10. Glory to God

It is common knowledge that worshiping God is the same as praising God. We praise God for being great. Instead of saying praise to God we also say glory to God. Hallelujah, the Hebrew word, is hallelu (let us praise) yah (God). The Syriac equivalent is Shub-ho (glory) lok (to you) Aloho (God). The Arabic expression, Allahu (God) Akbar (great), has similar sense.

We begin our prayers praising God. As God is believed to be trinity in Christianity, we usually use the expanded form of hallelujah-- Glory be to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Its Syriac equivalent is Subho la abo la bro va la ruho kadeesho. (Subho = glory, la = to, abo = father, bro = son, va = and, ruho = spirit, kadeesho = holy)   

When we praise God, we admit that God’s greatness is unique. We admit that even a comparison is not possible. We praise God for His holiness, knowledge, power, and immortality. God alone is holy, God alone has all knowledge, God alone has all power, and God alone is beyond time-space limits. Therefore, God alone deserves our ultimate praise.

How do we know this information about God? Actually we don’t know, because no one has had any direct knowledge of any kind about God. We gain knowledge with our senses and with our mind. Apostle John rightly affirms that no one has ever seen God. So whatever we say of God are not the result of any direct experience. They are simply deductions from what we have experienced with our senses. For example, we see around us beings that have birth and death, and we deduct that unlike them, God has neither birth nor death. We claim that God is beyond time-space limit with our realization that the whole world exists within those limits. The statement, “only God knows”, means no one knows. Thus our statements about God are really the negative of what we know about what is not God. Thus although we know nothing of God, we still think and talk about God, for it helps us think and talk about ourselves and about our world better. It is similar to the use of negative numbers in Mathematics. Adding negative five is the same as subtracting positive five. Such thinking is called apophatic in Theology.  

Usually we give a name to something we know. So it is a paradox that we have given a name to God, of whom we know nothing. So what exactly do we mean by the word God? It is similar to the X in Algebra. We admit that it exists, but its value is unknown. We try to understand its value from the other factors in a formula. In relation to the world, we assume that God is beyond all limits of time and space. We also assume that God is the source of the world, the source of the rules that govern the world, and the source of the energies that sustain the world. We also assume that God knows everything about the world, and the world is fully under the control of God. In relation to us, we assume that God is always right, God has all the abilities, and that God is immortal.  

In the Christian worship, God is praised primarily for His holiness. The statement, “Holy are you, O God!” is repeated over and over. In Syriac we say, Kaadeesh (holy) aat (are you) Aloho (God)! It further implies that God alone is holy, and that no beings in the world are holy.

God alone is holy because God is omniscient. Someone who knows everything does everything right. Since God alone is holy, no one else but God is qualified to be the judge, the one who can decide what is right and what is wrong.  

Thus praising God as holy has important implications. Prophet Isaiah saw angels praising God for being holy. The angels are able to live together with love and in peace because of their conviction that God alone is holy. Therefore they are willing to admit their own mistakes and forgive the mistakes of others. If we on the earth also praise God for being holy, we will be able to live together with love, joy, and in peace.   

We praise God for being omnipotent. God alone possesses all abilities of all kinds. Some people are described jack-of-all-trades, to mean that they possess a lot of skills. However much you can do, still there are things which you can’t. For things which you can’t, you will have to depend upon others. Like the various organs in a body, we possess only a few skills. Just as the organs live together in a body supporting one another, we live together in the body of society depending upon each other.

We praise God for being omniscient. God alone has all knowledge about everything. There have been people in history described as intellectual giants and walking encyclopedias. However much someone gains knowledge, still his/her knowledge is partial. Even if you have knowledge of a billion things, a child you meet on the street may have a piece of knowledge which you don’t have. This awareness should make us humble and open.  

Because God knows everything, God is always right, and God can do everything. We, on the other hand, have only partial knowledge, so we have only partial skills, and we are prone to errors.  

Perhaps this is the meaning of the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil belonged to God, and man was not allowed to eat from it. It probably meant that God alone is in possession of all knowledge of what is ultimately good and evil. Eating it is the same as claiming to know all, claiming to be holy, and claiming to have the right to judge.

We also praise God for being immortal, for God alone exists beyond time limit. It also means that God is the source of life with which all living beings live. Just as a light bulb lights with electricity, we live with the life energy that comes from God. The life that makes us alive is not our own, but God’s. As we read in the Genesis story, Adam was born when the life of God combined with the earth. When earth goes back to earth, and life goes back to God, we call it death. This awareness helps us overcome the fear of death.

Worshiping False Gods

We worship or glorify what appears great to us. When young people see greatness in some people, they accept them as their heroes, which is called hero-worship. Someone who likes music may accept Yesudas as a hero, and worship him. Becoming like the hero will be the goal of life of the worshiper. The heroes become role models. In Christian way of life, we are encouraged to accept the saints as our role models in our growth to higher levels. Seeing great people as our role models is really helpful. As long as the great people are not placed in the seat of God, they serve as guideposts and pointers to God.   

But when someone or something occupies the seat of God, becoming our ultimate goal in life, it becomes an idol, and it is dangerous. Greatness is seen not only in people but also in wealth, positions, and pleasures. Jesus asserted that one cannot worship both God and mammon. Mammon is the personification of the wealth-God. St. Paul once stated that God for some people is their belly.    

A lot of people see oneself as the greatest. Such a person sees him/herself as the center of the world. They see the world and even God existing for him/her. The Pharisee in Jesus’ story is such a person. He praises himself. Actually he places himself on God’s seat, so he can’t glorify God. Many of us are like him pretending to worship God, but really the praises rise only from our lips, not from our hearts.

We glorify things that are not God because our inner eye has gone blind. We are unable to see what is truly great, and we ascribe greatness to many things that are not God. We see the glory of God only when our inner eye gets opened, which happens when we pass through suffering. The prodigal son saw the greatness of his father when he passed through a very tough time in his life. His master treated him like trash, which helped him to compare this master with his own father, who treated his servants well. Once he had this awareness, he turned around. He wanted to return to his father and admit that he was wrong. But his older brother couldn’t see the greatness of his father. He glorifies only himself, and blames his father.

It was a vision of the greatness of God that made a change in the life of Prophet Isaiah. He realized that there was nothing greater than God in the whole world.

Similarly, we see the greatness of God by means of our experiences in our life, especially when we suffer, and this vision makes us surrender ourselves to God as a slave.

It seems that most of the people in our world see as God whatever that is not God. They travel along the wide highway of death. But a few, whose inner eye is open, worship the true God. They take the path toward life, which is narrow.

Heaven is heaven because the inhabitants in heaven worship only God. Their inner eye is open. If we on earth can do so, our world also can become heaven.        

In short, praising/worshiping God is the way for all living beings to live a meaningful and successful life. We praise God not because God needs our praise, but because we need it as a foundation to our life. Let us read more about it in the following chapters. 

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