"And this brings me to the other sense of glory - glory as brightness, splendor, luminosity. We are to shine as the sun, we are to be given the Morning Star... We do not merely want to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words - to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it... For you must not think that I am putting forth any heathen fancy of being absorbed into Nature. Nature is mortal; we shall outlive her. When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive. Nature is only the image, the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture invites me to use."
- C. S. Lewis, "The Weight of Glory"
"Then the righteous shall shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matthew 13:43).
"To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end...I will also give that one the morning star." (Revelation 2:26 - 28).
Last time we looked at glory as fame or acclaim which for the Christian is being know and recognized by God as a good and faithful servant. In today's section Lewis takes us into the other branch of his definition. We shall shine! We will be beautiful! But it doesn't say we will be sun, that we will simply absorbed into nature or that we are made of "star stuff". Oh no, for the Christian it is far, far more than that. Our scientists have predicted "sun death", that point in time when our blazing sun will finally give its final flicker and cease to the a source of live giving light to this planet. And Lewis reminds us that when that happens, we will still be. We have been promised to be with our eternal God forever.
But what is it that makes us shine like the sun?
"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." - II Corinthians 3:17 - 18
Here the word "contemplate" can be translated "reflect" and I start to see the source of my shining. It's not from within me, it's outside of me. I don't shine because of my own righteous works, I shine because of God, I reflect the source of eternal light. As I move closer and closer to Christ the one who saved me (most of the time with the speed of glacial growth), the more I reflect of His shining light to the world (Matthew 5:13-16). Once I leave the bounds of this world and finally lay claim the promise given to be with Him I finally have the opportunity to be fully transformed and my reflective ability which now is on a good day like a small, dust covered mirror will be in full display. Perfect reflection of the perfect Light.
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