The incarnation is an invitation, an invitation to know the Father, in the Son – a truly good God whose eternal communion is now offered to us in the Son, by the Spirit. At the centre of the universe there is a glory-giving, loving relationship, and in the incarnation we are invited to join in![1]
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It’s hard to think of anything else needing to be added to this (especially as I’ve pulled a lot on this thread: Rekindling of Glory). So, I think some highlights from the book are enough!
It is actually that He wants us to see what kind of Father His Father is: a loving giver of glory!
When humanity manufactures a god in our own image, we always end up with a needy super-being who is a self-absorbed power-broker, a glory grabbing god, if you will. We need to stop and check this default deity description against Scripture. Perhaps we are projecting our fallen image onto a God who is nothing like that!
So what was God doing before anything else existed? He was loving and glorifying.
God is a communicating, life-giving, shining-out kind of God. This is no self-absorbed black hole sucking glory from all that exists; if anything the arrows need to go in the other direction – communication to us, life to us, light to us.
He became flesh and dwelt among us. He came to live where we live. He came to our kind of life. Not the palace of Herod kind of life, but the Nowhere-Nazareth, in Galilee, kind of life. And as the older versions of the Bible put it, he ‘tabernacled’ amongst us, which is to say, He pitched His tent down here where we are.
Let’s Chat
A lot of Christmas songs talk about glory and praising. How does John’s Gospel change how we might normally view God’s glory?
[1] Peter Mead, Pleased to Dwell,
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Standing Before God, This We Are and No More 