Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year A

So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.
~John 17:5
 
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on God, because God cares for you. Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering…
~1 Peter 5:6-9
 
Glory is essentially reputation. Jesus isn’t looking for some big statue of himself. He is not looking for status, spotlight or spectacle. This is something more intimate and constructive. Father, glorify your son is a prayer that what is about to happen, including his own lynching as a scapegoat by bloodthirsty political and religious systems, might reveal the truth about God.
 
But that may not be the most astonishing or unsettling part of all of this because Jesus also associates himself with his disciples. “I have been glorified in them,” he prays. In them. That we could become the bearers of this same glory, this same reputational witness, the visible presence of God’s life in the world not by way of performance or importance or status but, in fact, the polar opposite—because we have been drawn into a relationship of humility, in which being loved and forgiven is a way of life. This is the way of God’s life. And the circle of God’s life is never drawn with anyone on the outside. Not even you!
 
Now that, once we begin to engage the implications, is a wonder! Enter into worship.
 
Readings:  Acts 1:6-14 † Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35 † 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11 † John 17:1-11
 
About the Art: Whelan, Brian, 1957-. In the Beginning, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57418 [retrieved April 27, 2026]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iin_the_beginning_34x28_by_Brian_Whelan.jpg - photographed by Wendy Roseberry with permission from Brian Whelan.

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