Worship

Glory, Now?

Pastor JonAlden Pedersen

There’s an old Tale named Galahad and the Grail that tells of a young noble knight on a quest to discover the Holy Grail. On his journey he takes no map, no proposed plan, instead he holds that any success totally depends on the Lord, and by trusting in him whether he fails or succeeds what awaits him finally is the Lord’s promised rest. Throughout the quest he conquers man and beast all while maintaining chivalry. Not long after Galahad sets out he encounters Sir Melius, a sire who begged to accompany Galahad through danger and toil on his holy quest. Melius ultimately hoped to join Galahad at King Arthur’s round table. Galahad responded that far better than being a highly respected and honored individual, better than even the glory of being at the round table is gentle grace and tenderness, wherein the greater serves the less in all humility. True chivalry. Nonetheless he gives Melius the honor and knights him and the two journey together to a fork in the road with an old stone cross in the middle. On that cross they read these words: “Choose now adventurous knights, who takes the left must prove his power to win with might or quail and cower. But he who trusts not his own power must pass on to the right.” Sir Melius immediately became filled with ambition and excitement and set off to the left to test his might. Galahad cautioned Melius’s eagerness to prove himself, but would not interfere with his new companion’s decision. Melius didn’t hesitate, he galloped away to the left filled with desire to make his name known by force of will, to win the glory now, to feel the thrill and be a proven knight, worthy of his title. Can you guess what happened to Melius? On that path he came across what he had always hoped for, a glorious feast with an empty throne and a crown, waiting for someone to take it. Feeling worthy because of the new title given to him, he took what was not his and when the one worthy of the feast found the young man gorging himself, Melius ended up in the grass bleeding to death. Can you imagine the shame he must have felt, the disappointment, when he realized that taking the very thing he hoped for only hastened his ruin.

How does this tiny fragment of what is truly a classic story deepen our understanding of God’s Word? And our roles in his story? What can we learn from Galahad and Melius? Well as we dive into the even older and far richer text of Romans we read Paul’s words “Hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In this hope we are saved.” Consider what the two knights were hoping for and then how their hope shaped their actions. Galahad’s hope was in the Lord’s rest, everything else was simply the adventure of a lifetime. Melius hoped for a seat at King Arthur’s round table. He hoped for the glory and feasting that came with that seat, but felt he had to earn his spot through a feat of sheer force of will and power. The glory could be his, now! Just take it. 

When he saw Galahad on his quest he also saw a plan or a map to that very glory he so hoped for. He saw a way to achieve his glory and put all his hope in himself. Yet because he trusted his own power, he underestimated his proclivity to give into temptation, overstepped his role by taking the vacant crown and his very pride became his downfall. He saw what he hoped for and his hope put him to shame. 

Friends, I hope you realize like I do how similar we are to a guy like Melius. How quickly and impulsively we trust in our own power over God’s time and time again. I will confess openly that I certainly hope for glory now, not glory later. So often I act towards what will give me instant gratification instead of waiting patiently for the Lord. I go left instead of right. I chose my own glory instead of God’s. I’m at a point in my life where I have been given what I believe anyone would generally hope for. I have a family who loves me, a family I always hoped I would have. They as of right now are healthy, they as of right now have a roof over their heads and room to grow. Friends, if you were in my shoes, would you not work as hard as possible to make as much money as possible all with the goal of protecting that gift? It appears to me that most of us pick challenging jobs primarily for that exact reason, and if our jobs serve the greater community around us well that is an added bonus. I will confess that even though this job fully satisfies my family’s needs, if another job was offered that gave me more family time and less work I would consider it, wouldn’t you?

Now, that does not mean I would take it, and that certainly does not mean I do not love my job, quite the contrary! My job doesn’t revolve around numbers, it revolves around God’s love, how could I not love it! I cannot tell you how many times in my first year people have been willing to share their lives with me, their love for Christ with me, including their struggles and sorrows and it hurts when I cannot help! It bothers me so much to have no clue what to say or do. I wish I did. I wish I could take this book and open it up and say “Problem Fixed, creation restored, world reconciled!” Brothers and sisters, if you were in my shoes, would you not hope that you could offer the perfect solution towards the problems people bring, hope that you could offer them money for tuition or money to keep them from bankruptcy or more deeply hope that you could say the perfect words to change everyone’s situation for the better?

