reflections

For 18th May 2025

To experience a moment of love, compassion, and concern from another human being.

READING:
John 20:19–end

Fifth Sunday of Easter

A Glimpse of Glory

A care home

An elderly lady in a care home quietly, yet determinedly, makes her way over to an obviously disengaged youngster. Out of suspicious eyes, the lad watches her pain-filled gait and, after a significant time, feels her gentle hand on his shoulder. Somehow, he realises that she has crossed the room just for him. No words pass from the elderly woman – a previous stroke had made that impossible. But soon, the lad who rarely opens up to anyone is chatting away.

He has experienced a moment of love, compassion, and concern from another human being: someone who has noticed his deep sadness and responded with all the strength she could muster.

A moment of glory.

This type of glory is not the stuff of headlines—not fireworks or a standing ovation.
Simply a fragile, stroke-limited person showing deep care for another—with all the strength she had.

I had witnessed glory.

I wonder where you have seen or experienced a moment where love was most fully given? And I wonder if you’ve ever thought of those times as moments of glory?

Today’s Gospel reading

Let’s return to today’s Gospel. Jesus says something strange, considering the circumstances:

“Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.”

Now.
Now? But Judas has just walked out the door to betray him.
Now, while Jesus is on the edge of abandonment, arrest, and death? Glorified?

It’s not what we expect—or perhaps how we would describe that moment.
We often think of glory as meaning success or honour. An all-bells-and-whistles moment. But here, glory smells like betrayal. It looks like loss. It sounds like a whisper in the dark. So I wonder, in the light of this passage, what Jesus meant by “glory”?

One way of understanding and describing glory is: “Divine love revealed in Jesus.”
In that sense, in today’s Gospel the words,“the Son of Man has been glorified…” mark not a coronation, but the giving of self in love. In the pain, betrayal, and all that lay ahead, Jesus was prepared to give of himself fully. Jesus is glorified not in triumph, but in the cross—the moment where love is most fully given.

Because of that example of Jesus, this type of glory is the glory of with, not of win—glory in relationship and vulnerability.

The stroke victim in the nursing home spent all her strength to determinedly walk alongside that young lad who needed to be shown love.The care staff at the home had never witnessed her walk so far.

A Nazareth Manifesto

In his book A Nazareth Manifesto, Sam Wells says the greatest gift God gives is being with us. Not fixing, not rescuing, not solving—just with.
That’s the glory of God: presence.

And when Jesus says he’s glorified, he means: I’m going all the way with you—even through betrayal, even into death.
So we see that glory isn’t about God standing above us, watching us struggle. It’s about God with us—in the midst of the mess.
Not escaping suffering, but entering it. Not avoiding shame, but transforming it.

Glory isn’t just something we experience when we die, but something we experience and witness today, wherever we are.
And it isn’t confined to actions by God, but something we are invited to emulate.

The New Commandment

We recall that Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment:

“Love one another as I have loved you.”

This isn’t a sentimental line we learn to trip off our tongues.
He didn’t say: Love one another when it’s easy.
Or: Love one another until it costs too much. He said: As I have loved you.
As I knelt and washed your feet.
As I witnessed your failures, Peter, and still called you my friend.
As I go to the cross—not to win, but to be with you to the very end.

That’s what glory looks like.

Living the Story

If you’ve ever done any acting, you might have gone to great lengths to “get inside the mind of your character”—especially if the character is based on a real person. By the end of such a study, you’ll know exactly what your character is likely to say or do in any given situation. You can then improvise if you forget your lines.

Sam Wells,Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, says the Church is like a theatre company acting out the story of God.We don’t have a script for every scene—especially in these uncertain times. But we’ve seen the character of God.We know how Jesus responds —with forgiveness, with presence, with love. And so we improvise.

We enter the scene of a food bank, a refugee welcome centre, a hospice bedside… and we ask: How would Jesus love here?
And when we do so, the glory of God becomes visible.

What Would Jesus Do?”

Many young Christians wear a simple wristband with the letters WWJD, which stands for “What Would Jesus Do?” This phrase reminds them to think about how Jesus might act in a given situation—and to try to respond in a similar, Christ-like way.

The WWJD movement became especially popular in the 1990s, but it traces back to the late 1800s when a pastor named Charles Sheldon wrote a book titled In His Steps. In it, characters commit to asking “What would Jesus do?” before making decisions.The wristband became a modern, visible way to carry that question into everyday life—whether at school, with friends, or in difficult choices.

It’s meant to prompt reflection, conscience, and compassion—encouraging wearers to live in a way that reflects Jesus’ teachings of love, humility, justice, and forgiveness.

That’s the glory Jesus is talking about:
God with us. Us with one another.

Love, shared in small acts that remind us that God is here.