Degrees of glory
Sing the glory of his name;
Give to him glorious praise. Psalm 66:2
Read 1 Corinthians 15:42—45
In this matter of the physical and the spiritual, the earthly life I know and the resurrected life I anticipate, I really need to do some rejigging of my assumed concepts. Because I am one and not yet the other, I’m always inclined to think that the one I am is somehow more real than the one I am not yet. Being earthly means being physical, solid, real, and reliable. Being spiritual, even being resurrected, seems by contrast ethereal, far from solid, barely tangible. Yet it is the first, the body I have carried myself around in this day and this week and all my life, that is called here perishable, dishonoured and weak. My body is rather the promise of something more glorious, and that must mean not less real but more real. Knowing this, I see that Jesus’ resurrection has embodied it all, and promised me the inheritance of it. I can see that. Everything I set my eyes on is lit up now with the promise of the great glory to come.
God of all heaven and earth, to speak to you as you are and to speak truly, I must say ‘Glory.’ Glory to God. Glory to God in the highest. Your glory is seen in all the earth. All the earth, and my very body, bears the mark of your image and glory, and it is all a testimony and a whisper of a glory that will one day be shouted out, sung and declared by the renewal of all things.