"The Weight of Glory"

In this sermon written by Lewis, he talks about many aspects of glory. He discusses the beauty of glory, even though it is not always easy to live for God and glorify God, it is something Lewis would never give up. The hope for glory itself is worth so much more, than our earthly desires which he describes when he says: "If I had rejected the authoritative and scriptural image of glory and stuck obstinately to the vague desire which was, at the outset, my only pointer to heaven, I could have seen no connexion at all between that desire and the Christian promise. But now, having followed up what seemed puzzling and repellent in the sacred books, I find, to my great surprise, looking back, that the connexion is perfectly clear. Glory, as Christianity teaches me to hope for it, turns out to satisfy my original desire and indeed to reveal an element in that desire which I had not noticed". This shows Lewis' reflection on glory in his own life and how much happiness it has given him. It has satisfied his desire, and gives him hope for something that he had never even known before. This is what I want to discuss - the fact that God's glory is an eternal thing unlike everything on Earth that we are told will satisfy us but does not.

God's eternal glory is what will satisfy us because it is never ending. Contrary to this fact, we are told and even sometimes forced in our world the believe otherwise. We are told that material things will satisfy us, that sex will satisfy us, that money will satisfy us. It is so true that "[a]lmost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modem philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth. And yet it is a remarkable thing that such philosophies of Progress or Creative Evolution themselves bear reluctant witness to the truth that our real goal is elsewhere". Especially in the public school system where I attended elementary school and high school, it is evident that God is no longer part of our education. This was no always so, but seeing as this sermon was written in 1942 and Lewis had said then that God was almost out of the education system - we can see now that God is completely gone. This is indeed a shame, because if God has been removed from our education, the world is trying to "convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth" which is tempting, as it is more often than not, the easy route to take.

So, we must choose - is the good of man found on earth, or is glory found with God in heaven. Lewis makes a statement that "[e]ither glory means to me fame, or it means luminosity". Fame is the earthly way to go about it, making life all about ourselves - I mean who wouldn't want that? Who wouldn't want to be Brad Pitt, or Megan Fox, or John Mayer. This is Satan's temptation, and it is a tempting way of life to accept, but we know better, we know where the real reward lies. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth...but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven" as it says in Matthew 6. This is important to remember, and we frequently need to reflect on our own lives and ask ourselves this. Where are we storing up our treasures? Are we storing up material things, are we looking for fame so that people will look at us and give us the attention? No, let us divert our energy and focus toward God. That is what will satisfy our desire, and all of our longings - some that we may not even know about yet. As Lewis puts it; living for Christ, living as a Christian is "precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know". So, let us all give God the glory, "[f]or glory meant good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last".