Read: John 17:1-5
Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. (v. 1)
The words glory and glorify (or glorified) appear five times in these five verses. Those terms are not in our everyday language but are commonly used in churches or in a worship context. What does it mean to be glorified?
After consulting several dictionaries, I concluded that to glorify means to elevate, enhance, give honor and significance to something. Photographers like to take pictures of leaves or flower petals when they are backlit by the sun. Then they gleam with a radiance not their own; their beauty is enhanced. By doing what the Father asked him to during his time on earth, Jesus the Son honored him or brought him glory. Our understanding of God is enhanced and elevated by observing Jesus’s life. And now Jesus asks to be glorified too, knowing that after death will come the resurrection splendor that will restore him to his rightful place where he was “before the foundation of the world” (v. 24).
Later, Jesus prays for all believers, “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one” (v. 22). Does this mysterious process of glorification include us? Jesus prayed that we too would be bonded as one because of the glory he gives us. And if we honor and elevate each other the way the Father and the Son do, this too would bring them glory.
As you pray, ask God to show you how you can glorify him today.
About the Author
Denise Vredevoogd
Denise Vredevoogd is a private piano teacher who lives near Grand Rapids, Michigan. She enjoys reading, writing, gardening, and spending time in nature with her adult sons and daughters.
