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And the Glory of the Lord
No. 4 – Chorus
December 2
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Music courtesy of The Falls Church Anglican Choir, Falls Church, Virginia, under the musical direction of Simon Dixon. Audio mastering by Andrew Schooley. From Messiah by George Frideric Handel (1742)
Listen to the full playlist for Handel’s Messiah.
“And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.”
– Isaiah 40:5
One of C.S. Lewis’s most profound labors of love is his work to define glory. In “The Weight of Glory” he describes glory in two ways—“either fame, or luminosity.” Rather than being the latter—a “kind of living electric light bulb”—he leads the gentle reader back to the former, describing glory more authentically as “fame with God,” because “how God thinks of us is… infinitely more important.”
The desire to be of good report with God, accepted and welcomed by God Himself, THIS is glory! Isaiah’s prophecy of salvation here is the revelation of the glory of the Lord for all to see—for ALL to see—and for Him to think of me!
I recall as a new believer reentering my home town church to see if I could finally “get it”—to see in my church all I had missed in those childhood years of not “getting God in church.”
Joining the scruffy praise band at the side foyer with my scratchy guitar playing and anxious little voice I will forever remember belting out on behalf of John the Baptist: “Make way in the wilderness a highway for our God!” I felt like this was my chance to say “See! I get it now! And you can too!” This was my anthem for salvation. And I now see it was “the glory of the LORD revealed, and all shall see it together.”
“The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God.”
– – C.S. Lewis.
This chorus from Handel resonates like an anthem—a proclamation that God’s glory shall be, and now has been, revealed! “And all flesh shall see it together.” He welcomes me and you! Seize today to share that glory, offering His salvation.
Prayer
Dear Lord Jesus, speak, live, and love through me today with Your glory
so that all flesh may see it.
Amen.