Daily Devotional: John 1:14
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Jn 1:14.
“Made his dwelling” is an awkward, imperfect way to translate a difficult, incredible truth.
The fullness of light and glory that blazes brightly into the world somehow entered into that world and bound himself to the time-space continuum. It’d be as if the Sun chose to incarnate his billion-watt-brightness into a magical star-child. Someone, that which was powerful, creative, and eternal, joined itself with that which is weak, dependent, and frail. And in his weak, dependent, and frail frame, we actually see the fullest depiction of his glory of all.
It is the screen-brightness turned all the way up.
It is the amp that goes to eleven, blazing away and melting your eardrums.
And John describes it by saying that glory “made his dwelling.” The real idea is more akin to a neologism, a verbing of a noun.
The true word is “tabernacled.”
It’s a word that would shake any true first-century Jew’s heart, because the core of it was this idea that the tabernacle of God always meant one thing, seen even in the cosonants of the Greek word used here, ἐσκήνωσεν (eskenosen).
The Tabernacle always speaks of the shekinah glory of God. The fully manifest, fully revealed, unfettered, undiluted, 100% glory of God.
It speaks of the ancient Temple of Solomon and all of it’s splendor. It speaks to the cloud that filled it upon opening ceremony so thick that the priests couldn’t even perform their duties. It speaks to the Tabernacle of Moses, where the cloud would descend by day, or the fire by night. It speaks to a shining mountaintop. It speaks to a burning bush and holy grounds.
It speaks to a God who’s greatest desire is to do that which happened within that little tent of Moses. It speaks to a God who wants to speak to us, face to face, as friends.
The burning fire of glory that descended upon Sinai, the thick cloud that weighed so greatly that priests fell on their face in the temple, the overwhelming presence that scared men stiff… Glory wants to look you right in the eye and talk to you like a friend. A buddy. A BFF. Wants to tell you jokes and see you laugh. Wants to share secrets with you.
He comes to pitch a tent among us, to invite us in to deep friendship and fellowship with him. He didn’t come to reform our behavior. He didn’t come to make sure we were all being nice boys and girls. He didn’t even come so we’d be world-changers and culture-shapers.
He came so we’d be his friends, first and foremost, and we’d know the goodness of staring unconditional grace and truth right in the eye and share a deep good laugh with him.
