John 13:33-35
“Now is the Son of Man glorified,
and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will
also glorify him in himself, and God will glorif y him at once.”
Whenever I read that passage, my first reaction is to say, “Huh?”
I hear the words, but I don't really understand them. Yes, I know
who the Son of Man is, and I even know to what Jesus is referring –
his crucifixion and death. If he had just said, “Now is the Son of
Man glorified” I wouldn't have a problem. Well, I guess I'd still
have a little problem. You see, I'm not sure what “glorified”
means. But I don't think I'm alone. Go look up the word “glory”,
or even “glorify” and you will see what I mean. Or just think of
how we use those words. “That movie glorifies violence”. Glory
be to God! A woman's hair is her glory. When we won the game, we
got the glory! I restored my car to its former glory!
I think the word “glory” refers to
something that defines a person or thing, and to glorify means to
show that. Obviously it means more, but let's start there. The
Crucifixion and death of Jesus shows something about his very nature
– tied in to his self-sacrificing love for us. And in that moment
we get a glimpse of God Himself, because if we have seen Jesus, we
have seen the Father. But in response to Jesus' submission to the
will of the Father, God will glorify him – raise him up to new
life, and that will show God's power and love; and he will do it now,
not at the end of time. So I think I can wrap my mind around the
idea that to glorify in this context means to show something about
God's power.
But then we read the next part of the
gospel selection: “I give you a new commandment; Love one
another.” Well, that part isn't new. The words may vary a bit,
but all through the old testament you have that command. And it
isn't even unique to Christianity or Judaism. But the part that is
new follows: “As I have loved you, so you should love one
another.” How does Jesus love his disciples? Enough to die for
them. That is what Jesus sets for uis as a goal.
And finally, Jesus says, “This is
how all will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one
another.” And that ties the first part to the second part.
When Jesus dies on the cross, we learn
something of what God is like. God loves us enough to die for us.
When Jesus is raised from the dead, we learn something more. God
overcomes death for those who submit to His will. God will never be
outdone in generosity, and he will not let his faithful ones remain
in the grave. In those actions, God is shown forth, God is
manifested, God is glorified.
And to the extend we love each other
as Jesus loved us, God is shown forth, he is manifested, he is
glorified.
And Jesus doesn't just want us to love
one another, even to love each other enough to die for each other; he
wants us to love each other so that the world will see God in the
behavior of the followers of Jesus.
If you think about Islam – and I'm
not changing the subject, really – I imagine to many of us the
image of a masked terrorist chopping the head off of someone comes to
mind. The muslims who interpret their religion in this way are
manifesting something about their founder and their idea of God. But
the muslims I know are not that different from me in their daily
behavior; they work, they pray, they raise families, they want peace.
But they aren't manifesting something about the founder of their
religion or their idea of God by being ordinary citizens.
And we're not any different. Back
when Christianity was spreading throughout the world, there were
Christians who carried out Jesus' wishes; they were members of
religious orders who were missionaries, founded hospitals and
universities; cared for the poor, sacrificing themselves to advance
the cause of Christ. And there were many of them. But there were
many claiming to be Christians who came in armies that conquered and
enslaved people. Depending on who got to you first, you might be
very attracted to Christianity or perhaps it would leave a bad taste
in your mouth and you would want nothing to do with it. Much of our
modern world still bears the marks of these two forces.
Today we don't have very many people
who publically dedicate their lives to showing the world how we are
to love one another. We are all aware of the great decline in
vocations to religious orders, and even those who are members are no
longer easily distinguishable from every one else. And
unfortunately, even our priests who go around in clerical collars
don't always make those who see them think of love as Christ is
speaking about. And maybe that's a good thing, because we can't
leave loving one another up to specialists. If we want the world to
know that we are Christ's disciples, then we have to show that we
love each other as Christ loved us.
We will never convert the world by
living normal quiet lives. We will never convert the world by
embracing the values that the world treasures. The only way we will
show Jesus in the world, the only way we will glorify God, is when we
demonstrate that we have self-sacrificing love for each other.
Jesus lived and died to reveal
something about how God is to the world. God raised Jesus from the
dead to show the world something more about how God is. And Jesus
calls us to continue to reveal him and His father to the world – by
showing that same kind of love to the world, a love that is active,
that gets results, that is self sacrificing, and shown through
action, not just words. Only then will we begin to convert the
world.
