It’s a funny word ‘glory’. We use it a lot in church. Especially on this last Sunday before Lent. You’ll see it in the collect, the canticles, the anthem the hymns...
As a boy, my theological development was greatly hindered because I had an Aunty Glory, and thought that all references were to her.
When I spoke at her funeral a few years ago, I discovered she was named glory because my grandmother had given birth to 7 boys and when the midwife said ‘it’s a girl!’ The response came back - ‘glory be!’ And so she was.
Isaac Newton, the great 17th century scientist and friend of Christopher Wren who designed this building, was fascinated by the word ‘glory’, especially in the stories about Moses. He taught himself Hebrew and Greek so he could better understand the Scriptures.
The word for glory in Hebrew, ‘kabod’, means heaviness or weight, and Newton became convinced that Moses had hidden the inverse square law of gravitational attraction in the text of the Pentateuch - the first 5 books of the Bible.
He had hidden it so that common people would not discover it and abuse the knowledge.
This prisca sapientia, ancient wisdom, was there for the true theological scholar to discover - God would reveal it to him. So Newton spent years sifting through the Hebrew text with various mathematical cyphers. Newton needed to get out more…
The Old Testament in fact develops the idea, not from the inverse square law of gravitational attraction, but from the idea of ‘an eminent man’ who had heavy possessions; heavy bags of money; heavy responsibilities - and even many heavy wives. A heavy man displayed gravitas.
When the Old Testament was translated into Greek between the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, (the Septuagint) the word ‘doxa’ was used to translate ‘glory’. It comes from the root word meaning ‘to think’ or ‘to seem’ and in classical Greek meant:
reputation (what others think of us) and;And this is obviously to do with fame, honour and praise.
opinion (what we ourselves think).
There’s one more little element left in this etymological tale. In Scripture, whenever God displayed his crushing heaviness of being, his glory, there was light - lightening, or blinding light, or a shining cloud, or a pillar of fire, or the burning bush of our Old Testament lesson - the Unbearable Lightness of Being. Or in the New Testament it is the rumbling, thunderous voice of God from heaven revealing Christ, the Light of the World – ‘the radiance of God’s glory’.
Years later, when Moses was doubting whether God had ever actually called him to service, we read these words in the book of Exodus:
Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory." And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. But, you cannot see my face, for no-one may see me and live." (Ex 33.18-23)Moses is told that God’s glory is unbearable, and all God would show was the shadow of his glory - his goodness - his moral perfection and beauty.
So the glory of God is full of light. He dwells in unapproachable light. Christ, the King of Glory, is the effulgence - the shining radiance - of God’s glory. And in that light of Christ we see ultimate moral beauty.
As Christians, we are summoned to follow Christ, the King of Glory, so that as we feed on him, we too begin to reflect the glory of God – as humans we are ‘crowned with glory and honour’. We become heavier, more substantial, more solid as people.
It is a great mystery of the Christian life, testified to by all the saints, that as we grow in faith, spiritual realities become, not more certain - we are often plagued by doubt - but somehow, more solid, almost tangible. As John Newton’s great hymn of glory ‘Glorious things’ puts it: “Solid joys and lasting treasures, none but Zion’s children know.”
In CS Lewis’s allegory about heaven and hell, The Great Divorce, and in the Narnia Stories - everything is more solid in heaven. The present life on earth becomes ‘thin’ and insubstantial, wraithlike in comparison. We live in the shadowlands.
Now our society talks much of ‘spirituality’ - the buzzword of school Ofsted inspections. It’s fashionable to be spiritual.
But there is little focus to that spirituality; and indeed often a denial that there is any objective ‘other’; the transcendent God of Glory. Spirituality is seen as something purely internal, subjective and personal.
Because of this absent substantiator in postmodern society; an absence of the One who gives weight to human existence, there is a lack of solidness in society, of glory, of weight.
We are in danger of becoming all surface and image.
Tesco ergo sum. I shop therefore I am.
Not that there’s anything wrong with a bit of surface and image occasionally. A little of retail therapy is just the thing when we’re consumed by metaphysical angst. It’s amazing what a new mobile phone can do!
But if image is all there is, then we are empty, and simply manipulated by the fashions of the age.
Friedrich Nietzsche reflected on this in the 19th century. He wrote: “When there is the ‘death of God’ in a culture, it becomes increasingly hollowed out, ‘weightless’”.
I was watching a film the other night in which there was a character named Ichabod… - the glory has departed.
It was the name given to Eli’s grandson Ichabod, who was born just after a particularly crushing defeat by the Philistines who also stole the Ark of the Covenant which represented the glory of God.
In fact it’s a rather tragic story which the Jewish writer turns into a little joke at the end.
"And it came to pass, when the messenger made mention of the ark of God, that Eli fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died: for he was an old man, and heavy." (I Sam 4)So the grandson, born at the same time is called Ichabod, 'the glory has departed' - the Ark of the Covenant has been carried off. But it could mean, the heavy one has departed - the fat man has died.
Ichabod might be a suitable epitaph for the last 20 years: much spiritual interest but little spiritual depth or weight. Believe but don’t belong. Enjoy an occasional spiritual experience, but don’t get too involved.
It is a simple truth of the Christian faith that we must not neglect the spiritual because of the ever pressing needs of the secular.
To neglect nurturing our relationship with Christ is to increase our superficiality and weightlessness. It is an ultimate vanity that leaves us to consume our own images.
The glory of our music, our architecture, our liturgy, is all supposed to draw us into the weightier glory of God. The senses lend support to our mind, for Christ, the transcendent King of glory cannot be grasped by reason alone.
...so may this weight of glory make us people of substance, able to serve Christ the King of glory; able to offer solid joys to others as we proclaim that Jesus
“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory.” Heb 1.3
