A sermon for the Transfiguration of Christ. The Bible readings were 2 Corinthians 3 v 12 - 4 v2 and Luke 9, 28-36
What does ‘Glory’ mean?
We use the word a lot – over the summer
last year our Team GB athletes were ‘covered in glory’ and the Queen’s Diamond
jubilee mean that 2012 was described as a year of glorious events (if not
glorious sunshine). And no we will not be singing ‘glory glory Man Utd’ any
time soon [pause to wash mouth out with soap]
But does this usage of the term actually
help us to understand what glory is when it comes to the glory of God?
The transfiguration of Jesus which we heard
about in the gospel reading today is the moment when his true identity is made
clear to Peter James and John who accompanied him up the mountain. Verse 32 of
Luke chapter 9 tells us that those three disciples saw Jesus’ glory. What is
that?
Well, on one level we have a description of
what they saw – Jesus’ appearance changed, his clothes were a bright as a flash
of lightening, and all this happened in a cloud. So we can see that there is a
connection between ‘glory’ and a bright shining light. This is consistent with
what we read in 2 Corinthians about Moses’ encounter with God – up a mountain,
in a cloud and involving a bright light that made Moses’ face glow. He wore the
veil, Paul tells us, to hide the fact that the reflected glory faded. The
revelation of God’s being, nature and presence to humanity – a dictionary
definition of glory – clearly involves physical phenomena – as here and
elsewhere a bright light, a voice from heaven – which we also have at Jesus’
baptism.
Sometimes too the Bible tells us Jesus does
things- miracles such as the water into wine at the wedding in Cana in order to
reveal his glory. There wasn’t a bright light at Cana, so glory is not limited
to that kind of thing, but in supernaturally influencing the natural world
Jesus does reveal that he is go – he reveals his true nature.
So when we talk about God’s glory, it means
‘who he really is, his presence’. That’s pretty amazing, right?
But we don’t tend to see Glory in that way
today, at least not all the time.
But what if I told you that the glory of
God was clearly visible right here in this room? We always acknowledge the
presence of God in our worship, and his presence is part of who he really is,
is part of his glory, but here’s the thing, in 2 Corinthians 4, Paul teaches
that the glory of God in the face of Christ is reflected in the life of the
church, just as it was reflected in the face of Moses.
The glory of God is here in you and me.
Look around you, see the glory of God.
St Irenaus, a 2nd century
Christian teacher said that ‘The glory of God is a human being fully alive’.
Jesus came so that we might have life in all its fullness – having that life
then gives glory to God – reveals who he is to us and to others.
And in the 1640’s in the English
Reformation’s Westminster shorter catechism, we learn that the chief end of man
– i.e. the principle purpose of the human race – is to glorify God and enjoy
him forever.
These two profound truths tell us that we,
the church, are meant to reveal the glory of God to others – we’re supposed to
show people who he really is. That’s quite a task especially since there is a
lot of rubbish out there about who God is and what he thinks and does.
But I want to end by encouraging us all to
seek the glory of God. That is an ambiguous phrase and I use it deliberately.
We need to aim to give glory to God – to tell his worth as the song puts it.
And we can do that not just by singing
about it in church, but by living it out for the other 6 days fo the week.
And the other sense in which we need to
seek God’s glory is indeed in the sense that Peter and James and John did – not
to be looking all the time for bright shiny lights and so on (but never rule
that out), but by walking with Jesus – by making the effort to stay in an
intimate relationship with him, and being fed by that. I mentioned last week
that during Lent our sermons and home group material will be looking at the
scriptural resources for doing this, but let me just also say that it is quite
hard to get to a place where you experience the glory of God in intimate
encounter with Jesus; climbing a mountain takes effort – no wonder PJ&J
were sleepy. We need to be aware that amazing visions of glory don’t just
happen willy nilly, we need to make the effort to climb that mountain – more
likely to be figurative I guess, to get to a place of intimacy.
This takes practice – and time. It can mean
sacrifice – perhaps giving up something so that we have time and space in our
lives to meet with God. It can mean pain – sometimes it is hard to leave behind
the things of the old life, as we take on the new life of the Spirit. It can
also mean we need to learn to focus on God instead of the hundreds of other
influences competing for our attention.
You can visit the mount of transfiguration
today in the Holy land, but the bright shiny light isn’t there any more – that
was a one off for the benefit of Jesus’ close companions. Now to seek the glory
of God we need to go deeper into intimate relationship with Jesus, and we
probably need to do that together. I think our June school of prayer may well
help with that.
In the words of Bishop Stephen Cottrell, whether you like it or not you are an
evangelist, a reflection of God’s glory
