Theme: The glory of Christ
The statue of Cristo Redentor, Christ the Redeemer
stands high over the city of
In the opening few verses of
chapter 3 of Philippians, Paul writes many deep and diverse things. There is a
brief fragment, an autobiographical fragment about his past life. He writes of
his longing to deepen that he had been given in Christ. There is a marvellous
one verse summary of Christian faith in verse 10 “All I want is to know Christ; and the power of His resurrection; and
the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings; becoming like Him in His death;
and so to attain to the resurrection from the dead”. But then, just as
someone on the streets of Rio might stop and lift their eyes to the figure of
Christ the Redeemer, high on Corcovado mountain, in verse 8 Paul lifts up his
mind to the surpassing greatness of
knowing Jesus Christ. Such is the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus
that, says Paul, all
other things are as nothing, compared to this,
everything else is worthless, sheer loss, in the light of Jesus Christ. The
marvel of the of knowing Jesus Christ, makes other
things pale into insignificance. To know Jesus Christ, to grow in knowing Him –
is to have incalculable treasures of life giving, life restoring resources.
Let us pause here, and allow that
to sink deep into our minds and hearts.
To know Jesus Christ, and His cross – is to have the most wonderful life
giving treasures of goodness, and love. And the experience of Christian
believers down through the years is that, as the days of life pass, Jesus becomes all
in all to us, He becomes the very Bread
of Life to us, for us – that we discover
we cannot not live without Him. We too, come to know with Paul the apostle, the
surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ.
But the source of that surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus is in the glory of Jesus Christ Himself, the glory of Jesus Christ Himself who is risen, and now has ascended into heaven. This is one of the great ringing notes of the New Testament, the glory of Jesus Christ, and without this note of Christ’s glory the music, the symphony of the gospel is incomplete. That He, who was crucified is now raised, in the power of God, in triumph and glory.
This is one of the great themes
of the letter to the Colossians and the letter to the Hebrews. Both of these letters speak of Jesus as greater than Moses, or
Joshua, or Aaron or the prophets, they tell us that He is lifted high
above angels and dominions. And that God has brought all things together in Him
- Jesus Christ, the New Testament proclaims is “the brightness of God’s glory, and express
image of His person”.
Just as we might stop in the
streets of
Questions, however, begin to
arise at this point. In the light of the
glory of Jesus Christ, doesn’t the Church look very ordinary
? By contrast with the glory we have been speaking of why does the life
of the Church look so very ordinary ?
Why is it that we, who know Jesus, who have surrendered our lives, hearts, minds, souls to Him, not show more, reflect more of His glory ?
So that others might see ?
Well, if we read on in the
letters of Paul, we find an answer.
The life of the Church looks so very ordinary, we reflect so little of
the glory of Jesus Christ because of our sin and our weakness.
We are jars of clay, as Paul says - earthen vessels - and it is hard to see anything of the glory we have been speaking about.
The life of the Church looks so
very ordinary, we reflect so little of the glory of Jesus Christ because of our sin. As the letter to the
Romans declares, all of us have sinned,
and all of us fall short of His glory – but, you see, this makes us turn all the more to the Cross of Jesus Christ, where our
sin is taken away, our sin is forgiven – once and for all.
And the life of the Church
looks so very ordinary, we reflect so little of the
glory of Jesus Christ because of our weakness.
We are weak. Our weakness is plain to see. We are earthen vessels. Hard pressed, as Paul says, baffled often, burdened
sometimes. What others see when they look at us, is weakness.
But there is a reason for this,
writes Paul, – it is to show that the all
surpassing power is from God, and not from us !
The life that we live is not ours but Christ’s, Jesus Christ – the man of sorrows who
had no beauty or majesty (Isaiah 53).
The life that we live is not
ours but Christ’s,
and so
- sinful and weak as we are - our holiness and strength are in Him….
And when we lift our eyes to the glory of Jesus, we are lifted up far beyond our own sin and weakness, the difficulties we have. When we lift up our eyes, our minds, our hearts to see the glory of Christ and His triumph, when we see His victory at the Cross over weakness and sin and death –
it is then we know without
any shadow of a doubt,
that through Him, in Him, we are more than conquerors !
AMEN.