The age old question haunts us: What is life for? Not just why are humans on this earth, but why am I here? What is my life for?
The answers given by our consumer-saturated world leave us empty. We are told by “flat-earth” philosophers that there is no God, no Grand Narrative or Cosmic Story, and so we have to forge our own meaning. We have “deconstructed” ourselves to death, and any sense of wonder has been squeezed out of us.[1] We live in what Charles Taylor calls the “Secular Age,” and “as a result of the denial of transcendence, of heroism, of deep feeling, we are left with a view of human life which is empty, cannot inspire commitment, offers nothing really worth while, cannot answer the craving for goals we can dedicate ourselves to.”[2] Stalking all of our lives like a dark shadow is death, for which our secular age has no answer. In the face of a gray, death-filled world, the question continues to nag us: what is life for?
This is one of the three questions addressed by the small-town fisherman we had visited in our last blog, Simon Peter, in his letter to first century Christians (1 Peter). And Peter has a strikingly beautiful answer. For Peter, what any life is for can be stated in one word: GLORY! GLORY fills Peter’s thoughts–he mentions the word 13 times in 1 Peter (more often than in any other New Testament book). Don’t you love that word, GLORY! GLORY is not gray; it is bright, shining, full of hope, a rich word connoting wonder, fullness and meaning.
We all long for glory. We catch glimpses of glory in weddings, in the birth of a child, in deep friendships, in the sublime beauty of nature, in the joy of a job well done. There are many imitations of glory in our world, but they are fool’s gold. As Lee Iacocca, the legendary carmaker, acknowledged, “Here I am in the twilight of my life, still wondering what it’s all about…I can tell you this, fame and fortune are for the birds.”[3] Simone Weil captures our angst: “It is enough to recognize, what is obvious to any mind, that all the goods of this world, past, present, or future, real or imaginary, are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying the desire which burns perpetually within us for an infinite and perfect good.”[4] We sense we were made for something more, for Glory!
THE SHEKINAH GLORY OF GOD
Glory was a familiar word to Peter and the early Jewish Christians–it is all over the ancient Hebrew Scriptures (our Old Testament). The Hebrew word for glory is kabod, which means “weighty” or “heavy.” The word was heavy because the Hebrews’ experience of God was heavy. This glory of God appeared on Mount Sinai as thunder, lighting, thick darkness, and a trumpet blast so loud the Israelites begged for relief (Ex. 19, 20). This glory burned Moses’ face while he was in God’s Presence, making it glow so bright he had to cover his face as he relayed God’s Word to the Israelites (Ex. 34). God’s glory dwelt with the Israelites, filling the tabernacle with such thickness and light that there was no room for anyone to enter (Ex. 40). God’s glory also traveled with the Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai, a cloud by day and fire by night (Ex. 40). The glory of God was not only His sheer majesty and power, but it was also the nearness, the closeness, the dwelling of God with humans. Jews call this dwelling of God with humans the Shekinah, the bright, shining glory of God that condescends to be with us.
Throughout the Old Testament, the glory of God comes near and reveals the very nature of Who God is. When Moses asked to see the glory of God, God overshadowed Moses and revealed His glory by speaking these Words: “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin” (Ex. 34:6). God, the Almighty, is glory, and yet His glory shines brightest in His humble nearness with us. As Jurgen Moltmann notes, the Shekinah glory of God is “the immanence of the transcendent God: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a humble and contrite spirit.’ (Isa. 57:15).”[5] The Shekinah reveals that God was “Israel’s companion on the way and their fellow sufferer in the exiles of this world and in its persecutions….He carries the people with their sins. The Shekinah binds himself to Israel like a twin brother; Israel’s shame is the Shekinah’s pain too: ‘In all their afflictions he was afflicted’ (Isa. 63:9).”[6] The glorious God is most glorious as He draws near to rescue us from our enemies and from ourselves.
SHEKINAH MOVES INTO THE NEIGHBORHOOD
This same Shekinah glory is what Peter experienced, only now in the most personal of ways. In Jesus, the Word revealed as full of compassionate love and forgiveness in Exodus 34 took on human flesh. God put his money where His mouth is. The Shekinah really did dwell among us; God moved into the neighborhood, and we have seen his glory, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). The bright Shekinah that made Moses’ face glow was now seen in the dazzling, glowing face of Jesus as he was transfigured on Mount Hermon (Luke 9, 2 Peter 1:17,18). Peter and his friends witnessed Jesus’ amazing power that could only be described as “miraculous” (or as the apostle John calls them, “signs” of something even greater).
But this glory came to an abrupt end as Jesus hung lifeless on a Roman cross. Did the glory end? To Peter’s astonished wonder, there is no end to Jesus. The glory shone in full brightness again in the face of the risen Jesus. Death–that which we fear most and for which this secular age has no answer–had been overturned and vanquished. And the resurrection revealed that it was God on that cross; the sufferings of Jesus were in fact the true Shekinah glory of God. The greatest glory of God is seen in His personal suffering for and with us and His initiating the certain future for all humanity. The nearness of God releases us from fear of the future and from bondage to the past so that we can live fully, securely in the present. In the face of the risen Jesus, Peter understood that death is not the end. Peter had encountered sheer glory!
HAS THE GLORY GONE?
But then Jesus went away. The risen Jesus disappeared into the heavens, and Peter would never see him face to face again on this earth. Jesus was no longer around to touch, to talk to, to cry with, to joke with. Had the glory departed?
To Peter’s amazement, he discovered that after Jesus left, the glory had only just begun! Jesus did not abandon Peter or any of us. Peter’s life didn’t get less exciting after Jesus departed; it got more exciting! Peter (and everyone of us left on this earth until the ultimate future) was personally given the answer to our haunting question, what is life for? Life is for experiencing God’s glory and our partnership with Him in His enduring purposes. The future is certain–Jesus has been raised from the dead, and the glory for which we most long is not a false dream but a sure hope. That glorious future is now pressing backward, transforming our present. “Our trust is in the God of the future who is present now….The consummate fulfillment of all things has appeared ahead of time in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. In Jesus Christ, God has given us a promise that the present yearning for wholeness is not in vain.”[7] Until then, the Shekinah of God travels with us, for even now we are being filled with “an inexpressible and glorious joy, for we are receiving (present tense) the goal of our faith, the salvation of our souls” (1 Peter ). As Eugene Peterson said: “We don’t have to wait until after the funerals to get in on the glory. As St. Teresa, one of most irreverent and audacious saints, used to say, ‘The pay starts in this life.'”[8]
Or as Paul put it, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled faces, all reflect the Lord’s glory, and are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory” (2 Cor. 3:18).
WE HAVE A CHOICE TO MAKE
In the light of this good news, we have a choice to make. We can view life either from a “this age” only perspective, or from the ancient and enduring perspective of the Hebrews and Christians. We can view life as a series of meaningless routines or as a daily partnership with the God Who travels with us. The risen Jesus speaks to us now: “Follow Me.” By responding to God’s calling on our lives, we can begin to see life as full of signs that point to this eternal, transcendent “with us” God, and begin to learn what true glory is about.
I’m not saying that every day will be full of heart-thumping adventure. The adventure is instead risking your life by “betting” it on God. The adventure is entrusting your life to the God of the Universe and slowly seeing the harvest of joy, love, character, and lasting heritage. The adventure is experiencing the Presence of God and letting Him know you. The adventure is opening yourself up to a community of God-followers and “stretch” yourself to love more deeply than you ever imagined. The adventure is trusting God even in suffering, about which Peter has much to say (as we will come to see). The adventure is experiencing the nearness of the God who suffers with us, and Who has promised (through the cross and resurrection) that our suffering is not forever.
Peter says that even the daily grind of work can become a resting place for the Presence of God. The adventure is not just fishing for a living, but fishing for people! Join me in the next blog to explore further this question of “What is life for?” as we look at the intersection of worship and work. You can read more in my book From Fish to Glory: 1 Peter for Daily Living, available on Amazon and at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/from-fish-to-glory.
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[1] See Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 123.
[2] Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2007), 717.
[3] Quoted in Os Guinness, Long Journey Home: A Guide to Your Search for the Meaning of Life (Colorado Springs: Waterbrook Press, 2001), 6.
[4] Quoted in Guinness, 185.
[5] Jurgen Moltmann, Son of Righteousness, Arise! God’s Future for Humanity and the Earth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010), 102.
[6] Id, 101 and 104.
[7] Ted Peters, God–The World’s Future (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 392.
[8] Peterson, 103.