Beholding God’s Glory During Inglorious Times

IN A 2024 interview, priest, preacher, and author Fleming Rutledge noted that “Epiphany directs us to behold—that’s a revelatory biblical word, behold—the glory of God in Christ as he moves through his time on earth with us through his death into his ultimate victory.”

I think of myself as a fairly orthodox Christian, embracing Jesus as fully God and fully human; I am a believer in angels and miracles and the resurrection. But I don’t know that I grasp all aspects of beholding the glory of God. Don’t get me wrong—an infinite deity is a wonder to me, and I believe in God still and always, despite all that can feel God-forsaken in this life, from massacres to preening, vengeful leaders.

Christians have confused military victory, great wealth, or gold-plated narcissism with proof of God’s favor.

I know that the beauty and scope of creation is one manifestation of God’s glory. As one Eucharistic prayer of the Episcopal Church proclaims, “At your command all things came to be: shining light and enfolding dark; the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, and this fragile earth, our island home.” And I have trust in the abiding presence of God in this life, in ways seen and unseen, sometimes dramatic and other times more subtle—in the words of poet Jane Kenyon, as “food on the prisoner’s plate” or “water rushing to the wellhead, filling the pitcher until it spills.” And yet, am I in danger of reducing God to pretty sunsets and the way that in ugly times small acts of human kindness can bring me to tears? The line between sincere adoration and mere sentimentality does not always feel clear.

Church was infrequent for me as a child, but I loved Vacation Bible School, and singing “Rise and shine, and give God the glory, glory.” I sincerely try to keep joyful thanks in the prayer rotation with “I’m sorry,” and “Why?” and “Please guide me,” and “Be with them in their suffering.” However, I also wonder why God would need our praise. It can feel fawning to lavish praise on the Creator of all that is, who surely knows that they are “an awesome God” without being told.

In a short commentary for Sojourners, “God’s Glory—It’s Epic,” our colleague Elizabeth Palmberg (1970-2014) wrote: “Our culture doesn’t have a concept of glory at all. We just have celebrity, which is way, way, different. While giving someone celebrity can get degrading to all concerned ... God demanding glory is actually a deeply relational act.”

Why would God need our praise?

Humans lift up fame, acclaim for extraordinary athleticism or artistic skill, chest-thumping warrior culture, or all the fawning lackeys power and money can buy and call it “glory.” For 2,000 years there have been Christians who confused military victory, great wealth, or gold-plated narcissism with proof of God’s favor, reducing the glory of God to the size of empires that will one day fall to dust.

This, I suspect, has been part of my problem: I’ve resisted meditating on God’s glory because the word is tainted by triumphalist plots and brutal fantasies that are misnamed “glory.” But God incarnate is also a God transcendent: holy, holy, holy. As Rutledge asserts, “Epiphany replaces minimalist, human-centered notions of glory with the real thing.”

So, in this new year I may seek to do more “beholding” and praising the glory of a God who heals, who loves, who creates in ways that give power and hope beyond our current imagination.