Glory

 John and Acts story

This is the day we celebrate the ascension. Do we know what this means? Jesus, after he appeared to the disciples, after he was risen from the dead was raised up into the heavens. For some reason we read this scripture from Acts about the disciples watching all this and staring into the skies after, and this passage from John. 

The passage from John is a final prayer from Jesus to God in front of the disciples. Before he was crucified. Before the prayers in the garden, which are pleadings to God not to have to suffer and die. There is this prayer about being glorified.

What is glory? Praise? Worship? Lifting up hands? Voices? The thing is Jesus prays for this glory to be in us. Even before our worst day. Even before we die we are one with Christ and the Father in glory. 

What do we see as glory? Its not what the world sees. Our minds turn to the event which has just happened in the crowning of King Charles. This is glory, but it has all the trappings of this world. Jesus' glory is different. It is in dying, suffering, and in emptying himself. This is a totally different glory and we are part of it.

Glory is the peace we find in the midst of storms. I have experienced it when a loved one was near death. A peace came over me, it is hard to describe, but it said everything would be alright. In a bible study one morning another person described a presence of light which gave her calm to face her husbands battle with cancer. These are all a part of glory.

It is in the pain of a young woman who explained she wasn't accepted by Christians because she was queer and she wasn't accepted by the queers because she was still a Christian. It is in the face of the young girl who at Friday night around the cross had all her worship of Jesus displayed on her face. It is in the photo of clouds breaking and being in awe of the way the light and shadow play with one another allowing a glimpse of hope.

This is why these scriptures live side by side. The disciples return to the room they have been locked in because of fear in Acts. Jesus is going soon and he knows it in John. Each of these lives into the tension of life, death and our fears on this earth. This is where glory lives, in the tension of letting go. In the tension of hard times, in the tension of where is our hope. It is the hardest of places to live in and yet if we truly let go we may find the peace and hope of glory.