The King of Glory
This Lent I’ve been reading ‘Our Radiant Redeemer’ by Tim Chester, which I wholeheartedly recommend. It focuses on the Transfiguration of Christ, when 3 of his disciples had the privilege of seeing Jesus’ divine glory. These daily devotions form an in-depth study of the Transfiguration, embedding it in the context of Jesus’ life and the Old Testament passages it evokes. I’ve learned a great deal, but, more than that, I have felt transported to ‘hallowed ground.’
Spending time reflecting on the glory of Christ has got me thinking about what ‘glory’ really means. What does it convey to you? To me, it mainly conjures a sense of blazing light and this was a major feature of the Transfiguration.
Matthew’s gospel [17:22] describes it like this, ‘There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.’ Mark uses the word ‘dazzling’ and Luke ‘as bright as a flash of lightning.’
The apostle John is the only gospel writer to have witnessed the Transfiguration, yet he omits it from his account of Jesus’s life. Instead, he chooses to shed an altogether different light on Jesus's glory.
23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds…
27 “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” John 12: 23-24, 27-28
After his ‘triumphal’ entry into Jerusalem, Jesus anticipates and agonises over all that lies ahead of him in the coming week: his arrest, trials, flogging and crucifixion. And yet he declares it to be the time when he will be glorified. How can this be?
I believe that the cross of Christ is where the nature of God is most truly seen; his determination to take upon himself our wrongdoing and its consequences. This great exchange brings punishment and death to the flawless Son of God, and forgiveness and spiritual life to flawed human beings like me.
As Jesus suffered upon the cross, his mission appeared to end in abject failure. In reality, this was the hour of his greatest triumph. Mission accomplished.
Here is the glory of God - compassion, mercy and love, in the anguish and degradation of self-sacrifice.
Who is he upon the tree dies in grief and agony?
'Tis the Lord, O wondrous story! 'Tis the Lord, the King of glory!
At his feet we humbly fall, crown him, crown him, Lord of all!
B. R. Hanby
