Seeing the Glory

MUSIC: CHOIR (Unaccompanied)

WODE PSALM ‘TO LOVE THE LORD’

REV LAURENCE WHITLEY:

Good morning. We welcome you to Glasgow. Stretching back 800 years, this magnificent building in the heart of the city is dedicated to Glasgow’s patron saint, Mungo. However, at this time of year Scottish eyes are focussed on Andrew, our national saint whose feast day is tomorrow, and whom we will celebrate today along with Advent Sunday - the start of a new Christian year.

 So our first hymn is the great Advent hymn,

“O come, O come Emmanuel.”

MUSIC: HYMN - O COME, O COME EMMANUEL

LAURENCE:

Leading the service with me this morning is my colleague, the Reverend Jane Taylor.

REV JANE TAYLOR:

Scripture says, “then they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

Now when these things begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

Let us Pray:

You ask us to lift our heads, Father God, and so we shall, as we stand on the threshold of a new journey with you. Forgive us if in the past we have been sluggish companions, unwilling to take your hand and step boldly into the future. Help us, like Andrew, to have the courage to place all our trust in you. For you have told us that you have a plan for the world, and it is that your Son will come again to bring all things under your rule. And then will joy and peace fill every corner until the end of time.

So we put aside our fears and walk into these days ahead, trusting that no darkness can cause us to stumble or deflect our eyes from the light that even now is coming into the world.

All: AMEN

LAURENCE:  Today’s theme is ‘Seeing the Glory’. Someone once said that Christians are people who see what others find invisible. Our bible readings today invite us to do just that. The first kind of seeing is suggested by the prophet Isaiah at Chapter 51.

FIRST READER: GLEN

Hearken to me, you who pursue deliverance,
you who seek the Lord.
And Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
and to the quarry from which you were digged. 
[2] Look to Abraham your father

and to Sarah who bore you;

for he was but one when I called him,

and I blessed him and made him many. 
[3] For the Lord will comfort Zion;
he will comfort all her waste places,
and he will make her wilderness like Eden,

her desert like the garden of the Lord;
joy and gladness will be found in her,
thanksgiving and the voice of song. 

[4] "Listen to me, my people,

and give ear to me, my nation;

for a law will go forth from me,

and my justice for a light to the peoples.

[5] My deliverance draws near speedily,

my salvation has gone forth,

and my arms will rule the peoples;

the coastlands wait for me,

and for my arm they hope.

[6] Lift up your eyes to the heavens,

and look at the earth beneath;

for the heavens will vanish like smoke,

the earth will wear out like a garment,

and they who dwell in it will die in like manner;

but my salvation will be for ever,

and my deliverance will never be ended.

JANE: The Cathedral Choir now sings the anthem: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord”, music by Michael Wise.

MUSIC: CHOIR + ORGAN, ANTHEM –

PREPARE YE THE WAY OF THE LORD (Wise)

JANE: A different kind of seeing from Isaiah’s comes to us from Andrew’s example in the Gospel of St John, Chapter 1 :

SECOND READER: ADA

[35] The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples;

[36] and he looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!"

[37] The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.

[38] Jesus turned, and saw them following, and said to them, "What do you seek?" And they said to him, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?"

[39] He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying; and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

[40] One of the two who heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.

[41] He first found his brother Simon, and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which means Christ).

JANE: In countless Scottish churches today Andrew’s meeting with Jesus will be recounted in this traditional hymn: “Jesus calls us! O’er the tumult of our life’s wild restless sea.”

MUSIC: HYMN - JESUS CALLS US! O’ER THE TUMULT

(Tune: Marching)

LAURENCE: SERMON

We all know that things happen to our world – and to us – that are dark, very dark. 

This time of year is for many of us in Glasgow associated with harrowing events, remembering the sadness of the helicopter accident at the Clutha Bar two years ago and the bin lorry tragedy last year. And this year, we all still struggle to see ahead with hope as we witness the suffering of sister cities, not to mention the daily turmoil that happens across the globe.

Someone once said, “there is no such thing as darkness, only failure to see” – and though in painful times that idea might seem difficult to accept, something of it runs through the message that Isaiah was trying to give his people in the passage we heard. Things were looking bad for them: they were weak and defeated, and the world outlook was grim. But “Look up,” he says, “if the future is filled with foreboding and you feel powerless, do you think that is all there is to see? Your world and your future are not limited to you or your abilities – they belong with the One who holds the world in the palm of His hand, and He will provide.”

