This coming Sunday is the 5th Sunday of Easter in Liturgical Year C. The gospel is taken from John 13:31-35. Our short text can be divided into three parts:

• vv. 31-32 – the glorification of God and Jesus
• v. 33 – Jesus’ departure
• vv. 34-35 – the commandment to love.

Before we delve into the text itself, we should perhaps consider the word “glory.” If asked, what would you give as a definition? Merriam Webster reflects on the definition in all the ways the word is used in the common palance: glory – renown, magnificence, exaltation, achievement, and more. When speaking of God, at best, these seem to linger on the edge of meaning, but not approach the heart of the matter.

If we turn to the Hebrew scriptures to discover what is meant by God’s glory, we quickly find it is not a single, well-defined concept. In fact, it is probably best to treat the word as something of a cipher, a term used to point to the ineffable qualities of God. In the OT kabod is perhaps the most important of many related words and refers in its root meaning to what is weighty, important or impressive. That would certainly apply to the people’s experience of God’s interactions in the world; not a direct experience but an experience nonetheless.

In the text and psalms we find kobad/glory associated with the name of God as it refers to the power, holiness, majesty and splendor of the Lord. This is in response to ways God reveals God’s self/glory in the history of Israel, e.g. in the Exodus story appearing as a pillar of fire by night and a cloud during the day.  For Elijah it was in the still small voice among the thunder, lightning and earthquake. Be the revelation grand or small, the occurrence is meant to signal the presence of the transcendent Lord who acts in power for Israel’s salvation. 

The manifestation on Mount Sinai, which may be viewed as the climax of the Exodus, is foundational. Here God’s glory is seen in God’s absolute lordship. God’s power overcomes all other gods and nations in order to liberate Israel and enter into covenant with them. This begins a pattern in the OT where the glory of God is associated with places: Sinai, the Tent of Meeting, Solomon’s Temple. Especially in the Psalms we find the further reflection that the glory revealed by the Lord in Israel’s liberation is the very glory and power of the creator of all. And so, in speaking of God’s glory, the Psalms refer to the creative, sustaining and ordering power of God evident in the awesome beauty and majesty of the cosmos. Finally, in the Prophets and Psalms, the glory of God refers in a special way to the kingdom of covenant peace and justice which God will establish in its fullness at the end of time. All of the different perspectives find a central unity in the recognition that God’s glory is what humans are graciously given to experience of God and God’s saving action in the world.

In the OT we also find that glory is something which men and women are expected to give God. Given the above, one can assume that “giving glory to God” – something He already possesses in full – can only mean acknowledging God’s glory and responding in faith.

In the New Testament God’s glory (doxa) refers to the power, majesty, honor and radiance which belongs to God alone. What is new is the confession that the glory of the Lord which has appeared in so many ways has in these last days appeared in Jesus Christ. The glory which had always been associated with the saving, self-revelation of God refers now in a unique way to the person of Christ. This is the reason why the traditional association with observable phenomena, although still present, no longer plays a significant role. Jesus reflects the glory of God; in him we see just what the godliness of God is. 

In a variety of text and account the NT asserts that central to the experience of God’s glory is the paschal mystery: the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. Both Paul and John, from different perspectives, saw the cross of Jesus as the place where the true glory of God is revealed. The cross of Jesus as the end and fullness of a life lived completely from God for others is the revelation of God’s majesty and power as self-emptying love. 

It offers us a paradox: in what seems Jesus’ powerlessness – his death on the cross – it is then that the absolute power of God becomes visible in the light of the resurrection. Seen in their essential unity, however, the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the revelation of the glory and majesty of a love stronger than all powers of sin and death, a love greater than which it is impossible to conceive. It is precisely God’s glory that God, while remaining God and Lord of all, is powerful enough to enter into the sin and death which has disfigured God’s creation and from within, in loving solidarity, to save God’s beloved world. 

Thus God’s glory is revealed as the mystery of trinitarian love which empties itself in order to become one with the world, and so to establish the salvation which was always God’s eternal design as a sharing in God’s own life and freedom. 

Like the OT, the NT thinks of God’s glory primarily as God’s own initiative and action. God’s glory reveals and establishes itself as the salvation of the world. This can be experienced, even now, in a concrete, sensible way in the church as the community of believers who, in the obedience of faith, allow the glory of God’s kingdom to appear in their lives. 

Thus giving God glory is the response of faith to the self-communication of God in Jesus Christ. Since God’s glory is seen for the first time to be real self-communication, and not only self-manifestation, the acceptance of this gracious gift is itself an integral part of the establishment of God’s glory. Thus history as a whole, seen as the transforming entrance of the world into the reality of God’s own divine life, is the glorification of God by believers in the power of the Spirit. The glorification of God is the salvation of the world.

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Image credit: Christ’s Final Address to the Apostles | Bona Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1380 | from the Maesta Altar | Siena, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo | PD-US