The Oxford dictionary contains over 250,000 words with new ones being added every day. Some words sound modern and contemporary, like bling, texting, and locavore. Other words, though, always sound old-timey. Glory is one of those words. Glory, Glory, Hallelujah—just hearing that phrase makes us think of the 1800s and the Civil War. Glory is a word we associate with poets and the bible: Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. In fact, glory is a word sprinkled throughout the bible, found in most of its books. It is there in Exodus when the Shekinah, the glory of the Lord led the Hebrew people out of Egypt and shone brightly upon Moses on top of Mt. Sinai. It is there in the Psalms, like Psalm 19: The heavens are telling the glory of God. It is there in the Christmas stories of Luke’s gospel, when shepherds were keeping watch over their flock by night and an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them and they were afraid.
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah: Glory as brightness, as splendor, as the literal radiance of the Lord. But then the word “glory” changes when we get to the gospel of John. The famous verse from the prologue to John’s gospel (1:14) says this: And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. This glory isn’t some bright spotlight or heavenly radiance scaring shepherds silly in the middle of the night. It’s the glory of a beloved child, an infant full of grace and truth. It’s not a loud boisterous glory, but a quiet glory. In today’s confused and confusing world, that’s the glory we need. So how do we find it?
One way to find quiet glory is to turn away from loud, gaudy, bombastic glory—worldly glory that is falsely bestowed on those who live in penthouses, who possess great wealth, who command huge armies, and who care only that they be center stage in every photo shoot and at the head of every table. This quality is not limited to the 1%-ers in the world. There are those who crave this type of glory in many of our families, in our places of work and in the most modest of neighborhoods. You don’t have to be rich to be a narcissist.
When America entered into World War II, Aaron Copland was asked by the conductor of the Cincinnati Orchestra to compose a special fanfare. Copland wasn’t sure what to call it. At first he considered calling it a fanfare for soldiers, airmen and sailors. Then, borrowing a phrase from F.D.R., he thought about a Fanfare for Four Freedoms. In the end, he decided on “Fanfare for the Common Man,” composing a stirring piece celebrating the unnamed men and women who are the backbone of America—the ones who pay taxes, who register for the draft, who teach our children, work in factories, and are the glue that holds together an American society worth fighting for.
All that glitters is not gold, and all that is gaudy and glamorous isn’t worth calling “glorious.” Real glory is paradoxically something deep within and hidden away, only revealed to those who have eyes to see it and honor it. Michelangelo alone was able to see within a scarred and discarded giant slab of marble the potential beauty that would become his masterpiece sculpture of David. The author Kathleen Norris shares a beautiful anecdote about the Trappist monastery of New Mellary, located southwest of Dubuque, Iowa. Founded in 1849 by Irish monks, the residents worship in a tall church sanctuary. When it was time to renovate the sanctuary, an architect discovered that beneath the smooth plaster were walls made of native stone. The monks themselves took off all the plaster and uncovered these stones. As Norris says, “The church is [now] a place where one can sit and watch the play of sunlight and shadow, a place made holy by the simple glory of light on stone.”1
Real glory is simple glory. Or, to use the language in John’s gospel, it is a glory full of grace and truth. False glory is a shiny, superficial thing – gold gild painted on the surface to make something look more expensive. Real glory comes from something else—because something always precedes glory. You work hard to master a skill and from that skill you gain recognition and glory. You lead a life of virtue and integrity and from those honorable deeds you receive acclaim and glory. You love sacrificially; you provide military service with valor, medical service with compassion, peacemaking service with perseverance and from that a simple glory shines forth and is recognized by others. It is like the beauty of the native stones in a church wall that only becomes visible when the artificial and worldly outer layers have been stripped away.
When we think of the glory of Jesus, it is never the glory of one who was vain, self-promoting, or self-serving. The glory of Jesus came from his ability to open our eyes to the deeper glory of God. In John’s gospel, after Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he spoke about how unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit. Then he prayed, “Lord, glorify your name” to which God answered, “I have glorified it and I will glorify it again” (Jn 12:24–28). Soon thereafter the disciples gathered for the Last Supper with Jesus, and Judas went off to betray him. Knowing this would lead to his crucifixion, Jesus said “Now the Son of Man has been glorified and God has been glorified in him” (Jn 13:31). In John 14, Jesus said “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.” In John 15, he spoke about being the true vine and we are the branches, who need to abide in that vine and follow his commandments. In John 16, Jesus said again that he has taught us these things so that we might not stumble or be afraid, for God the Father loves us because we love Christ and believe in him.
And then here, in John 17, Jesus prayed once more about glory, saying “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you…For all mine are yours; and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.”
Jesus has been glorified in us? How is that possible? We push aside that compliment with a disbelieving shake of our heads. And yet we, the common men and women of the world, routinely have brought glory to God in deeds of sacrifice and love and valor. On this Memorial Day weekend, think of movies like “Saving Private Ryan”—of a small band of soldiers committed to bring back safely one soldier to his family, or “Schindler’s List” in which one factory owner finds a way to rescue Jewish families from death in concentration camps. Or the movie called “Glory” about Colonel Robert Gould Shaw leading the 54th Massachusetts Infantry division, made up of African American freed slaves willing to fight and die for the Civil War cause of freedom. Jesus said, “All mine are yours and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them.”
Quiet glory is all around us. It is the result of parents’ commitment to care for and honorably raise their children, of workers’ integrity that compels them to make repairs or produce goods that are neither shoddy nor slapdash. Glory comes when aides care for elderly in clinics and nursing homes with sensitivity and humanity—when activists knock on doors, make phone calls, march in the streets to spread the word about unjust laws, unfair police tactics, undemocratic executive orders and court rulings that diminish us as a nation. Glory is always preceded by something else—and usually that something else is love, integrity, passion, virtue—all of which are synonyms for faith—having steadfast faith in the God who is Lord of Lords, whose glory has shown all around us from the dawn of time.
God in Christ chooses you and me to show forth God’s glory. Why us? Aren’t we unqualified? Sure, we are. That’s the whole point. If we were qualified, we would assume we accomplished everything good all on our own. But if we accept our lack of qualification and unworthiness, then there’s no danger that we will confuse God’s work with our own, or God’s glory with our own.2 That’s why real glory is a quiet glory. Angels may need to startle shepherds on Christmas Eve with the light of the glory of the Lord. But in our lives, we trust in Jesus, the Word made flesh, whose glory we’ve sensed and trusted and seen – one whose glory is full of grace and truth.
We trust in Jesus, who prays for us and unites us with God’s eternal love, for he still says: All mine are yours, O Lord, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.
Yes, we trust in Jesus, who is with us in our weakness—in our uncertainty—in our struggles and worries and aloneness—and who fills us with quiet glory, even as he prays, “Holy Father, protect them in the glory that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” Glory, glory, hallelujah indeed. Amen.
1 Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk, 1996, p. 296.
2 Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, 2001.