In preparation for today’s message, continuing our exploration of the glory of God, I read a sermon by CS Lewis entitled “The Weight of Glory”. And it launched me down a path that I am going to attempt to describe, and hope that you might accompany me on, this morning. Now, the sermon itself is an excellent read, and I recommend it to you highly – in fact, we will email a copy to all of you with the hope that you might take some time to read it prayerfully. Be advised, this is not “spiritual pabulum”, which you might read quickly and casually like a “chicken soup for the soul” story; you may need to work at it. But if you will carve out an hour, grab a nice warm cup of tea, and sit down with a pen or a highlighter and a note pad, I am quite confident you will be glad you did.
Context:
We have been exploring the glory of God this fall, concentrating on the stories of the Exodus. We’ve focused on the God of Glory – who displays His glory in the pillar of cloud and fire, in the fire on the mountain, in the glowing face of Moses, in the making of a covenant with His people. Last week I read the story of the covenant meal which this incredible, glorious God shares with Moses and 70 Elders of Israel on Mt Sinai. This morning our path leads to another covenant meal…
And so that is where our journey has begun – with reflection on the power, on the might, on the images of God that are a little bit scary, on the God who revealed His glory in Exodus in ways that perhaps make us shrink back away from God. Last week I talked about how the reality of sin in our lives makes us fearful of the Glory of God, and I also talked about how God has made it possible for us to get beyond that through the actions of repentance (which, if you recall, I defined as more than “confession”, but rather “confession + change” as empowered by the Holy Spirit). If you recall, my emphasis last week was on how good the Glory of God is, and my plea throughout has been and continues to be that we might really see the Glory of God and then together accept it, embrace it, experience it, be transformed by it, and delight in it.
Desire:
What I would like you to think about for a moment now is this: what are your deepest desires? What do you long for? Go ahead, grab a pencil and a piece of paper, and I want you to think about this and actually write it down – don’t worry, it is just for you and I won’t ask you to share that with anyone: what are your deepest desires?
CS Lewis writes this: “The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire… Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
So with that in mind, would you look back at what you have written about your deepest desires. Are they “too weak”? Are they mud pies? Are they evidence that you are “far too easily pleased”?
Now, the point is absolutely not to denigrate the desires you have written, to condemn them or make them look silly. Not at all. So take another step down this path with me:
Desires Hijacked:
Those desires that you identified and wrote down in fact point us to God – to experiencing God’s glory, to anticipation of our ultimate experience of God’s glory when in fact we experience it “face to face”, to borrow Paul’s phrase.
The problem is that they have been hijacked. This present world has come up with an unbelievably powerful assault on our basic desires which point us to God, and hijacked those, substituted something else, and led us down a false path. Allow me to illustrate:
In one of the courses I took in my M. Ed. degree a couple years ago, we had an assignment to go to a shopping mall. Now, as Christmas season begins, this may be a common experience for many of you, and perhaps the commercialization of the celebration of the birth of Jesus is enough of an illustration of how our culture has hijacked our basic desires to prove my point, but I’ll leave that for you to consider on your own. Back to the “mall”. The assignment was to try to “read” the mall – to step back and reflect on what is happening and why, what messages it is sending, what is really behind the messages it is sending. Quick caveat – this is not “anti-mall” or “anti-retail” or “anti-shopping” – it is a reality of our world and we all need clothes and haircuts and things to sit on and eat off of and art to enrich our lives. But let’s think critically and spiritually about this, in relation to our desires. Because it is my contention that “the mall” has perfected the skill of hijacking our real desires and substituted something else.
So work with me on this: who can describe “the mall” to me? throw out some words.
Now, as we look at that list, what innate desires within us is “the mall” tapping on the shoulder? And, this is the critical question, how is “the mall” suggesting those desires can be met?
Back to the path… we began by jotting down some of what our deepest desires are, and have been considering how those might have been hijacked and substituted. My point continues to be that our desires will point us to God and will only be truly met when we experience God and His Glory. I’m guessing that some of the things written on some of those papers are “to be loved”, “to be secure”, “to be healthy”, “to be successful”, “to have a good family”, “to be happy”. And our culture comes along and says “if you wear this brand of clothes, you will be loved;” “if you want to be secure, put your money in our bank and you will be so secure you can stop working at age 55 and go to the beach”; “if you want to be healthy then buy this diet book or these herbal supplements or come to our grocery store because we have the cheapest Kraft dinner”; and so on.
