What is glory? The word is used hundreds of times in the Bible, but what does it mean? I like this definition I came across this week: to glorify is to ascribe weight by recognizing real substance. In one word, glory is praise. The Greek word that is at the root of what we are going to talk about today is δοξά. From this word we get our English word: doxology, which means “a word of praise”. We sing the doxology in church every Sunday: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”
The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?” And the answer it gives is: “To glorify God and enjoy him forever.”
This raises the question: how is God most glorified? I believe that our text for today from John 13:31-38 reveals three answers to that question. Listen for God’s word to you…
When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward.” Peter said to him, “Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times.
First, we see in this passage that God’s glory is revealed in the death of his Son.
The context of this Scripture is the night before Jesus’ crucifixion. No sooner has Judas left the Upper Room in order to betray Jesus then Jesus immediately begins talking about his glorification and God’s.
What is going on here?
Jesus knows that Judas is going to betray him to the Jewish authorities, and thus Jesus knows too that his time with his disciples is short. When Jesus speaks here of his glory, he is thinking ahead to the glory of what is going to take place in the next twenty-four hours—the glory of the cross.
However, this is where we have problems, don’t we?
We can understand how Jesus was glorified in the resurrection and ascension. We love to think about and sing about those triumphant events, especially on our high, holy days. However, where is the glory in the cross? How is God’s glory revealed in Jesus’ death?
God and his Son are glorified through the Son’s death in at least three ways. One is through the reversal that takes place at the cross. James Boice has pointed out that at the cross Jesus reversed the conduct of the first human beings and thus turned the history of our race around. Paul talks about this in Romans 5:18. “Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.”
The idea of Paul is that when the first human beings chose to disobey God it was as if humankind stepped off a cliff. Imagine a mountain climber tied to a whole group of climbers, stepping off an alpine precipice. If a climber did that, he would take his whole party with him.
However, imagine Jesus at the end of that line of mountain climbers, roped into all the rest. As James Boice puts it: “Because the Lord Jesus Christ does not succumb to temptation, because the Lord does not sin, because he is therefore able to offer himself up as the perfect sacrifice for human sin, and does so, he becomes the only stable and safe point of humanity.”
Jesus is like the man who taught me rock climbing in Switzerland. I don’t remember the name of the man who taught me to climb when I was fourteen years old. However, I do remember what he looked like: dark hair, dark beard, bulging muscles; he was a mountain of a man. When he was holding the rope tied to me, I knew that even if I were to fall, nothing terrible would happen because he could prevent me from falling very far.
That’s what Jesus has done for us through the cross. He has taken our death, our fall, upon himself, and thus reversed the consequences. Thus, Jesus’ death brings glory to God and to himself because we can’t help but praise God and his Son for what has been accomplished through the cross.
The second way in which the cross brings glory to God and the Son is through the reversal of the power of Satan, bringing to an end the power of the evil one. In Hebrews 2:14 we read, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil.” Thus, the reversal of the damaging, defeating power of Satan, through the cross, also brings glory to the Son. Peter Kreeft has written, “Calvary is judo. The enemy’s power is used to defeat him... And this very event, Satan’s conclusion, was God’s premise. Satan’s end was God’s means. It saved the world.”
A third way that God and his Son receive glory through the cross is through the revelation of his love. Paul says in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The cross is the greatest revelation of divine love. How can we not praise him for what he has done for us on Calvary? Christ’s death on the cross is the central revelatory event of God’s glory and the centerpiece of human history.
John Stott once told the story of an imaginary poor man from the slums of Brazil who climbed 2,310 feet up the mountain to the colossal statue of Christ that towers above Rio de Janeiro—“The Christ of Corcovado.” After the difficult climb, the poor man finally reached Jesus and said,
I have climbed up to meet you, Christ, from the filthy, confined quarters down there … to put before you, most respectfully, these considerations: there are 900,000 of us down there in the slums of that splendid city … And you … do you remain here at Corcovado surrounded by divine glory? Go down there to the favelas… Don’t stay away from us; live among us and give us new faith in you and in the Father. Amen.
The glory of the cross is that on Mount Calvary Jesus did just that; he climbed down to suffering humanity and shared our misery with us, thus revealing the Father’s divine love for us.
