students of jesus

I’ve fallen asleep at my desk twice this morning, and it has nothing to do with Daylight Savings Time. I’ve been reading entries in theological dictionaries and books on systematic theology, trying to see if anyone understands the word Glory.

Glory: it’s a fine-sounding religious word that doesn’t seem to connect with real life very often. John, the close friend of Jesus, couldn’t get away from the word as he struggled to describe Jesus at the beginning of his gospel: “We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” He couldn’t get away from what he had seen: he used the word 19 times in his gospel, more than all three of the other gospels combined. John recorded Jesus’s prayer in Gethsemane, and Jesus seems pretty concerned about glory—he mentions it six times as he talks to the Father. In fact, “glory” is mentioned more than 400 times in the Bible.

But counting words doesn’t lead to knowing words. Nor, apparently, does using theology textbooks. They can beat the glory out of a glorious, life-filled reality. Yet “Glory” is all through the holy book: Moses wanted to see God’s glory; Exodus describes a God-glory is so thick you could mistake it for a shining cloud; in the Psalms we are told to give glory to Yahweh; in the prophets Yahweh says he won’t give his glory to another; and yet another prophet says the whole earth is filled with his glory. Glory is in the creation, pointing to the Creator. Glory is the stuff of heroic God-stories that only Sunday school children actually believe. Glory caused a teenage girl to conceive a child, scared shepherds beyond their wits, and transfigured Jesus so completely that Old Testament legends showed up to chat with him.

My first mentor, C.S. Lewis, wrestled with the word in an essay The Weight of Glory. He chose his own ignorance as his starting point. “Glory suggests two ideas to me, of which one seems wicked and the other ridiculous.” I won’t steal his thunder, or deprive you of the joy of discovery when you read this great master for yourself—but ten sentences from Lewis is better than all the academic drivel I’ve put up with today.

I think I’ve seen God’s glory twice during my lifetime—actually seen it. Try bringing that up at a small group Bible study. It shuts the party down real fast. But glory is something real, substantive, and it comes from God.

You want something to think about? I give you “Glory,” a word used more than a hundred times in the New Testament, the desire of Moses in the Old, and the song of a numberless throng in Revelation. It's the kind of word we have lost completely, and a word without which we miss a great part of knowing our Lord.