Bearing the Weight of Glory

I want to begin with a portion that is not the central message of the sermon but that due to both the matter it discusses and the conviction with which it struck me, makes it impossible for me to think of other parts of the sermon without first addressing this. The quote is this: "In some sense, as dark to the intellect as it is unendurable to the feelings, we can be both banished from the presence of Him who is present everywhere and erased from the knowledge of Him who knows all. We can be left utterly and absolutely outside -- repelled, exiled, estranged, finally and unspeakably ignored."
Never before have I been so scared because of something I read. In all the descriptions of hell that I have ever heard, this was most certainly the most horrific to my mind. I still cannot comprehend the terror of being unknown to an omniscient God, and abandoned by an omnipresent deity. To be so completely alone and outcast at the brink of non-existence and yet still existing and aware of the state you are in is torture far beyond any lake of fire.

Thankfully Lewis moves on and says, "On the other hand, we can be called in, welcomed, received, acknowledged." The story does not end in despair but rather in joy and in glory. For me the rest of the sermon gains a whole new level of beauty after having read of the fate that could have become my reality. The weight of glory weighs more heavily on me for the realization of what I truly deserve. Lewis says it so beautifully, "to please God... to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness... to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son--it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain." What a heavy and wonderful weight it is.

Oh what a wonderful and difficult thing it can be to recognize that we are glorious. In his book Waking the Dead, John Eldredge writes "It's so common this mind-set, this idea that we are no-good wretches, ready to sin at a moment's notice, incapable of goodness, and certainly far from any glory." The truth is though that God made us and said that we were very good. As Eldredge says, "We were created to reflect God's glory, born to bear his image, and he ransomed us to reflect that glory again...your heart bears a glory." And what a glory it is that we bear. It is so wonderful that we cannot even grasp it at all, as Lewis points out, without the help of images. These images are each merely reflections of that glory. Lewis talks about glory as a getting inside those images, entering into and moving beyond nature. Lewis says, "We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendor which she fitfully reflects."

My favorite description of glory is Lewis' of how that glory would look in someone else. He says to "remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person to talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship," What a glory it is that would make gods out of simple men. Of course in order to avoid falling into the trap that we ourselves are a god, and letting our glory turn to pride we must focus on the glory of our neighbors, for "Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses." Therefore let us bear the weight of each others glory.