“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit-immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.” (C. S. Lewis)
There are some thoughts that are so sublime, so lofty in scope and substance, we must keep reaching toward them in wonder. If we can grasp just a speck, a sliver of true understanding, we will be far better people for it. This particular quote by C.S. Lewis from “The Weight of Glory” is just the kind of vaunted ideal that set my heart aflame the first time I read and considered it.
Glory, what is it really? I think the best definition I have heard is that Glory is God’s beautiful heaviness that will be shared with us; we are the hidden immortals.
Immortals, kept from decay and deterioration, we will one day be shining like a star in the sky. When Jesus gave Peter, James and John a quick peek of his Glory on the mount of transfiguration it is said by Luke in 9:29, “his appearance was like a bolt of lightning.” Think on that. Stop, ponder it…we will share in it. That is why Lewis says, “There are no ordinary people…we joke with, work with, marry, snub everlasting splendors.” This is what he means – – the average Joe is not nor ever will be just average. He will be a person arrayed in lightning.
If that same average Joe was to reject the Gospel his immortality is to become a “horror.” Isaiah 66:24 says of him, “And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”
The greatness of Glory is juxtaposed against the ravages of condemnation. They both are possible states of existence maintained eternally for every individual who presently walks the earth.
As it is now, we see through a glass darkly.
If you are destined for Glory, someday you will walk upon this earth as a god. Both invincible, heavy, and beautiful. Charles Spurgeon once taught that when you have the strength of an immortal, you will be able to rip a tree from the soil, trunk and roots in all. If I saw you now as eternally you will be then I wouldn’t be able to take my eyes off you. I would be held spellbound marveling at your splendor. However, if you are destined for wrath, and you could be seen today as you will be, my heart would be ripped apart in pity over your loathsome condition. Twisted and broken, an object of scorn.
If this is to be true, which the holy scriptures confirm, Lewis is right when he says we need to take each other much more seriously than we presently do. People in general, don’t seem to matter to each other. We casually cast each other off as either a nuisance or use them as a distraction to pass the boredom of the day. People have become to us irritants or playthings. We fail to consider the enormity of what future possibilities we encounter daily with each person we meet.
But let heaven in and look with eyes opened to new possibilities. Daily we are given the unique opportunity to affect the future radiance of an immortal. Or maybe through kindness and care, we can help a monster heading for the terrors of hell to awaken and be rescued from himself?
Do you believe Glory will really be this heavy? Or are you wasting precious time playing around with trivial matters that mean relatively nothing? Do you really believe you are walking among gods and monsters? Or just ordinary humans?
I heard the craziest thing from a pastor two weeks ago, he said the reason we stop and look at mirrors and play with selfies is that we want to catch a glimmer of the Glory that we will be. I think he’s right. My sister would accuse me of looking at my reflection in the car window, and she was right. Each time I look at me I see something more that can be, will be. An immortal. More than just a chiseled jaw, flawless skin, I see eternal possibilities. I love how 2 Corinthians 4:16 puts it, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”
That inner self is the germ of immortality. Just a seed. That soon will die, sown perishable but raised imperishable, sown mortal but raised in immortality! I can’t wait. More than ordinary.
