The Glory of God

Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory."

And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live" - Exodus 33:18-20.

What does the face of God look like? God told Moses that no one could see His face and live. But in Hebrews 1:3 we're told that the Son is "the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being." In Jesus, long centuries after Moses, we can finally look on the "radiance of God's glory" and live.

So what does "the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being" look like with flesh on? Is it a man with a halo and glowing countenance dressed in brilliant white robes? That might fit with the description of "someone 'like a son of man' " in Revelation 1:13, but not so well with the man Jesus of Nazareth found in the gospels. No, in Jesus we find humility. He's hanging out in the hills of Galilee, eating with tax collectors and sinners, having his feet bathed by the tears and wiped with the hair of a woman of ill repute. He's teaching ordinary folks on ordinary hillsides or from ordinary fishing boats, seemingly an ordinary man by every measure other than having the power to heal and extraordinary authority for teaching. There seems to be little about him that catches the notice of the movers and shakers of his world. The religious leaders let him go on as long as they did out of fear of the people who adored him, not because they saw anything to fear in Jesus himself.

So what does it look like when we don the "radiance of the glory of God" and become "god-ly"? Do we have an angelic glow about us? If the "exact representation of [God's] being" -- Jesus -- blended so well into his daily world, should we expect to be noticed and awarded with honor and status? Should we expect the bulk of our ministry to be done in a public way in our "Jerusalem" or will we too be assigned radiate the glory of God in quiet unobtrusive ways on the backroads of "Galilee"?

As one who lives and does ministry out far from the spotlights, I find it interesting that our chief model of what God looks like in human flesh spent most of his life far from the glitz and glamor of the centers of power in his world.

I have often wondered what prompted people healed by Jesus to glorify God rather than worshiping the man who had touched them. Perhaps there's something to be said for being so extremely ordinary in appearance and lifestyle that it's obvious that any power and glory being demonstrated through us has to trace back to God.