And provide He did, in the gift to us of his Son, Jesus. Yet many still find it hard to accept what that means, or difficult to understand how this can make any real difference. But Jesus’ presence means that we are no longer alone, forever worrying and struggling with our problems, but rather resting in what he has done for us.

Many years ago, my late father fell under the spell of George MacLeod, the famous Scottish churchman who founded the Iona Community, and he decided to enter the ministry. But amidst the poverty and unemployment of his first appointment, he found it all a hard struggle. He wrote to his mentor saying he was nonetheless resigned to it, and said, “I suppose as Christians we are called to wrestle with the darkness before we can experience the light.” “Nonsense!” replied MacLeod, “you’re saying that despite Christ’s work, it’s first the thorns and then the crown. It’s not – it’s: here is the crown, so you can say to hell with the thorns.”

He was right – the world’s thorns are common to human experience, though for some they seem to come in more extreme forms than for others. This pain, these thorns, will try to stop us seeing clearly, and do everything they can to convince us of their greater power. But they are a fraud.Christ’s followers are promised that if they can find the way of looking past them, they will catch a glimpse of the ultimate victory that Christ shares with us -both now and in the glory-time that the season of Advent looks forward to, when he comes again.

“Look beyond” says Isaiah to us as his Advent message. But St Andrew also has something to teach us about learning to see. It comes from that encounter we read about a few moments ago.

When John the Baptist said to him, “Look, there is the Lamb of God,” it seems Andrew was less than convinced, for he turned to Jesus and greeted him simply as “Rabbi” – “Teacher”. But then Jesus said, “Come and see.” So he did, and after that, he no longer said, “Rabbi,” but declared, “We have found the Messiah.” His eyes saw differently.

Years ago, I knew of someone who was a bank teller. Part of his training involved learning how to spot counterfeit banknotes. Yet throughout the whole of that session, he was never once shown what a counterfeit note looked like. But that was the point: the idea was, that if the only image imprinted on his mind was of that which was real and genuine, then, should they turn up, the fake and the false would instantly become apparent.

In Andrew’s day, as perhaps in ours, there was no shortage of plausible Messiahs offering attractive manifestos. No wonder Andrew was cautious. But we find that when he stayed through that day with Jesus, looking only upon him, he came to see that he alone was the one who was true and could be trusted.

And what of us?

We would not be human if we did not feel some anxiety for the future. We live in unsettled times, and as we look around and see what is happening in the world, little seems certain anymore. But then, was it ever – in Isaiah’s time, or Andrew’s?

The glorious fact is that we do not walk by sight, but by a different kind of vision called faith. And if we decide to use that “optical ability,” and focus only on the One who has promised to be with us through whatever might confront us in the world, then we will not stumble in the dark. Not now or ever.

MUSIC [UNANNOUNCED]: HYMN - O GOD YOU SEARCH ME AND YOU KNOW ME (Bernadette Farrell)

LAURENCE:

And safe in His hands, our hope is that creation and its climate will be made new and peace will come to the Middle East and such troubled places.

And still we hope that no more will all displaced, fearful and separated families find themselves endlessly wandering, but, settled and together, be able to join with us in our universal prayer for a world of unspoiled brotherhood and everlasting peace.

********

JANE:

And now we gather all our prayers in the words that Jesus taught us:

Our Father, who art in heaven
Hallowed be Thy name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil
For Thine is the kingdom,
The power and the glory
For ever and ever
Amen

MUSIC: [UNANNOUNCED] CHOIR (Unaccompanied):HOSANNA TO THE SON OF DAVID(Weelkes)

JANE: “Hosanna to the Son of David” by Thomas Weelkes.

And now we join together in our final, glorious hymn which celebrates the coming of Our Lord in triumphant style: “Tell out my soul the greatness of the Lord”:

MUSIC: HYMN - TELL OUT MY SOUL

(Tune: Woodlands)

LAURENCE: BLESSING

And now may the blessing of God Almighty,

The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,

Be with you and those whom you love,

This day and forever more.

ALL: AMEN.

MUSIC: ORGAN VOLUNTARY J.S. BACH BWV 599

‘Nun komm der Heiden Heiland’ (Pub. Barenreiter)