Would you not with me hope that the Lord would answer your prayers immediately, that He would heal the sick whenever anyone would ask Him to, or raise the dead whenever anyone saw fit, or that Christ would come back and reign before anyone else we love has to suffer and die? Does it not seem right to us for Christ to end suffering and bring glory, now? Should we not take what power is within us and achieve glory, now? Peter, at the same moment in our Gospel text, would adamantly agree “Glory now!” 

But what he did not have in mind and what we cannot comprehend is that God had ordained suffering to become the crux of what true, godly glory is. Simon Peter was called Satan precisely because he wanted God to follow his vision, his plan, of glory. Friends his plan of glory that goes against the things of God is by nature our plan too. Perhaps Peter was so adamant on preventing the Lord from dying because he also had similar hopes to you and me. Hopes of glory now, glory as we see fit. Hopes that he could, as we do, map out, plan out, or see the best outcome for our lives. Hopes for his own family’s prosperity and his own name’s sake. Hope that he could achieve in that moment even by sheer force of will taking Jesus aside and rebuking him, preventing him from going to Jerusalem. “Never Lord, this shall never happen to you!”

“Because if suffering happens to the Son of the Living God, what makes me think suffering should never happen or could never happen or must never happen to me, to my wife, to my children.” Satan was using Peter’s prideful vision of glory for his own intellect and his own family, and at that moment Satan through Peter was standing in the way of the Son of the Living God from completing the will of the Living God. How often does Satan use suffering to take us away from following Jesus, causing us to follow what he makes us believe is our own, better and right visions of glory. 

But the Living God did ordain suffering to become the crux of Godly glory. He willed suffering so that we would no longer choose to rely on our own strength, so we would no longer choose the left as Melius did but choose the right, and rely on a strength greater than our own. Suffering causes us to hope in something we cannot see while we suffer, it causes us to hope in a Savior. Brothers and sisters it is “in this hope that we are saved.”

It is a lie from the devil that makes us think God has abandoned us when we suffer. The truth is that God is nearer to us at those moments than any other. All those martyred for the Lord testify to that. The weeping prophet Jeremiah testifies: “Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable?” Only to have the Lord God Almighty say to him in the very next moment “I am with you to rescue and save you.” How did he save that man of sorrows? Not immediately giving him relief and glory right when he asked for it, but by becoming the Man of Sorrows himself. The Son of the Living God became the Man of Sorrows to deliver you from yourself and assure you of his presence in your suffering. Jesus brought glory to suffering by confronting and overcoming malevolence itself. 

He was betrayed at the hands of someone he had been nothing but good to and who was his very best friend. He was unjustly sentenced by the very mob he dedicated his ministry to along with the help of the government that was oppressing those very same people. He was crucified on a pole in humiliation and agony in front of his beloved mother and friends. Christ redeemed your suffering by suffering more than anyone ever could. He made you holy and is not ashamed to call you, even you his brothers and sisters. 

Thus, because the same Spirit of Christ that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us the children of God, we do not expect for or demand glory now, we wait patiently for glory to be revealed, for our adoption to be made good by the redemption of our very bodies. This is what the creation as well as the people of God groan for, we patiently wait for, we hope for. And we through that hope rejoice even in suffering because we know it draws us nearer to that redemption of our bodies, nearer to Christ. And when we are brought near to the Christ who endured malevolence itself for us, none of the suffering we’ve experienced in this moment of our lives will be worth comparing, we won’t even consider it. Then will the glory be ours, but we will gladly and joyfully give it all to Him. 

Melius did not die on the grass alone in his shame. He confessed his pride to Galahad, his friend and was sent to a hermit in a monastery. There the author says he was restored by love itself. God grants that Salem be a place where love itself reigns among its people, so that together we may trust not our own power, but the power that we glorify, even now, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.