That leads to a second major point of this passage… A second way we see the power of God’s glory revealed in this passage is in the love that Jesus teaches the disciples to show for one another.
Knowing that Jesus would be leaving his disciples in a matter of moments, what was the most important message he had to deliver? It was a message of love. The love that he brought to his disciples from God the Father now needed to be embodied in their life together. God receives glory—he receives praise—when the world sees Christians loving one another. And loving not just in any old way, but in a new way, in the way that Jesus has loved them. And how did Jesus love us? He loved us by laying down his life for us, so we too should lay down our lives for one another.
Francis Schaeffer called this “the mark of the Christian”—whether a Christian loves his brothers and sisters in Christ. It is as if Jesus has given to the world the right to judge whether we are his true followers based upon our observable love for one another.
It has been said, “At no other time in the history of Christianity did love so characterize the entire church as it did in the first three centuries. And Roman society took note. Tertullian reported that the Romans would exclaim, ‘See how they love one another!’
“Justin Martyr [another one of the Early Church Fathers] sketched Christian love this way: ‘We who used to value the acquisition of wealth and possessions more than anything else now bring what we have into a common fund and share it with anyone who needs it. We used to hate and destroy one another and refused to associate with people of another race or country. Now, because of Christ, we live together with such people and pray for our enemies.’
“Clement [one of the first bishops of Rome], describing the person who has come to know God, wrote, ‘He impoverishes himself out of love, so that he is certain he may never overlook a brother in need, especially if he knows he can bear poverty better than his brother. He likewise considers the pain of another as his own pain. And if he suffers any hardship because of having given out of his own poverty, he does not complain.’”[1]
Just think what the Church could accomplish for the world, and for God’s glory, if Christians acted this way today!
Perhaps, to that end, we each need to pray something like this with Mother Teresa: “Dearest Lord, may I see you today and every day in the person of your sick, and, whilst nursing them, minister unto you. Though you hide yourself behind the unattractive disguise of the irritable, the exacting, the unreasonable, may I still recognize you and say, ‘Jesus, my patient, how sweet it is to serve you.”
A third way we see the power of God’s glory revealed in this passage is through human failure.
“Human failure,” you say, “How is God’s glory revealed in that?”
Well, let’s think about this for a moment. Peter failed Jesus miserably, even at the point where he thought he was strongest. He told Jesus he was ready to die for him. What if Peter had acted in a heroic fashion? What if he had laid down his life for Jesus at that time, perhaps dying on a cross next to Jesus on Calvary? Would we be able to relate to Peter half as well as we do today? I doubt it. One reason we relate to Peter so well, and learn great lessons from his life, is that he was a weak, sinful, human being just like us. However, he was a weak, sinful, human being whom Christ transformed and used in amazing ways by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes we think we could serve Christ better if we were “more perfect,” if we had fewer failures in our lives. However, it is right at this point that Jesus says to us what he said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)
I’m not saying we should try to sin or try to fail just so Jesus can use us more powerfully. We should strive to give our best to and for the Lord. However, when we do sin, when we do fail, it is so good to know that there have been other disciples of Jesus very much like us, who have gone before us, and God has used them, so perhaps we can trust the Lord to use us as well.
Again, I love what Mother Teresa once said: “God has not called me to be successful; he has called me to be faithful.” That is true for all of us. And even when we are faithless, God’s glory can be revealed through our failures, if we just keep getting back up again each time we fall. And Jesus will help us to do that, if we seek him.
I would like to close with one more thought from a book I have just re-read. The book is “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl. Frankl lived through Auschwitz and founded a whole new line of psychotherapy called logotherapy. In the book, Frankl says, “There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life. There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: “He who has a whyto live for can bear almost any how.”
Later in the book, Frankl says, “there are three main avenues on which one arrives at meaning in life. The first is by creating a work or by doing a deed. The second is by experiencing something or encountering someone; in other words, meaning can be found not only in work but also in love… Most important, however, is the third avenue to meaning in life: even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself.”
As I read the words of Frankl alongside the words of Jesus, I come to this conclusion: the means by which we glorify God are the same means by which we find meaning in life: through work (even when we fail), through love (even when we love imperfectly), and most amazing of all, we can glorify God and even find meaning through suffering. Jesus has done all three perfectly and he is also the one who can help us along the way to both glorify God and find meaning even in the darkest moments of life.
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