A life lived to the glory of God or...

For most of my adult life I haven't really known what the expression "the glory of God" actually meant.  I don't use it much because unless I've worked out a reasonable definition for myself, I can't use religious lingo.  I like to sing the word glory - it makes a beautiful sound in harmony with other voices - but let's just say I've been fuzzy about what it means.  About a year ago, however, after doing Biblical word studies I came to two clues that still resonate with me:

+ The first comes from looking at how the English word glory is translated in both the Old and Newer Testaments.  The Hebrew word, k-b-d - kabod - means heavy or weighty and is often used to connote significance and even majesty.  In Exodus, the prophet Moses asks to be shown God's glory - the fullness of God's power and essence - to which the One who is Holy replies:  'I shall make all my goodness pass before you, and before you I shall pronounce the name Yahweh; and I am gracious to those to whom I am gracious and I take pity on those on whom I take pity. But my face', he said, 'you cannot see, for no human being can see me and survive.' Then Yahweh said, 'Here is a place near me. You will stand on the rock, and when my glory passes by, I shall put you in a cleft of the rock and shield you with my hand until I have gone past. Then I shall take my hand away and you will see my back; but my face will not be seen."  (Exodus 33)  Other OT references speak of a brightness that is overwhelming in power - a radiance beyond comprehension - that illuminates all creation.  So metaphorically we're talking about the essence and depth of the Sacred that radiates through and shapes the totality of the world.

In the Newer Testament, the Hebrew word is rendered doxa from the Greek word meaning experienced truth and knowledge.  Sometime during the last two centuries before Christ, Hebrew scholars began using the word doxa in their translations of the Hebrew scriptures into the Greek Septuagint. With this, came  new significance suggesting an encounter with the profound essence of God.

+ The second popped up somewhere in my recent readings of Eugene Peterson. The short version is this: if Christ is the fullest revelation of God's essence that humanity can experience and grasp, then Jesus reveals to us God's glory.  And what is the essence of Jesus but his life, death, resurrection and ascension.  As the gospel of John makes clear over and over, Christ gives shape and form to God's glory on earth and God embraces Christ into the depth of glory beyond the Cross.  In The Contemplative Pastor, Peterson writes that he wants to live in such a way that grasps the difference between "a life lived to the glory of God and a life wasted in self-indulgence or trivialized diversions."

And in practice, as I have come to comprehend it, that means living to the glory of God means trusting what is known as the Paschal Mystery:  that by faith - and God's grace - all things can work for God if we love and trust the Lord.  Not that all things ARE good - that is clearly untrue - but that all things can be redeemed and transformed by God's love.  Now, I don't know if that matters to anyone else - and you have all probably already figured this out already - but this makes a huge difference for me.  Living into the glory of God is trusting that the God's grace is eternal and rules creation beyond all evidence.  As the old timers in Mississippi used to tell me, "THAT dog hunts!"

credits:
1) Glory to God in the highest by Betsy Woodyard @ betsywoodyard.com
2) Van Gogh @ manuelluz.wordpress.com