Perhaps the first thing that the word “God” means to us is “elevation” from this world that we describe as corrupt, changeable and perishable… those things that we consider God to be much higher than. God is elevated to a dangerous degree sometimes that makes some people ignore Him. What is not comprehended in God sometimes becomes non-existent. If God is above our existing capabilities, then He may sometimes seem outside of real existence. Or at least God exists but He is beyond this world and outside of it. God has always been for man that transcendent being. And God’s closeness to our world associates with Him some weakness that we must exonerate Him from.

There is a “great gulf” - as the Bible says - between God’s world and our world. But does this gulf prevent our connection with Him and His connection with us? Does God’s transcendence necessarily mean His absence and distance? Is this the divine will? If the answer is yes, that God’s transcendence equals His distance, then God is not worthy of attention and any relationship with Him is basically impossible! And if the answer is no, that God is transcendent but also present, then the next question is how does God connect with us and how do we connect with Him?

For ancient human religious philosophy and thought, God’s world is not our world, and the difference between the nature of the two worlds is great. God’s world is spiritual and our world is material; His world is stable and our world is corrupt! The only link between God and man is the human mind, which belongs to the spiritual world. That is why man connects with God when his mind goes to God. God does not approach our material world, which has no connection to God’s holiness, if not hostility to it. That is why a day will come when the human mind will be liberated from the prison of the flesh and return to the spiritual world, where it will unite with God!

This solution made human thought despise matter and sanctify the spirit, and separate the two worlds as light differs from darkness, good from evil, and the sacred from the profane. There is no human movement or philosophy that made God transcendent to the extent that Epicureanism raised it. They said that God exists - by logic - but there is no second life after this current age, and God does not ask us for anything, and there is no interference from Him in our lives, nor reward or punishment! The existence of God is something that is not related to our lives, and perhaps He only answers man’s question about the reason for the existence of the universe, so God is merely an answer more than He is a person and a presence. The existence of God thus has no meaning and does not affect our existence! He exists, yes, but for us in reality, it is as if He does not exist! And philosophies and religions differed, despite their multiplicity, about the transcendence and elevation of God. And some of them were influenced by others.

But Christianity, although it emphasizes the transcendence of God and the incomprehensibility of Him in His essence, does not believe that He is distant, or that His presence in our lives is neutral, unnecessary, or unimportant. Quite the opposite! Even if God is very transcendent, He is very present, and this theology is represented in the image of the “Pantocrator” in the dome of the Christian temple, who is on the one hand in His heaven, yes! But at the same time He looks at the world, blesses, cares for, and cares for. How then does God relate to man and man to God for us Christians?

 As much as God is transcendent, He is also “good,” that is, loving. If it were not for God’s goodness and love, there would be no justification for Him to address us and communicate with us. God addresses us only with goodness, giving, and love. God’s love and goodness drive Him to us. God’s love makes Him come out from His heaven to us. God’s love is the reason for His condescension and transcendence. God’s transcendence does not prevent His condescension, and His condescension does not hurt His transcendence, because love elevates and does not humiliate. Perhaps we understand God’s transcendence more the more we contemplate the extent of His condescension to us! The people who most appreciate God’s transcendence and greatness are the ascetics and mystics who have tasted the divine love that revealed His greatness to them. The more these people unite with Him and love Him, the more His transcendence increases in their eyes.

God’s love makes him come to us, so what makes us go to him? It is the same reason! God’s love for us wounds our souls. Jesus declared that when he was lifted up (on the cross) he would lift up many to him. That is, when his great love would be shown, he would make many love him more than this world. When he would descend even to the shame of the cross, people would be lifted up to divine glory. There is, then, a real and continuous movement between God and men. He (God) descends while he is exalted, and men are lifted up while they are weak. God’s love leads him to us, and God’s love leads us to him. “With his longing he wounds our souls.” When we know—while we are still sinners—how much he loved us, then we love him more.

God is loving to the point that He condescends to us and becomes beloved. God moves toward us, even to our lowliness, in order to move us to His elevation and sublimity. God’s goodness and love are the reason for His movement toward us. God’s love is the reason for creation. God is not a creator by nature, that is, compelled as such and cannot be otherwise. God is loving, and that is why He created the world and man. If God were a creator by nature, He would also be a substance with no merit in creation, but merely a cause or beginning for it. God could have not created, and why did He create? Because He wanted to, because He is loving. Therefore, after God created the world, His goodness and love did not stop, but He turned to it with care and attention. And when man sinned, God had no choice but to forgive, promise, and draw closer, to the point that He offered His only Son as an instrument of reconciliation and repentance. God’s love made Him the Creator, His love made Him not neglect His creation but rather care for it, His love made Him not reject it when human will wronged Him and is wronging Him, His love makes Him come to us and reveal Himself to us no matter how much we turn our eyes away from Him.

God’s love makes us understand how God’s condescension increases His sublimity and does not diminish it. God’s goodness explains to us how God’s exaltation does not decrease in His presence among us, but rather increases. That is why Christmas hymns end their lyrics with the phrase “Glory to Your goodness, O Lord.” The more one contemplates God’s condescension and His movement toward us, the more one glorifies His goodness!

God is a movement and a mover. God’s goodness leads Him to us and His coming makes us return to Him. His movement toward us moves us. Without the divine movement toward man, man does not move toward God. Therefore, without the divine movement and God’s goodness, man remains dead. He who does not participate in God’s movement by moving toward him is inert—dead. He who does not taste how good the Lord is—“Taste and see that the Lord is good”—remains in death and not in life. The more God moves toward us, the more we realize His goodness, and the more we realize His goodness, the more He is exalted, and the more He condescends, the more He is exalted, because His movement is from His love and not from His need.

“God,” for us, is not just the Creator, He is the Father whom we revere when He bends down to us to heal our weakness, and we see Him more sublime whenever He bears our infirmities! “Glory to Your goodness, O Lord!”

Amen