Desires Revisited:
So now look back at what you wrote, and let’s see if, in fact, they point us in the direction of God’s glory. And here is my suggestion: even the greatest earthly experience of the fulfillment of whatever desire or desires you have written on your page is only a pale shadow of that desire’s fulfillment in Christ. It is only getting to smell the fabulous meal, not even really getting to taste it. It is hearing a few bars of the melody of the symphony. It is seeing a tiny black and white photo of the exotic beach in the newspaper. Specifically:
- the desire to be loved: at its peak on earth, we are loved and accepted fully by other flawed people who battle with their own selfishness, who are nonetheless committed to a loving relationship with us. Already a far better result than “wear these clothes and you will be loved”. But even this peak is a pale shadow of knowing (head, heart, and emotion) that we are loved by the all-powerful, all-glorious God of the Universe. “For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but will have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16)
- the desire to be secure: at its peak on earth, what is this? that our physical needs are met and we are comfortable until death? Compare that to the security that we have in Christ: “38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:38-39)
- the desire to be successful which is really the desire to be significant – to matter – to spend our lives doing something worthy which we feel is important and to be recognized appropriately: at its peak on earth we envision this generally in career terms, perhaps reaching the top of your profession: but that will end, we will all retire or be retired and a new generation will rise up and fill that spot that we held on to for a few brief but great moments. Instead, Jesus has a different answer to that deep desire to be significant and purposeful: “you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Pet 2:9); and “God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” (2 Cor 5:18-20). If the heart of the desire is to matter, to be significant, what could matter more or be more significant than that?
Back to the main point: our desires will point us to God and will only be truly met when we experience God and His Glory.
Maybe, our desires are too weak. Maybe if we allowed them to be stronger, if we allowed ourselves to really, deeply desire them, maybe if we had the courage to reject the temporary, easy substitutions and the momentary, fleeting pleasure they provide, then maybe – just maybe – we would find something absolutely incredible.
Desires Met:
Jesus.
We saw the glory of God in the power of the Exodus, our next chapter is going to see the Glory of God revealed in Christ. The theme for our Advent and Christmas season is going to flow out of Jn 1:14, “14 So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.”
And here is the connection – when we “see His glory”, our deepest desires are met in ways that far exceed your wildest imagination at the moment. Do you see it? Your deepest desires, whatever is really at the root of the things on your page, are really desires for God, and for all that God wants for us. You might have to dig past the surface of them, you might have to uncover how they have been hijacked and substituted by our culture, but I am absolutely certain that at the bottom what you will find is a desire for God, and I am even more certain that those desires will only ever be truly met by our experience of God in all His glory.
Glory Given:
Now, come one more step along this path with me and CS Lewis: God made us to experience His Glory, and to share it with Him: Rom 8:30 “30 And having chosen them, (God) called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.”
God gave us His glory. Yes, really. The incredible glory of God, which we’ve been studying and thinking about, which we saw in all its power and awesomeness in the stories of Exodus, God gave us. He chose us, called us, made us right, and gave us His glory.
CS Lewis’ words: “It is written that we shall “stand before” Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. 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. But so it is.”
The Path:
So here is the journey I have outlined: we start with the overwhelming nature of the glory of God as seen in the Exodus in mind. We name our desires. We see how they may have been hijacked and substituted. We revisit our desires, and see that way down they are actually desires for God – that they are placed within us by God as a deep desire for Him. Then we allow those desires to grow strong, to seek for God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. Then we experience God’s glory, and the meeting of all our true desires. And God shares His glory with us, and we delight in God in that moment when we bask in God’s delight in us as “a father delights in a son”.
Covenant Meal:
Do you want to live on that path, rather than the one where our deep desires are hijacked and substituted by a culture addicted to temporary pleasure? Do you want to live on a path where your deepest desires are dangerously alive, powerfully active, forcefully driving you into the Kingdom of God?
Then come to His Table. The God of Israel called Moses and 70 Elders up Mt. Sinai where He ate a covenant meal with them, and Jesus called His disciples to eat a covenant meal with Him just before His love – His dangerously alive desire for us to be reconciled with God so we could share His glory – took Him through the cross and into resurrection life. And then Jesus extended that covenant meal to us. He said “repeat this… share this symbol of my Body and this symbol of my Blood, in remembrance of me, as a celebration of the New Covenant between God and His people. I’m inviting you specifically to this covenant table with all your desires, all your deepest longings, with confession and repentance for times and places where you have allowed your desires to be corrupted, so that you can then experience the glory of God given to you as described in Rom 8.
