Jesus' Essence Of Coming

Lodge Forest United Methodist Church Newsletter November 2006

Glory: The Essence of Who You Are by Alan B. Ward If you’ve read my articles or heard me speak recently you’ve probably heard me talk quite a bit about glory. In fact, this past Sunday (November 5) I gave a message that challenged us each to discover the glory that is in each one of us. I believe very strongly that a key to unlocking the full God-given potential of Lodge Forest United Methodist Church is for each individual member to embrace their glory. So if I am asking you to embrace something it would probably help for us to get a clearer understanding of what it is I’m asking you to embrace. What exactly is glory and how in the world do we “embrace” it? What is Glory? Go to the dictionary and you will find seven definitions for the word glory. Most of the definitions refer to words like fame, admiration, honor, praise, thanksgiving, honor, wonder, admiration, reverence, awe, etc. When we think of glory, our first thought is probably along the lines of fame and fortune. When we use the phrase glory of God we think of God’s majesty and splendor, perhaps even a visible display of blinding radiance. The Hebrew term shekinah was used to refer to a visible display of glory associated with the presence of God. All of those are valid definitions of glory. But glory can also be defined as the essence of who someone is. References to glory abound in scripture, but nowhere is the term used more frequently than in the Gospel of John. John uses the term glory to refer to the bright splendor that marks God’s presence in our world. John clearly believes that when Jesus came to Earth, the essence of who God is became flesh and, in the words of Eugene Petersen, moved into the neighborhood. At first glance, Jesus doesn’t seem all that glorious, at least not in the way we are used to defining the word glory. In the end, Jesus is crucified and on Good Friday, glory is the furthest thing from anyone’s mind. It looks like Jesus has failed, and if Jesus is supposed to reveal God, doesn’t that mean that God has failed his people? The implications are very troubling indeed… But on Easter Morning the tomb is found empty and the resurrection of Jesus reveals the true essence of who God is to the world once and for all. Death is not the end of the story for those who follow Christ. Jesus’ words tell us that he has overcome death and that he offers us all the same resurrection and abundant life now and forever. “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” —John 11:25 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” —John 10:10

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Lodge Forest United Methodist Church Newsletter November 2006

Set Free to Embrace Your Glory The primary reason Jesus came to this planet is to set us free to embrace our glory— that means revealing the essence of who we are to the world. Perhaps you’ve never considered this the primary reason for Jesus coming to us. Maybe you thought it was about having our sins forgiven, bringing world peace, or promoting social justice. All of those may be results of Jesus coming to our world, but they aren’t the primary reason he came. What God wants most is for you to discover the essence of who God has created you to be and how the essence of who you are can be used to make the essence of who God is more apparent in our church, in our community, and in our world. Of all the words Jesus could’ve chosen for his first public statement, he chose these words from the Prophet Isaiah recorded in Luke’s Gospel: The Sprit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor —Luke 4:18-19 Jesus does not mince words; he is the fulfillment of this ancient prophecy. You can be sure he caused quite a stir when he stood up in the synagogue and quoted this scripture, and not only quoted it but said “Today, this scripture is fulfilled.” Jewish leaders would’ve been very upset and ready to take drastic action—like killing the messenger. But Jesus stood by his words then and he stands by them now. Jesus stands over and against anyone or anything that holds us captive and prevents us from embracing our glory and living the full and abundant life that God created us to live. The Glory of God is You Fully Alive St. Iranaeus said that the glory of God is man fully alive. I believe Iranaeus makes a simple yet very powerful statement here. But there’s quite a bit packed into those eight words and we could miss the significance; let’s see if we can unpack all that’s there. The glory of God. Based on the discussion above, when we speak of the glory of God, another way of saying it is: The essence of who God is revealed to the world. Is man. Genesis 2 suggests that human beings are made in God’s image. God created us to bear his reflection to the world; we do this by embracing our glory. Like the facets on a diamond, each one of us produces a unique reflection of God for the world to see. Iranaeus suggests therefore suggests that: Human beings like you and me, created in the image of God, are the ones who reveal the essence of who God is to the world. Fully alive. Now to me, this is the crux of what I believe Iranaeus is trying to say. He doesn’t simply say, “The glory of God is man alive.” We don’t reveal who God is by simply existing; there is a condition. We must embrace our glory in order to come fully

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Lodge Forest United Methodist Church Newsletter November 2006

alive. So if we expand a bit on what Iranaeus wrote we might say: Human beings like you and me, created in the image of God, most fully reflect the essence of who God is to the world when we embrace our glory. Will You Embrace Your Glory? We now understand that Christ sets us free to embrace our glory—individually and corporately in our local church—and that we reflect God’s image to the world by fully embracing our glory. But there still remains the question: Will we embrace our glory? Christ will not force us to embrace our glory. He leaves that choice to us; if we would rather continue to exist rather than live life to the full, he is gracious enough to allow it. If embracing our glory will reveal the essence of who God is to the world more clearly to the world, then why on Earth wouldn’t we who claim to be followers of Christ, the Son of God, want to do it? It seems ludicrous that I would even have to ask this question, but ask it I must. I think on some level, we know we need to do this. Something deep within us calls to us, haunts us, and tells us that life can be so much more than it is now; yet we still hesitate to step forward and embrace our glory. There are many legitimate-sounding reasons why we can’t do it at this time—we tell ourselves, “Perhaps we will do it later when we have more money, more people in the pews, more time, more courage, etc.” Usually, the reasons we won’t step out of obscurity and more fully embrace our glory boil down to one thing: FEAR… Usually, we fear the unknown; anytime we change the status quo in our lives it can be scary. We may not be particularly happy where we are, living a life of survival and “getting by”, but at least we are familiar with the surroundings. We convince ourselves that what we have is good enough, because if we step out of our comfort zone, we’re just not sure what will happen. We can’t control the outcome and we just don’t want to risk it. We might fail … or we might even succeed beyond our wildest dreams, then what are we supposed to do?! If you hesitate to embrace your glory or if you’re not even sure you have any glory to embrace, you might ask yourself: Where do you need to be set free from fear? Perhaps it would help you to set aside several hours, or even a whole day to consider: What holds me back from embracing my glory? Perhaps our church should consider: What holds us back from embracing our glory here at Lodge Forest? We need to take time to discern what holds us back from embracing our glory and ask Jesus to set us free from what ever holds us captive from living anything less than a full and abundant life. It is my fervent hope that when God asks us, “Are you (Lodge Forest UMC) ready to embrace your glory,” that we would answer a resounding, “Yes!” I am certainly trying to answer, “Yes,” in my own life and I know others of you are doing the the same thing. I pray that as more and more of us more fully embrace our glory, that our church can be set free to embrace its glory and become the place that God dreams of when he gazes down on this corner in Edgemere.

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