Who Gets the Glory?
We see glory only in big moments when the flashbulbs dance.
Getting all the glory means taking the stage, along with the spotlights, away from every other performer. The sensory functions of the audience find their mark nowhere else. Distracted neither by sound or sight elsewhere, the entire throng funnels its gaze in one place.
It could be a masterful solo piece during a concert, a thunderous alley-oop dunk during an NBA playoff game, or a street magician dazzling passers by. The world stops – just for a moment – when glory does its work.
In Christian churches throughout the world, many have listened to the words of Jesus the last few Sundays from the gospel of John. Words about his glory. “Now is the Son of Man glorified” (John 13:31), Jesus sighed in the upper room the night he would be betrayed.
There’s a theme of glory and glorification found in John’s gospel more then the others. In his first chapter John announces, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). In the closing chapters of John, Jesus concludes in his prayer to the Father, “I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world” (John 17:24). Not surprisingly, John uses the verb “to glorify” more than any other New Testament book!
So what exactly does all this glory mean for Jesus? It’s a bit different than someone else getting all the glory. For Jesus, the glory isn’t just about the thrill moment of spectacular accomplishment. Jesus’ glory began well before his resurrection. Jesus possessed glory even before the creation of the world. At his birth Jesus got the glory. And on the night before he was crucified, he said the time had come for him to be glorified even further still.
We wouldn’t typically think of an accomplished violinist repeatedly stroking out scales in a practice session as glorious, nor a 6th grade basketball game of a future NBA star. We see glory only in big moments when the flashbulbs dance. But the Bible sees Jesus’ glory as all of what he does and who he is, including his most humiliating experiences like being betrayed, crucified, and buried. All of Jesus’ work and all of his person are the glory of God. The glory that saves sinners.
That glory comes into focus best by what our world is least likely to call glory. Remember that the next time you want the glory.
PRAYER: Yours is the glory, O Jesus, for you are the Savior of sinners. We need your glory, the perfect kind of glory spotlighted at your crucifixion and resurrection. Fill us with that glory and give us faith to believe that your glory is better than the glory of this world. Amen.