It’s All About You After All!

The Weight of Glory

Dear precious reader,

It’s about you. You are the meaning and purpose of Christmas. 

Why, It’s All About You After All!

Ok, maybe I am clickbaiting you here. Of course we are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ! The most important Man ever to be born – which is the understatement of understatements. He was and always will be God. 

But why would God do that? Come out of a perfect paradise to this hell-hole? 

Because of His love – His love for you. You are the reason He came, which indirectly speaking,  does in a way make Christmas about you, doesn’t it?

The Weight of Glory

Someone recommended me to read that essay  written by CS Lewis. I am going to try to put in my own words, his thoughts. It is one of the most profound things I’ve ever read, next to the Word of God itself. It is a long paper, an arduous read.  Bear with me in my weakness, as I try to expose you to some highlights, perhaps even birthing in you a desire to read it for yourself. 

The Pain of Being Ignored

Have you ever felt just… ignored? Maybe some of us don’t mind, but I suspect we all desire attention from at the least someone with whom we hold in high esteem. Lewis implies that being ignored by God, in the end, may be what real hell is. “Depart from Me, I never knew you!” 

On the other hand. Oh, on the other hand!! One whole theme or premise of his paper is the alternative — feeling the approval of God; THAT is what our final destiny can be. It is the glory that we will receive as believers; that Glory as the Bible tells, and Lewis retells: the approval of God – “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”  

He proposes that is one of our deepest desires – as a child longs for the approval of their parent, or even a dog, his owner. And there is nothing wrong with that desire. 

Our Desires are Too Weak

Probably the most profound idea in his paper is this: that our desire for our own good is not a bad thing, as some may want us to feel, as if it is selfish, somehow. 

The promises that we are given of our future rewards in heaven are staggering. Here, I must quote him exactly: 

“…it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

He talks of how we have this, I don’t know, I would describe it as an almost sadness. He calls it longing; like when you go to the beach to watch a sunset, and it’s over, and, well, maybe you wish the colors would stay, or you could immerse yourself in its beauty somehow, barely perceptible longings that aren’t at the surface of your mind, but are there, nevertheless. 

[I wonder if that is what Paul meant when he described marriage as a type of our relationship with the church, His bride: an immersion into His glory and beauty.]

Our destiny, God willing, then, is Glory:    “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” 

But there is  another component, kind of what you probably always pictured, of glory: luminosity, splendor, and beauty. And whatever we see in Nature is just a preview of what it will be like, for us, and for all creation. This leads to the final point I need to make from Lewis’s paper:

The Potental of Glory in the Beings You Walk Amongst; and You Have Never Talked to a Mere Mortal

 I want to close by letting CS Lewis describe how, then, we should live, having in mind the ultimate magnificence that is the potential of this creature Man:

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. 

…”Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ – Glory Himself, is truly hidden.”

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭4‬:‭17‬-‭18‬ ‭KJV‬‬