“Glory to God and peace to men,
Now and for evermore, Amen!”
If the Christmas message
is great news of hope, what exactly does that hope look like? What is its end
or its goal? The final lines of ‘Sussex Carol’ summarise the three essential
characteristics of the new relationship between God and Man made possible
through the coming of Jesus Christ.
Firstly, ‘Glory to God’.
All wrongdoing ultimately stems from pride, and all pride is an attempt to take
the glory that belongs to God and place it on ourselves. It is not that we
shouldn’t seek glory – for that is an essential stirring of the human heart –
but that we should seek it in God, for that will ultimately satisfy us in a way
that prideful striving never can. Jesus came to redress our woeful pride and
liberate us again to give ‘glory to God’.
Secondly, ‘peace to men’.
Not only had pride divided the human race from God, it had divided us from each
other, and continues to do so when Christ is not honoured as the Lord. But
Jesus came to reverse all the effects of the curse, including to restore right
relationships between all people. And the creation-wrought dynamic of mankind
was not to be at war but at peace with each other, that we could prosper
without fear of evil.
Finally, ‘now and for
evermore’. There is a forever, an evermore. Given the struggles we and the
world still face it would be cruel to hold out all of these promises of
restoration without their resolution. And while glimmers of their resolution
shine today, these things will only be fully known in the New Heavens and New
Earth that are still to come.
The invitation to a
God-centred, glory-fulfilled, peaceful and eternal land has been issued in
Jesus Christ – we must take hold of it! Or will we prefer to carry on in the
comfort of self-centredness, conflict and instant gratification? That would be
a tragic choice to make this Christmas time.
Sussex Carol (On Christmas Night) - traditional English.
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