*I’m recovering from a cold this week and my voice just isn’t there. You’ll have to accept just reading this one today. Happy Monday!

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Have you ever been around one of those people who were just different in the best possible way? Something about them – and you never could quit put your finger on exactly what it was – just drew you in. You wanted to be near them. At the same time, you never quite felt like you deserved to be near them. The closer you got, the more you became aware of just how much you fell short of their goodness and you didn’t really like that. The odds are pretty good that what you experienced from that person was a taste of the glory of God. As we get closer and closer to Christmas Day, let’s reflect today on one of the greatest gifts of God’s coming near in Christ: glory.

Let’s start here: What is glory? It is often helpful to define a word like this when we are talking about it. At least, it’s good to remind ourselves of its definition. Sometimes with words like glory, we use it often enough (at least in the context of church) that we assume we know what it means without ever stopping to make sure we actually do. Or else we hear the people around us use it frequently enough that we assume they all know what it means, and even though we don’t actually know what it means for sure, we don’t want to look uninformed, so we don’t ever say anything.

Just in case either of those two options are true for you (your secret is safe with me), glory has several working definitions. It can refer to the great renown or fame of a person or thing because of an incredible achievement they are associated with. It can refer to something that is particularly beautiful. Glory can be the worship or praise given to someone (usually a deity of some kind). Or it can refer to a light (like a halo) coming from something or someone.

With all of that’s being said, what do we mean when we are talking about the glory of God? Well, a little bit of all of those things. To take a stand at a formal definition of God’s glory, let’s try this on for size: God’s glory is the brilliance of His character bathing us in the light of His presence. The glory of God is all of the things that make God, God radiating out from His presence like an overwhelming flood of light. This light is bright beyond what we can stand on our own. Whenever we see anyone in the Scriptures come into the presence of God, His glory overwhelms them to the point of trying to hide themselves from the heat of His holiness. Nearly to a person they are all convinced they won’t survive the experience.

If this is the case, how could God’s glory be a gift to us? Well, there’s another side to this experience of God’s glory in the Scriptures. In each instance, God gives the person who is feeling utterly unworthy the gift of grace and makes them able to stand up in His presence. They are able to endure the experience with His help. What they could not hope to manage on their own power He enables them to do by sharing a bit of His power with them. This is all a testament to the character of God (which is part of His glory). God wants to have us near Him. He made us for a relationship with Him. In His holiness, He knows He can’t have that with us in our current state, but in His mercy and love, He is willing to do what it will take to bridge that gap so that it is possible.

This all happens in Jesus. When Jesus came to earth, He came bringing with Him a taste of the glory of God. We were able to see and experience the glory of God in Him. Everyone who came into His presence encountered the glory of God, but in a measured amount that didn’t completely burn them away. This is because, as John also said here, Jesus was full of grace and truth. This was not some kind of a 50-50 split of the two. Jesus represented 100% of both. He was all grace and all truth. This was a very good thing indeed.

When we encounter God’s glory in Jesus, we are getting a taste of what life in His presence will be like. This is an incredible gift of hope to us. We are able to form a picture of what eternity will be like. It will be glorious indeed. We will live life to the absolute fullest extent possible there. Sin and death and all their bitter fruits will be gone, banished forever. With no limits on our time and no futility to drag us down, we will be able to reach our absolute highest potential in Him. No project, no accomplishment, no work to the glory of God will be unattainable for us. It will be good beyond our wildest dreams.

At the same time, when we come up against this measuring stick of God’s perfections, we come to realize very quickly just how much we fall short of Him. In this we receive the gift of conviction. One of the hard truths of the Gospel is that we don’t measure up to the standards of God on our own. In fact, to say we don’t measure up is generous because implies that what we have is even worth measuring in light of the immensity of His glory. The truth is that it’s not. This is not a particularly pleasant realization to make. It hurts. It takes our pride and doesn’t merely wound it, it kills it. There is no foundation for our pride at all. We are worthless in our sin, deserving of nothing other than eternal punishment and separation from the God who is glorious.

Just when this swiftly rising tide threatens to overwhelm us completely, though, Jesus rises higher and offers us His hand. This is the third and most important thing this gift of glory does for us. It enables us to understand our need for saving. We cannot get to God on our own. We cannot measure up to His standard of perfection on our own. We cannot make ourselves somehow worthy of His presence on our own. On our own we have nothing, and we are nothing. But then Jesus comes and offers to make us something in Him. Having reached our lowest point under the conviction of God’s Spirit, we are able to receive gratefully the grace He offers at which point the salvation He earned becomes the gift we can enjoy.

All of this comes by way of the gift of glory that Jesus brought with Him on that silent night. The glory of God shone for all the world to see from the most unlikely of places: a manger in a stable on the outskirts of a forgotten town. And the only ones who saw it initially were some shepherds no one considered worthy of anything beyond keeping some sheep where people from polite society didn’t have to see them. God’s glory wasn’t what anyone thought it would be, yet it was what everyone needed it to be. It is a gift you can receive and enjoy if you will accept Him as your own. This Advent season make sure you have done just that.