How Does Glory Look?

We go crazy when “our team” dashes across the goal line, wins the Super Bowl or the common weekly competitions in the NBA or baseball or soccer and the spelling bee, even.
And in most moments, one watches the athlete or skilled person cross themselves, send a kiss to the heavens or to their family in the stands, while some rip-off their shirt because it’s that moment when one can soak in the glory one merits because they made the needed goal or home run or the hole in one or the spectacular dunk in that basketball net. We watch the exhaustion of a marathon runner who just set a record then flops on the ground in pain with no more strength but wrapped in a national flag. There’s glory in that and when we watch a wounded soldier learn to walk with one leg, a young cancer victim be healed at St. Jude, an abused teen finds a safe home. There is glory in a gospel choir when all the voices blend so beautifully, they lift the spirits of congregations and in some churches get those hands waving as they sing praises and shout out to the Lord. 

But what does glory really look like?  There is a kind of glory we imagine might be allowed in the heavens, in the afterlife. Biblical glory. Holy glory. Christ-like glory. In the Easter season, we get a taste of what that kind of glory could have been through the centuries of faith and might await us when we cross over to the other side conquering death with our own trust in the promises of Jesus. 

We see Moses coming down from a glory moment, the glory of one-on-one with God, of having seen God and lived to share it. Not many have seen God in our Biblical history. God had, now and then, sent people to speak for him or He spoke to His own out of the pillar of a cloud. Of course, we cannot forget the relationship God had with Abram, who tested him to prove his faith and then promised him his offspring would occupy the world. That’s us, you know. One way or the other, we all trace back to the beginning. 

When we encounter Moses at that point when he had been busy high on Mt. Sinai, where he had been with God who gave him the first set of tablets to share with his people, which he had to destroy when he descended and found his people worshiping a golden calf, another god. It surely broke his heart, his faith in his people. But God gave Moses a second chance that took him back up Mt Sinai. And that was his glory world where he was honored to hang out with God one on one. For forty days and nights he had been a student of the Lord. He starved himself (who would have worried about eating in that situation); no bread or drinking water at that time. These earthly things were redundant in such holy environments. 

This was “YOUR” moment Moses. He had become the secretary recording the orders dictated again by God himself for Moses himself to share with all Israel. Carve this down, God may have said. And it took two giant tablets which would be forever marked with what we call the Ten Commandments, the Torah. It was the ten orders as a guide to goodness, correctness, and godliness that people today want to get rid of in public places because they are “religious guidelines.” How times have changed, not necessarily in a positive or hopeful way. We need to know these holy guidelines.

So blessed was Moses by this experience, when he descended Mt. Sinai with those tablets in his embrace, he was unaware that his face glowed, was radiant, was almost impossible to gaze at because of the light that embellished it. He had spoken with the Lord. He had been the chosen one, despite his impediments and his not so rosy background check. When his brother the High Priest Aaron and all the Israelites saw him, they were afraid - sort of like the shepherds were awed and fearful when the angels came down from the sky and told them about a baby born in Bethlehem. They were “so afraid.”

Like the Angels, Moses probably said, “Fear Not. I am Moses your friend, companion, leader.” I guess Aaron and other community leaders were like a board of directors for him. Moses told them to trust him. “I am I, not a ghost or evil.” Can’t you hear him saying, “I just received these dictates from God about how we are to behave and live.” Once his friends realized he was OK, Moses invited all the Israelites to come hear the commands God had given all His people. To share them, Moses had to cover his face with a veil because it glowed so strongly that it probably hurt people’s eyes. On the mountaintop, Moses had absorbed God’s glory, and that was so powerful a light it hurt common people’s eyes. They could get a “God burn”, in so many words.

St Paul seemed to degrade the fact that Moses had to put a veil over his face whenever the stories of Moses were read. He said, “a veil lies over people’s minds, but when one turns to the Lord, the veils can be removed.” Well, the Lord is the spirit and where the Spirit is, there is the Lord and freedom. Do we know that? We don’t have to wear veils to see the glory of the Lord. We don’t have to veil our conscience. It was in those days of Christ’s presence on earth when there was a veil over Jewish hearts that kept them from believing in Christ.

So don’t forget to let your light, your glow, your glory so shine before men and women, that they may see and learn from your works, from your victories, from your successes that glorify our Father in heaven. This is sharing the glory. This is when we will all know the real glory, we will see God’s glory, we will be part of the glory of heavenly kingdom. 

 ~ Rev

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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com