Third Sunday of Advent: He came to glorify His Father

(This is the third in a four-part series that seeks to help Christians observe Advent, that season celebrating the coming of our Savior and leading to Christmas Day. This series is designed for use on each Sunday of Advent, but it can be used at any point.)

Christmas represents not only the human-ward work of God the Son to save sinners but His God-ward work to glorify His Father.

This was the testimony of Jesus on the eve of His crucifixion. He prayed that night, "I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given me to do" (John 17:4). He could speak even before He died of fulfilling what the Father intended for Him to do in coming to earth. God the Father sent God the Son to earth with something to do. The purpose behind that mission included the glory of the Father.

Jesus testified to this purpose earlier in His ministry. Jesus compared His coming death to a grain of wheat that must die before it bears fruit. He said in John 12:27-28a, "Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, 'Father, save Me from this hour?' But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name." His Father responded by confirming with a voice from Heaven, "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again" (John 12:28b).

God the Son came to earth to glorify God the Father. That meant He must not only live a rightoues life but die a propitiatory death -- a death that satisfied fully God's wrath against sin. His Father sent Him to die.

And the Son gladly and willingly became a human embryo and baby in order to die as a man for His Father's glory.

In The Pleasures of God, John Piper explains it this way:

[T]he depth of the Son's suffering was the measure of his love for the Father's glory. It was the Father's righteous allegiance to his own name that made recompense for sin necessary. So when the Son willingly took the suffering of that recompense on himself, every footfall on the way to Calvary echoed through the universe with this message: The glory of God is of infinite value! The glory of God is of infinite value!

God the Son's mission even at His birth was to give His life to ransom sinners. And the fulfillment of that mission brought great glory to His Father.

Here is "Born to Die," a song by Bebo Norman that fits with this theme: