The Lord of Glory
1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
William Barclay said
“To Jesus, the cross was the glory of life and the way to the glory of eternity…It is one of the facts of history that again and again it was in death the the great ones found their glory.”
There is that kind of glory that comes from an extraordinary death. Famous people that have been forgotten become famous for a weekend when they die. People that stand up for causes add some permanence to the movement when they die in the midst of propagating it. Upon Jesus’ death, a Roman guard, maybe even one that participated in killing Him, said “Surely this man was the son of God!”
But that’s not the point of Jesus dying. When Jesus went to die on the cross, it wasn’t for the movement or for His fame. He had all kinds of authority to gain His own fame. He had abilities and resources to further His movement with the power of a thousand angels. Every palm-swinger during the triumphal entry would have given their life for Jesus that day.
The glory of God willingly laying aside His authority and submitting to sinful men was the amplification and the fulfillment of God’s glory. God told the unified rebellion of Satan and Humankind “give me your worst” and 3 days later showed them who the authority was.
With that His glory was fully shown as the one and only true glory of the universe. The one and only thing that actually deserves all of the praise and honor that we are tempted to give to other things.
The truest glory of all of that is that He did it to know us and befriend us. He did it so that we could also know Him and experience the fullness of life that He offers. To know Him is to know the one that created and then worked out the entire plan and purpose of all of creation. He is the Lord, and He is the best at being the Lord of all.