I've always been puzzled by the idea of “glorifying God.” God is already at the top of the glory heap. You can’t get any more glorified than the maker of the universe, right? So what does it mean to glorify God? And what did Jesus mean when, dreading the pain and death that was ahead for him, he trades the prayer, “Father, save me from this hour” for “Father, glorify your name?”
“Glorification” is not a word we use much nowadays – and when we do, it tends to be hyphenated after the word “self.” A quick google search on “glorify” elicited several sets of definitions, each of which included two slants on the word. One meaning is to praise, or to act in such a way as to make manifest the glory of God. The other meaning is nearly opposite – it appears the word “glorify” has become associated with attempts to elicit praise or affirmation when it is not justified.
I’m pretty sure Jesus meant the first definition. But he doesn’t say he is going to glorify God – rather he says to God, “Father, glorify your name.” God is to glorify himself – and if we take Jesus as our model, it seems that the way God glorifies himself is through the actions of faithful men and women laying down their privileges and prerogatives, even their self-interest, for the sake of others.
This is not how we tend to think about glory! But then, at the very heart of our Christian story is a Master washing the filthy feet of his followers to demonstrate what their ministry was to look like. And one day later we see that same King naked, caked with muck and blood, suffocating on a cross, abandoned and humiliated. That, the Gospel of John suggests, is his moment of greatest glory. It is when the Father is most glorified in the Son.
That heavenly Father answered Jesus’ prayer: “Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’” It is a voice of affirmation and reminder to Jesus that he is walking in his Father’s will, living out the fullness of God’s mission to restore and redeem all of creation. Perhaps it kept him going in the dark and tense days ahead.
As followers, imitators of Christ, how can we best glorify the God who made us, loves us, empowers and nurtures us? Where are we called to lay down our privileges and prerogatives, even at cost to ourselves? Sometimes we can discern that best by noticing when and where we do not want to serve or humble ourselves. Sometimes that is exactly where God is calling us to allow Him to work through us.
And never forget it is God who will work through us. We can’t glorify God if we’re cut off from God. Just as a flower in bloom brings glory to the plant of which it is a part, so we bring glory to God as a part of God. If we don’t know exactly how to glorify God, we can allow God to glorify himself through us. Jesus did.
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