Now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with that glory I had with You before the world existed. John 17:5. HCSB
Here, in this remarkable prayer of revealing, Jesus, in the depths of his anxiety, his moment of defining stress, his whole emotional being strained at the coming doom, he cries out for glory. Jesus himself longing for glory. Longing for the esteem he once knew with his Father. What was this anxiety, what torment had drawn him to this prayer?
Was it a remembrance, a place of esteem, a place of honor that he had and had lost? Was it the worshipful atmosphere of heaven, where angelic hosts resounded themes of glory day and night? Did he recollect in his human form the glories of heaven he was the center of? What drove him to this desire – was it the deep humiliation and death he knew he faced? Doubtless my human nature would cry for a similar glory if I knew my enemies were successfully working towards an apparent defeat of such proportions as his were. It would be a sort of vengeance I believe.
But perhaps, it was a different cry, an anxiety borne from the knowledge of his impending separation from the Father, his whole being the sacrificial lamb, where God’s wrath would fall, and he would bear that wrath. Perhaps, his cry was borne of that intense longing for that fierce intimacy where he felt that weight of another who loved him, who honored, and who valued him. Indeed, it is that longing for the same thing we all yearn for – to be esteemed by one we so esteem. Someone with weight. Someone with substance who considers us so valued, and so honors us with their attention.
Whatever the driving desire of this prayer, it is intensely vulnerable. It reveals the longings of a man whose life has been spent in passion, and whose death will be the ultimate passion. Glory can be many things in Scripture; but perhaps, the most compelling of those things, it is the Presence, the pure being that is of essence love; it is God. Indeed, he prays to be glorified “in Your presence”, or as another interpretation puts it, glorify me “with thine own self.”
This is the heart of his cry. It is for intense intimacy with God, a weight of love, so thick it can be physically felt. It is for that deep companionship that in the end was all in all for him. It is for his Father, in this his darkest hour, for nothing ever felt so secure.
Jesus, when I see you, alone, impassioned, yearning, longing for glory, longing for your Father, anxiously, my heart is bound ever tighter to you. I feel an ever greater surge of longing, that I might empty myself, and be filled only with you, bearing only your sorrows, and living only for your joy.
© 2020 James Gorham