The Weight of Glory

“We must not be troubled by unbelievers when they say that this promise of reward makes the Christian life a mercenary affair.”  Lewis uses the example of a student learning Greek: the student cannot see the joy that he will find in Greek poetry, which is the reward, while he is studying grammar.  He begins as a mercenary, studying Greek to get good grades, please his parents, etc., but he will end up enjoying Greek poetry, which will be the “proper reward.”  Christians are similar to the student because eternal life is “the very consummation of their earthly discipleship”, even though we cannot fully understand until we are there.  Also, the farther the Christian has been on this road, the more he begins to understand what heaven and God are all about, which would be different from his perception when he first came to Christ.  We should be disinterested in ourselves, not living to gain rewards for ourselves but because we want to please God.  When the going gets rough, is it wrong to think of the rewards stored up in heaven?  Is it wrong to use that as an additional impetus to keep on serving?

Lewis then talks about our longing for heaven.  We see or hear things that seem to have this certain quality, this beauty.  But the beauty we perceive from music, books, nature,

"was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing.  These things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers.  For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited."

This connects back to the chapter on longing from Engaging God’s World as well as what Lewis says about trying to fill that longing with the things of this world.  “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 us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a sum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased.” If we think about the things we find truly beautiful in this world, how stunning they are, how much more awesome will heaven be if this is only a picture of what is to come?  It makes me think of The Last Battle by Lewis. Narnia, which seemed so wonderful to them, was only a model of Aslan’s country, which was so much more glorious, more real.

God also promises glory to His people.  Lewis describes it in two ways.  The first is to be praised by God, to have “good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things.”  It is hearing Him say,“Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:23)  Lewis describes this as a huge weight on us:  "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."  I am still mulling over the meaning and implication of this.  I took this to mean we have this huge gift of love and we don’t want to undermine it.  We don’t deserve it so we must do our best, even though that will never be enough.  God’s love and delight in us should evoke awe and reverence, a thought of as the song “Friend of God” says, “Who am I that You are mindful of me?”

Lewis then describes glory as a "brightness, splendour, luminosity."  It is to "be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it."  Relating back to "Meditation in a Toolshed,"  we can look at it but not along it yet; we are on "the wrong side of the door" but "some day, God willing, we shall get in."

In light of this glory, Lewis says, "the load, or weight... of my neighbour's glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it" because "there are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal."  Everyone is either something you "would strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption" you would only see in a nightmare," and we are constantly pushing each other to one place or the other.  We need to take each other seriously, keeping each other accountable, with love.  I really like Lewis's application of this "weight of glory." Often, we learn about what is to come, or aspects of God's character, but not how that gets lived out.  This is another part of the "weight" in the glory we experience.