There are few things on this earth more glorious than a bride. I have watched three of my daughters walk down the aisle to be married. With the help of hairdressers, makeup artists, manicurists, and dress designers—add to this the glow of being in love—they were transformed from the ordinary young women I knew to being queen-like figures who drew the attention of every eye in the church.
At these special moments they were “glorified”—that is “made to glow.” For a short moment they seemed to leave the human sphere and become part of an angelic world. Every young woman longs for a day to be “glorified.”
Do we know that God wanted to “glorify” Jesus? He wanted Jesus to shine so brightly that all the world would realize that he was the perfect representation of God’s glory on this earth. Strangely, however, as God prepared Jesus to “glow,” he didn’t dress him up in the regal garments of a stately king.
Jesus discussed this matter while sharing the Last Supper with his disciples. After Judas had left the room, Jesus said (John 13:21-33,36-38),
“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 he will glorify him at once.”
Jesus, at this moment, looked like anything but a “glowing” bride. He was still the poor, itinerant preacher who had just completed his “hour in the sun.” No longer was he restoring sight to the blind, giving spell-binding teachings, or raising people from the dead. His short moment in the spotlight was over. No longer did he appear to be glorious. In fact he appeared to be troubled:
“Reclining at table with his disciples, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified, ‘Amen, amen I say to you, one of you will betray me.’”
He was acutely conscious that one of his own companions was getting ready to trade him in for a handful of coins. He was beginning to resemble the “suffering servant” that Isaiah, the prophet, had talked about many years before. It appeared as though Jesus had lost his power and his “glow.” His next step in life was to be seen as a total failure and nothing more than an object of ridicule as he hung on the cross of execution.
And yet he said that “Now” he was being glorified, and that God was being glorified in him. He said that God would glorified him “at once.” How confusing this must have been to his disciples who saw nothing of a glorious God present in that upper room.
Centuries before this, Isaiah reflected on his own life. He was feeling like a failure (Isaiah 49:1-6):
“Though I thought I had toiled in vain, and for nothing, uselessly spent my strength, yet my reward is with the Lord, my recompense is with God.”
At this moment in which he felt his life had been wasted, he leaned on the realization that “glory” was not about how the world viewed him or even how he viewed himself. It was about how he was seen in the eyes of God. He opened his eyes of faith and attested that God would reward him. God had plans much greater than his finite human mind could imagine.
“And I am made glorious in the sight of the Lord, and my God is now my strength.”
God was speaking to him and telling him,
“I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
So glorious was Isaiah that his glow would shine to the ends of the earth. Through him God was announcing his universal plan of salvation for all peoples. Each of us, today, still bask in the light that came through the words of this prophet.
Each of us wants to be glorified. Let’s be careful, however, how we define “glorification.” If we think in the world’s terms, we will slide into despair. If we see ourselves through the eyes of our heavenly Father, however, we will think as Jesus and Isaiah did. At the moment when we feel must troubled and discouraged, God is then beginning to glorify us. He is preparing us, as a bride is prepared, to manifest the glory of God to the earth.
Today we glorify God not only for who he is but also for what he is doing in each of us right now. Jesus continues to be glorified in even the least significant member of his body on earth.
“For you are my hope, O Lord; my trust, O God, since my youth” (Ps 71:5).
