Christ! God’s Shining Face – Sermon 30 November, 2014

Christ! God’s Shining Face
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
The world was waiting for a Saviour.
The Israelites, God’s chosen people, had been ordained to keep God’s Law, but they had swerved so far off course, due in part to their disobedience, they had dishonoured God co-mingling with heathen cultures, that God had turned away and turned His face from them. They were in complete turmoil. Even the successive kings of God’s chosen people didn’t know how to get God’s people to refocus their attention on their Creator.
We hear the utter despair in the song of Asaph, one of king David’s three chief musicians who presided over the sacred choral worship services. He was charged to write a hymn of celebration and praise for the people while they were enslaved. But how do you celebrate a nation in captivity? Asaph, discouraged over the troubles of his world, writes:
“You who sit enthroned between the cherubim, shine fort. Restore us, O God; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved”.
There is desperation in Asaph’s song of praise.
”Shine, Lord! Let your face shine forth. Please, let your face shine on us!”
Asaph knew his people were held captive by more than their neighbouring nation, they were held captive by sin that had provoked God, and caused Him to turn away. Asaph cries for God to turn toward them and let them see His shining face once more.
Asaph’s chosen words were not new. For centuries, at the close of every worship service, the Levite priests had uttered a solemn benediction that called for God’s shining face. They would pray:
“The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give thee peace.”
They wanted to see God’s shining face.
God’s shining face…
Hadn’t God shone them His shining face when He set them free from their Egyptian captives?
Hadn’t God shone them His shining face when He fed them with manna from heaven?
Hadn’t they seen His shining face in every battle’s victory?
And still they sinned.
God knew that another victory would, render short-lived obedience once again and the cycle of sin had to be broken. But how?
So, on His mercy seat God sits, God the Good Shepherd. We could neither expect the comfort of his love, nor the protection of his arm, because mankind was separated by sin and disobedience from God. How then could we partake of his converting and saving grace?
When God is displeased with his people, He must turn His face from them. Asaph knew that there would be no salvation apart from God’s favour; and no conversion apart from God’s grace. So he leads the people in a song of repentance, crying, “Turn us again, O God, and cause your face to shine; and we shall be saved.”
God hears the cries of His people.
His love and mercy would not allow Him to turn away from them forever.
He knew the world needed a Saviour who could be the turning point for sin. God had given them the Word in writing…and they had failed to keep it. But now God would turn His shining face toward them and give them the Word in the Flesh. God had answered the Levite prayer of benediction and kept them, but it would be Jesus, the appearance of God in the flesh, who would be gracious unto them and usher in the Holy Spirit’s countenance of peace.
The pre-ordained special consideration of God’s unmerited favour would soon be set free in the shining face of a small baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger,
A baby who would face an opponent too fearful for us to conquer;
A baby who would bear sorrows too deep for us to endure;
A baby who would fight a battle too hot for us to win.
A baby whose sole purpose would be to save man.
God’s shining face, donned in a robe of human flesh, more radiant than the sun, more splendid than the stars, was expressed to earth in the smallest of packages…a baby. And wrapped in that baby was all the goodness of God, all the grace of God, all the love of God, all the faithfulness of God, and all the salvation God would ever offer from sin.
The glory of God’s shining face is in the picture of the Christ child on Christmas morning.
Jesus Christ is God’s shining face!
He covers our sin with His salvation.
He takes our grief with His gladness.
He calms our fear with His assurance.
He brightens our darkness with His light!
Jesus Christ, the Light of the World.

Krikor Youmshajekian