What do you do when the glory fades?

          For some reason I identify with the shepherds at Christmastime. I’ve never really been around sheep that I know of and actually the thought of it kind of gives me the creeps. Yet, every Christmas I can envision myself sitting out on the hillside watching the flock.

          My favorite part of the story is when the angles show up. There seems to be some controversy about whether they were singing or just saying (I prefer to believe they were singing with guitars and drums) but one way or the other they were letting the shepherds know about the Christ child.

          The saddest part of the story is when the angels leave. What a letdown! The angelic host just up and leaves. Is that the story of my life or what? I remember more than a few times saying, “Yep, that was the glory of God. Where did it go?”

          The answer comes by trusting the story. The Story can always be trusted to lead us to truth. The glory left so the shepherds would go find the next glory! Had they not been left “glory-less” in the fields, they would never have made the trip to Bethlehem. They would have missed Jesus!

          We all have a tendency to live our lives based on “past-glory.” The Church is especially vulnerable to reaching backwards for the “glory days.” We are afraid if we let go of the glory days of the past, the glory will be gone forever. Nothing could be further from the truth. When the glory fades, it’s not that God wasn’t in the past glory or that He’s mad at you and took it away. It’s that He has even better glory in store at the next stop. The Israelites understood this concept. They moved the tabernacle all over the desert following the glory. They took “church” to where God was. They didn’t expect God to just show up wherever they pitched their tents. The point was not geography…the point was glory.

          Unfortunately, all of us are a little like Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration. We are inclined to build monuments to past glory instead of building momentum to get to the next glory. We could learn a great lesson this Christmas. Follow the glory. Move, as Paul says, “from glory to glory.” There is a present waiting for each of us this Advent season…the glory of God is coming…and I’m going to follow it when it does.