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Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Thine Is The Glory
Exodus 33:17-23; John 12:20-32
Say "Glory of God" and what comes to mind?
Well, in some of the more dramatic stories of the Hebrew scriptures, you get things like:
- Bright shining light
- Dark clouds and flashing lightning
- Earthquakes
- Thick smoke and eerie voices
- Holiness -- whatever that is
- Creative energy
- Infinite, eternal, unchangeable all-of-the-above
Think, for example, of... Moses' spiritual smack-down match with the Egyptian king, priests, and wizards... The Israelites crossing the Red Sea unscathed, even unbathed, when the waters miraculously parted and rushed back together once they reached the other shore... All the special effects when Moses met with God up on Mt. Sinai for 40 days of consultation....
But, glorious as all that is, the passages for this week's message pack a glorious surprise. Each one says God's greatest glory is much more modest. And much more wonderful by far.
Listen to the GODcast!
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Each of the four Gospels has a dramatic turning point, each one told differently. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke the difference is slight -- rightly so, for they share the same basic outline.
John's version differs greatly. Rightly so, again -- for his whole Gospel tells Jesus' story from a totally different point of view.
All along the way, John has Jesus saying here and there, "My hour has not yet come." And that primes the reader to wonder, "What hour? Hour for what, exactly? When will it come, then? And how will we know it when it does come?"
And then you get to chapter 12. And here it comes. "Now," says Jesus, "This is my hour. The time has come."
So, what exactly has happened?
Some Greeks have asked his disciples for an audience with Jesus.
Greeks! In Jerusalem, the Jewish holy city. At the Passover festival. Who are these guys? And why are they there of all places, now of all times?
They might simply be Jewish pilgrims who live in Greece, thus not your "Best of Jerusalem" A-list guests at the hometown religious party.
Or maybe they're Greek converts who found the light in their neighborhood synagogue, submitted to the rabbi's instruction, and were warmly welcomed into the fold.
I like William Barclay's suggestion (in The Daily Study Bible) that they might have been well-to-do Greek tourists, taking in the sights and sounds of the Passover as a means of self-improvement. Like an elderhostel outing, or a self-directed inspirational vacation.
In any case, there they are. And they want to meet Jesus.
And he says that's it. It is now high time. For his glory to be revealed.
No more mere glimpses, flashes, hints, and clues. Now who and what he is will be seen in all its holy beauty. Whatever that is.
Now God's great Good News in Christ will be clearly read by anyone whose spiritual eyes are open to receive it.
As usual, my patron saint Frederick Buechner has something good to say about all this...
What is both Good and New about the Good News [Gospel] is the wild claim that Jesus did not simply tell us that God loves us even in our wickedness and folly and wants us to love each other the same way and to love him too, but that if we will let him, God will actually bring about this unprecedented transformation of our hearts himself.
What is both Good and New about the Good News is the mad insistence that Jesus lives on among us not just as another haunting memory but as the outlandish, holy, and invisible power of God working not just through the sacraments but in countless hidden ways to make even slobs like us loving and whole beyond anything we could conceivably pull off by ourselves.
Thus the Gospel is not only Good and New but, if you take it seriously, a Holy Terror. Jesus never claimed that the process of being changed from a slob into a human being was going to be a Sunday School picnic. On the contrary. Childbirth may occasionally be painless, but rebirth never. (Wishful Thinking, Harper San Francisco, 1973: page 33) The glory of God revealed in Christ, then, turns out to be what the old familiar song calls "amazing grace." God's free gift that we could never earn, generously handed to us simply because God is good and has good in mind for us.
Jesus' arms spread wide on the cross form God's wide-open embrace of the whole wide world. Freely offered, freely to be accepted. But that glorious gift comes, just as it did for Jesus, at the cost of everything you've got.
And it's absolutely worth it!
posted by Jack Buckley at
5:27 PM
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