The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only. Who came from the Father full of grace and truth. John 1:1,2, 14
We hardly get into John’s Gospel – his attempt to tell a story that is beyond telling (Jn 21:25) – and he explains: “We have seen His glory!” We’ve handled, touched and heard… We encountered the ‘One and Only’…we’ve experienced Jesus.
Everything else John writes is based on that pivotal fact: This is what I’ve experienced. This is my testimony to what I’ve seen; the character of the one I know; “We have seen His glory”.
‘Glory’. Christians often use this biblical word, but we don’t always recognize what it reveals about our God—and the beauty of all He is and does. Moses asked God “I pray You, show me Your glory!” (Ex 33:18). We, today, might long for the same opportunity, because the glory of God attracts us, draws us, and compels us to seek more of Him.
The most common Hebrew word for glory is kabod, meaning “heavy in weight.” When you glorify God, you recognize His importance, or the “weight,” of His uniqueness. Beauty, majesty, and splendor are what we’re attributing to God when we glorify Him. You and I are probably more familiar with the Hebrew word ‘shekinah’. That word never appears in the Bible, but the concept certainly does.
‘Shekinah’ means God dwelling with us. Whether as a pillar of fire or a cloud in Exodus, the Presence in the temple or the birth of Jesus in the Gospels – where “the Word was made flesh and made His dwelling among us” (v.14). God longs to reveal Himself more and more clearly to each of us.
We see this especially in Jesus’ prayer before He was crucified. “I have given them the glory that you gave me… I in them and you in me” (17:22,23). Jesus longed to dwell in each one of us—to display His glory to us: “I HAVE GIVEN THEM THE GLORY”. Past tense—already done. Yet we still cry out for a more complete revelation of Him.
“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us)” Matt 1:23.
And that is one of the main messages of Christmas. God is with us.