Everyday Glory

Brad Sullivan

St. Mark’s, Bay City

May 8, 2016

7 Easter, Year C

Acts 16:16-34

Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

John 17:20-26

Everyday Glory

I often pray, generally every day, at least once every day, and generally if I’m praying for something that I want, I’ll say a sentence or two about it, but sometimes I find that it’s something that I’m desperate for God to say yes to, and so I’ll not just give the one or two sentences, but then I’ll think, “Is there any other way that I can ask this and make sure to cut off any loop hole that God might be able to wiggle out of saying yes.  I feel that’s a little bit like Jesus’ prayer for his disciples at the end of John’s Gospel.  He’s praying that the disciples would be one, that they would be united in his love, and in all of the different kind of ways that he asks this, we find an awful lot of passion in this prayer.

We call Jesus’ arrest, crucifixion, and death, his passion, and we also find in this prayer his passion for his disciples.  He is giving this passionate plea to God the Father that God will take care of them when he has gone:  when he dies and when he ascends.  Jesus knows he is not going to be with them much longer, so he gives this impassioned plea to God, making sure God can’t wriggle out of it in any way, and what does he pray for? 

He prays for unity and love among not only his disciples who are there but also among future generations of disciples who will come to believe in him through their words.  Ultimately, then, Jesus prays that his disciples will be formed in and live out the image of God in which they were made.  John says “God is love.”  We understand God to be a unity of persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, bound together so completely in love, that they are one.  So Jesus is praying that his disciples would be one as he and the Father are one, that they would love one another, that they would know the Father’s love.  He’s praying that his disciples will live out the image of God in which they were made. 

Then, Jesus also prays that they will behold his glory, the glory that he was given before all of time.  What kind of glory was he hoping that they would behold?  Is this a prayer that they would see his heavenly glory as we hear about being revealed in Revelation in the heavenly city and heavenly throne that comes?  I think quite possibly, “yes.”  He’s praying that they will see this full revelation of his heavenly glory at the end of all time or at the end of their lives, but glory does not only come then. 

They see his glory also when he is resurrected.  They see his glory also when he is arrested.  They see his glory also when he is crucified.  I could call this “earthly, everyday glory,” Jesus’ glory of accepting death, accepting the cross, and trusting in God for the resurrection.  This everyday glory is the kind of glory we get to experience (hopefully) every day. 

I’m stealing the phrase, “everyday glory,” from the band Rush, and one of their songs called, “Everyday Glory.”  I’m not going to play the song; I tried playing a Rush song on my guitar months ago, and I think we can all agree that was a mistake.  So today I’m just going to give you the chorus:

            Everyday people.  Everyday shame.  Everyday promise shot down in flames.

            Everyday sunrise. Another everyday story. Rise from the ashes a blaze of everyday glory.

Well, that’s accepting the cross, dying, and being resurrected right there, the kind that happens in our everyday lives.  “Everyday people.  Everyday shame.  Everyday promise shot down in flames.”  The wonderful messiah that everyone thought Jesus would be as he accepted his death on the cross, shot down in flames.  Everyday sunrise - Easter.  Another everyday story. Rise from the ashes a blaze of everyday glory, and there we have resurrection.

In our everyday lives, then, what does everyday glory look like?  We rise from the ashes to what?  We rise from the ashes to Jesus’ prayer, to unity and love.  That’s the everyday glory that Jesus prays for us, that we would behold his glory in our lives.  That everyday glory, that everyday resurrection, that everyday unity and love doesn’t just come through resurrection; that is the resurrection.  The everyday glory comes through the cross. 

Here we are back in Lent again, and of course the prayer of Jesus is a prayer from Lent, his prayer for his disciples just before he is arrested and crucified, but the prayer teaches us something more about resurrection.  It teaches us that glory is not greatness.  It can but, but today, we’re talking about glory as waiting, and trusting, and letting something die.

That is the everyday glory that Jesus is praying for his disciples, that they would trust in God as he has trusted in God, even to the cross.  Jesus is praying for his disciples that they would wait patiently for God, even as Jesus waited patiently in the tomb.  I don’t know what three days feels like when you are dead, but I imagine it feels like an eternity. 

Jesus prays for his disciples that as he died on the cross, that they would let die within themselves whatever is keeping them from unity with one another, let die within themselves whatever is keeping them and love for one another.  Jesus showed us the way, on the cross, to everyday glory, and so we are called to follow him to the cross and to let die within us whatever needs to die, those things that we hold fast to in order to prevent ourselves from being harmed.  We don’t want to be wounded again as we get wounded throughout our lives and so we armor up, and Jesus is saying, “Let go of that armor.” 

We need to become weak.  We need to let ourselves die. 

Then, letting ourselves become weak, letting ourselves die, God takes over, and we allow ourselves the freedom to follow and to trust in God, trust in his way, in his way, trust that even though we may not know what in the world is going on, we’re going to trust in God.  As we do that, we find that we embrace death.  We embrace the cross, and then, from the ashes of that death, rises everyday glory. 

When we become weak enough, we find that we can love, because we are no longer so strong that we don’t need love.  When we become weak enough, we find that we can be unified because we must be.  When we are strong, we need no one else. 

To find the unity and love that Jesus prays that we will have through his impassioned, no-loophole prayer to God, he prays that his disciples will wait on God, that his disciples will trust in God, and finally that his disciples will let themselves die in an everyday way so that they could then rise in everyday glory.

An everyday people with everyday shame, with their everyday promises shot down in flames, but then an everyday sunrise with their everyday stories, rise from the ashes in a blaze of everyday glory.  Amen.