Glory!
Sermon for May 8, 2005
1. Good Morning! Let’s Pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
2. Opening Comments: Today is the seventh and last Sunday of the Easter season and our Gospel reading - John 17:1-11 brings us to the climax of the long discourse Jesus gives at the Last Supper according to the Fourth Gospel.
Before I go any further I want to acknowledge my indebtedness to Fr. Brendan Byrne a Jesuit Biblical commentator for some key insights into this passage.
In John chapter 17 Jesus stops speaking directly to the disciples and turns to His Father in prayer. This prayer is, from my prospective, one of the greatest prayers in the entire Bible and gives us a rare insight into the magnificent heart of our incarnate Lord. Truly we, together with the disciples, are given the extraordinary privilege of listening to a moment of intimacy between Father and Son!
The central theme in this pericopy – this short section of Scripture – is Glory – it’s all about God’s revealed power and presence – His glory!
It’s particularly important to us at this time in the life of our Church and in the formation of us as revealers of God’s glory to the world! You see, it’s all about what great disciples do for the world – they reveal God’s glory to the world! They reveal God’s Power and Presence to the world!
So, let me ask us a few framing questions to launch our reflections this morning: “Have you ever experienced God’s glory?” Have you ever been overwhelmed by His Glorious Presence?” This is what it’s all about! Knowing God in all of His glory! Anything else is a pale counterfeit of the full-blown reality of God!
You see, the world desperately needs to see and feel and taste and hear God in His fullness. It’s being titivated by all sorts of other glories that pale in comparison to God’s infinite glory.
Can you see what I’m getting at here? If all we have to offer is a way of living well, or of living in peace or one or more of the many offerings of the New Age cults or the limited offerings of all other religions then we’re just one of the many religious products available to the human consumer. But if, what we have to offer, is infinitely more than these limited offerings – these limited glories – if what we’re have to offer is a revelation of the One and only true God in the fullness of His magnificent glory then we’re light years out ahead of all of the others.
Can you see that what we’re going to reflect upon today is what we bring, by the grace of God, to this world. And it’s what the world is yearning for!
3. Focus on Scripture. So let’s go! I want to read our Gospel reading once more just to get it fresh in our minds so that our reflections on it may be better. Please turn with me to the Gospel of John chapter 17 beginning at verse 1:
John 17:1 After Jesus said this, he looked
toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the
time has come. Glorify your Son, that
your Son may glorify you - Ah!
we’re going to come back to this! Glorify your Son that your Son may
glorify you. 2 For you
granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all
those you have given him. 3 Now
this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I
have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your
presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
John 17:6 “I have revealed
you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave
them to me and they have obeyed your word.
7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from
you. 8 For I gave them the words
you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from
you, and they believed that you sent me.
9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those
you have given me, for they are yours. 10
All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through
them. 11 I will remain in the
world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy
Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that
they may be one as we are one.”
Jesus begins by asking the Father to “glorify your Son.” What does Jesus mean when He asks for this from His Father? What’s He really asking for?
The idea of “glory,” has to do with making palpable or substantial the Power and Presence of the unseen God.
We get a scent of this concept in the Old Testament when Moses saw the glory of God revealed to some extent in the burning bush. It was a palpable sign of God’s power and presence.
Some of us may recall the pillar of cloud which
accompanied the Israelites during their exodus from
Now let’s turn to the Gospel of John in the New Testament. How is God’s glory – His power and presence - revealed to all who are watching? Isn’t it in the human presence of Jesus Christ His only Son? Jesus Himself said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9). God’s glory – His power and presence, are revealed in Jesus Christ! The miracles that Jesus performed throughout His ministry have been “signs” of this glory!
But now, and I quote from Fr. Byrne,
“But now however, we are being
readied for the supreme manifestation of God’s glory, which will take place
when Jesus dies upon the cross. In this
outpouring of self-sacrificial love, the Son will reveal God as God truly is:
as love”
1John 4:8 “Whoever does not love does not know God,
because God is love.”
And let me round this thought out with one final quote from Fr. Brendan which took my breath away as I read it on our deck late last week.
“Jesus death on
the cross renders the love of the unseen God transparent to the eyes of faith.”
Let me say that again: “Jesus
death on the cross renders the love of the unseen God transparent to the eyes
of faith.”
God’s glory – His power and presence – are revealed most gloriously in His beloved Son and
most exquisitely in His death upon the cruel cross for in this sacrifice we see
the palpable reality of God’s love for us!
Glory glory glory glory glory!
God loves us – and He didn’t just say it – He did it! He revealed it upon the cruel cross!
When Jesus said, “Glorify your Son,
that your Son may glorify you!” He was really
saying, “Bring on the final act, the act that will once and for all reveal who
you are. All the preliminary work is
accomplished. Now is the moment for the
supreme, life-giving revelation! This
is God’s glory revealed!”
4. Eternal Life! But what comes to all to whom He reveals Himself –
to whom He reveals His glory – His power and presence? Ah! for this answer we
must read on:
Glorify your Son that your Son may glorify
you. 2 For you granted him
authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have
given him. 3 Now this is eternal
life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you
have sent. 4 I have brought you
glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5 – Which was? To reveal the Father in Himself!
What comes to those to whom He reveals Himself in His glory
– His power and presence? Ah! Eternal life!
John
17:3 “Now
this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom you have sent.”
Revelation
of His glory brings eternal life. You
see, to know God in His glory –that is in Jesus Christ – who was and is the
most perfect, most sublime expression of His glory, we already have received
eternal life. To know Jesus is to have
eternal life.
So
what is it that you’re offering the world?
To see God and all of His wonder and glory and thereby to have eternal
life! Jesus said, “I am the way, the
truth and the life!” Wow!
5.
Sacramental
living. So where is all of this leading us.
You remember that I began our reflection
with the thought that what we’re going to be reflecting upon this morning is
timely for it’s what separates us from all other would be religions – we’re not
presenting a way of life – we are to become ourselves living breathing
representatives of God’s glory as we, in our bodies, in our love for others,
display God’s glory!
Can you see where I’m going now? It’s called Sacramental living – living in
such a way to reveal God’s glory in our lives – God’s Presence and Power in our
very bodies just as Jesus did! We’re
Christians – doing what Jesus our Lord did and wants to continue to do in and
through us!
Amen and Amen!
Let’s Pray!