Glorified

When [Judas] had left, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified,

And God is glorified in him. 

If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself,

And he will glorify him at once.

That sounds pretty complex and confusing.

But those two verses actually sum up a major portion of Jesus’ mission.

I had to resort to the commentaries to get a better grip on these verses.

And I found the Protestant bible scholar, William Barclay, most helpful.

He said these verses address the “fourfold glory”.

1       Jesus glorifies himself by his sacrifice.

2      Jesus glorifies God by his obedience to God.

3      God glorifies Himself by participating, through Jesus, in this sacrifice.

4      God will very soon glorify Jesus in his resurrection and ascension.

And will later glorify him even further in his second coming as king.

Glory is a fairly common term, but what does it mean, precisely?

One good definition is –  Worshipful praise, honor and thanksgiving.

Jesus and God “earned” that glory by what they did.

Not that they had to earn anything – everything is already theirs.

But to use that term for convenience,

They “earned” mutual praise and honor and thanksgiving from each other.

And they “earned” worshipful praise and honor and thanksgiving from us.

We already owed all that to God.

Just due to the fact that he created us, and everything else.

But Jesus’ mission and his revelations make our debt all the more clear.

The revelation of the unity of God and Jesus—and of the Trinity.

The revelation of God’s relationship to man—

His willingness to become one of us.

His allowing us to call him Father.

His willingness to suffer and die to save us and teach us.

Teach us what’s truly important in this life.

We didn’t know all these things until Jesus revealed them.

If we weren’t already offering our praise and honor and thanksgiving,

Surely we’d start upon learning any one of those newly revealed truths.

Lent has been a time of prayer and preparation.

A time of attempted improvement.

So we might have been focusing heavily on our faults and on repentance.

Now as we move through Holy Week,

Let’s be sure to include a proper dose of praise and honor and thanksgiving.

Our Mass gives us great help in that.

The Mass itself is a thanksgiving celebration.

And it includes many expressions of worshipful praise and honor.

During Lent we drop the Alleluia and instead introduce the Gospel with:

Praise and honor to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s pay special attention to expressions like that today and tomorrow.

During these final two Masses of Lent.

Tuesday of Holy Week

Jn 13:21-28     Read this Scripture @usccb.org