalm 139:7-10 NIV)
If these words are to be trusted, one thing is certain: God is here.
God is wherever you are– at your office desk, in the halls of your public high school, on the porch of your red brick house, in front of the stack of dishes in your sink. Not only is He where you are, but He is also when you are– before you graduate, get the promotion, take that dreamy vacation, or even decide to take a Sabbath. And after the terrifying accident, the heated argument with your family, the sleepless night with your baby, the passing of a dear friend. He does not leave and wander into some future paradise and wait for you to find your way there, nor does He stay stuck in the “good old days.”
And so, we must tune our ears for the unthinkable and train our eyes to the unfathomable: That God, the God, is neither angry nor distant; that according to Scripture, He is closer than the air in the lungs.
Open my eyes, God. To see you in both tragedy and triumph, memorable and mundane.
Nowhere is the subtle glory of God more poignant than in His Incarnation. “Incarnation”--- a word that all by itself should bewilder us. It literally means enfleshment. The Incarnation is when God stepped into time and space and took on muscles and bones and gray matter.
If Zeus or Apollo or any of the other gods of paganism tried to do that, you can guess the body they would choose: a bronzed, rippling body a foot taller than anyone else. Not only that, they’d surely be dressed in flowing purple robes and decked out in gemstones and crowns or at least holding swords that could slice through iron. They would have come with unmistakable glory.
Our God knit himself, cell by cell, in the womb of a teenage girl from Nazareth. He was born with screams of agony and held with sighs of relief, covered in white biofilm and blood. If the manger and the animal stall now seem unmistakably cheerful, displayed in nice manicured lawns, we have two thousand years of nostalgia to thank; the birthplace of Jesus was an unthinkable place for a King to visit, much less be born in.
It would have been easy to miss the event that changed human history forever. In fact, most people did. But there were a few souls that recognized Christ even as an infant and worshiped Him. How could they see past the obvious?
How could they find the face of God and all of His promises in a sleeping child?
Only a few people recognized God as a baby: His mother, Mary, wise old (and pregnant) Elizabeth, pre-born John the Baptist, shepherds in the field, wisemen/priests from Persia, and two ancient saints in the temple, Simeon and Anna. This advent, I’ve been struck by their witness and for the first time I’ve realized a thread that holds them all together: not only were these individuals coming from the margins of society– even the wisemen were outcasts in Israel given the fact that their nation had most likely oppressed Israel for hundreds of years– but they were people who spent time in one of two places: the wilderness and the temple.
Wilderness people and temple people are people surrounded by the revelation of God. It’s easy to forget the purpose of the temple but the scriptural tradition is clear: the temple was to be a mini-Eden that prompted worship in the hearts of all who drew near. Not only that, but Genesis hints at all of creation being originally created as a temple and the Apostle Paul continues to boldly state that “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20 NIV)
My point is that the people who recognized Jesus were people who had spent time gazing “on the beauty of the Lord” and seeking “him in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4 NIV) This is immensely encouraging.
To live with eyes wide open and notice the movement of God all around you may seem impossible. It may feel so contrary to your experience of life that it would take an earth shattering miracle to convince you of this truth. Though your heart may be longing for the communion that is promised in Scripture, you may feel stuck in habits too strong to break. If so, what can you do but hope that God shows up with lightning and thunder?
Maybe we can take a cue from the prophetess Anna, who “was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.” (Luke 2:36-38 NIV)
There’s something about this lady that is so striking to me. What if God has called me to prayer so that one day, when I’m eighty-four, I have eyes to see Him in all His subtle glory?
Our modern, Western ideas of success look at Anna with contempt.
She should have been out there making something of her life, getting remarried, helping the poor… Even her one moment of remembrance is really just her saying, “Yes, Simeon is right, this Child is the redeemer of Israel.” But read those verses again, and again if needed, and be honest if something touches your heart in its deepest places. Could the Presence of God be this good? Could you and I become people overwhelmed with the joy of loving God?
Could we learn to see Him wherever we are? This is my prayer for our community at Gateway and all throughout the Church for this coming year. Though we may not be called to live in the prayer room day and night for fifty years, we may indeed be called to present ourselves before God in the wilderness or the temple for extended periods of time so that His Spirit can open our eyes and soften our hearts.
By Tim Ornelas. Thank you for reading.