“I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory I had in your presence before the world began.” Jesus in today’s Gospel, John 17:1-11.
‘The glory of God is a human being fully alive.’ BishopIrenaeus.
Today’s Gospel is taken from the High Priestly prayer of Jesus in St John’s Gospel, at the Last Supper he shares with the disciples before his crucifixion. In it, Jesus says that the hour has come and asks that God will glorify him so that God will be glorified.
Giving glory to God is a fundamental part of worship, or worth-ship, as God is praised and honoured through the liturgy offered during services. The Gloria Patri, Glory be…is said at the end of every psalm, with the Gloria in Excelsis Deo, the ancient Christian hymn of praise, echoing the song of the angels at the birth of Jesus: Glory be to God on high. Psalm 19 proclaims the glory of the Creator as seen in creation: The heavens are telling the glory of God and the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer is that Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory.’ And yet, Jesus speaks of glory knowing that betrayal, arrest, injustice and agony lie ahead. At the crucifixion, he is glorified – but his throne is a cross and his crown is of thorns although the Book of Common Prayer refers to Jesus’ later mighty resurrection and glorious ascension.For the disciples, this must have been a time of wondering and waiting for the coming Jesus has promised amidst uncertainty about the future now their leader has left them. Luke writes in Acts 1:14 that they gather with others and Jesus’ family in Jerusalem, turning to prayer and now finding the courage to wait hopefully rather than despairingly in this familiar place.
In the Bible, the glory of God is often seen in physical events such as the burning bush found by Moses, the pillar of cloud and fire leading the Israelites in Exodus or his glory filling the Temple in 2 Chronicles 5 and 7, amongst other examples. This was frightening as well as glorious, God’s presence being hidden until he chose to reveal it in astounding ways. By contrast, the life of Jesus reveals God’s glory in the world, as St John writes: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. That glory was manifest in John 2:1:11at Jesus’ first miracle in Cana when water was turned into wine and his glory was revealed, as when Jesus declared at the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11: This sickness does not lead to death, rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
These occasions all came at significant times: Moses was afraid and uncertain; the Israelites were wandering and grumbling; the Ark of the Covenant placed in the Temple in 2 Chronicles 5 signified the presence of God which led to glory filling it; the wine at the wedding in Cana is of the best quality, underlining this new beginning; Lazarus is raised after a time of great distress for his family when the power of Jesus is manifest as divine glory is revealed through divine power. Glory both reveals the grandeur and purposes of God and heartens his followers as they try to discern what is unfolding.
Jesus spoke of glory in the dark times before his crucifixion and, in testing times in our own lives, perhaps there have also been occasions when glory has been glimpsed. Even as Judas leaves to betray him, Jesus is able to say Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him –John 13:31. At Easter and the ascension, the victory of love over hatred and life over death is celebrated but it begins in the desolation of what is happening during and after the Last Supper. If we are also to experience the glory of God in our world today, darkness and devastation are part of it, as well as wonder and praise.
The glory and hope of the ascension is that the experience of humanity is taken into heaven by Jesus, just as he first commissions the disciples to be his spiritual body in the world, becoming witnesses to and continuing what he has begun. Rather than desert him, as in Gethsemane, or mourn his departure the disciples are now able to trust what Jesus tells them and at the end of his Gospel, St Luke writes that they were in the Temple praising God. Whereas they had previously often been afraid, they now await the spiritual power which will come to them and transform their hearts, minds and lives to enable them to find the courage to be witnesses in a sometimes hostile world. The same can be true for us, when we lift up our hearts in praise and trust as witnesses to the spiritual and earthly dimensions of divine love in our world today. In doing so, glory and glorious things can be experienced in familiar places, touching hearts with hope despite the uncertainty in life today and extending our vision to glimpse glory through even the every day things of life in simple as well as profound ways. As the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it in his poem ‘Pied Beauty’: Glory be to God for dappled things….. Praise him.
With my prayers; pob bendith,
Christine, Priest Guardian.