The whole earth is full of His glory

“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it” (Genesis 28:16)
           
 When I was in high school, I was part of a show choir called Choral Spectrum. Every December, on the day before Christmas break, our group would take a bus around to local malls and nursing homes to sing Christmas carols and songs from Handel’s Messiah in beautiful four-part harmony. It was one thing to sing Joy to the World at a nursing home; it was another, much more glorious thing, to sing the Hallelujah Chorus in the atrium at the old Civic Center mall in Hartford.

I did not become a Christian until a few months after my high school graduation. And although I sang Handel’s Messiah a few more times in college, it hasn’t really come to mind much in the past 25 years. But last week, as I prepared to preach on Isaiah 9:1-7, the passage on which the song “For unto us a child is born” is based, Handel’s Messiah was playing on a loop in my head.

For unto us a child is born.
Unto us a Son is given.
And the government shall be upon his shoulders.
And his name shall be call-ed
Wonderful counselor
The mighty God
The everlasting Father
The prince of peace

In Genesis 28, Jacob is on the run from his brother Esau, who wants to kill him. Jacob lays down to sleep in the middle of the wilderness, and as he sleeps, he has a dream of a stairway to heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it. God, who is above the staircase, pronounces a blessing over Jacob, promising that He will be with him and watch over him wherever he goes, and that the land upon which he is sleeping will one day belong to him and to his offspring. And when Jacob awakes, he says, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it” (Genesis 28:16).

As a 17-year-old singing classical music in the mall, all I knew was that I enjoyed making beautiful music with my friends during the magical Christmas season. But as a 47-year-old charged with proclaiming the wondrous news that Jesus, my Savior, came to this world as a baby to eventually die on the cross and make a way for us to be right with God? This song, and this passage, mean something else entirely, something beautiful and profound. I didn’t truly understand the words that I was singing 30 years ago, but I rejoice that Jesus was being glorified, and I hope that those who heard us sing were drawn to Him. Surely the Lord was in the Civic Center, and I was not aware of it.

In Isaiah 6, Isaiah sees a vision of God in the throne room, and he hears the seraphs calling to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3). Our world is still full of His glory, from the smallest snowflake to the most awe-inspiring thunderstorm, from the hummingbird at the bird feeder to the whale in the ocean, from a choir of unaware teenagers to a congregation of flawed men and women who know and love Jesus. May God give us the eyes to see His glory in unexpected places this Christmas season, that we might exclaim with wonder along with Jacob, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”