G is for GLORY

[This is the MILLERWRITES contribution to the 2012 Blogging A to Z April Challenge  Here is my INTRODUCTION to this particular series, and an opportunity for you to influence which alphabetically aligned weird words I will comment on this month.  THANK YOU for stopping by!]

I am glad nobody asked for a particular 'G' word!  GLORY is one of the first 'weird words' from the Bible that I wanted to write about when I discovered its base meaning.

But what does GLORY mean to you?  Think of the common way it is used.  This verse describing part of the nativity scene comes to my mind:

An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified..Luke 2:9

And it is verses like these, I think, that create for us the wrong impression of what GLORY means.  It does not mean light, if I may be so bold.  Watch anything that Hollywood puts out regarding the religious, particularly portraying angels, or visions of passing through a long tunnel, or of God on His throne etc, and there will be plenty of bright lights.  And sometimes in the Bible, something with GLORY will be depicted as being bright and shiny, but that is really just a coincidence.  If Jesus could make bread out of stones (not that He would, but He certainly could have), then certainly making something shiny is not very taxing on God's power, and would not say very much about His...WEIGHT!

Yes, GLORY means WEIGHT!

No, I am not saying that God is like Buddha; large and rotund, but God is HEAVY (dude)!  (Remember in Back to the Future, when Marty kept saying "That's heavy Doc!", Doc Brown eventually asked him why everything is so 'heavy' in the future?)

Let's think about the DEPTH of this word's connotations.  God is IMPORTANT and VITAL and MEANINGFUL and PRESENT.  God is SOBER and IMPRESSIVE and VOLUMINOUS.  His reality is WEIGHTY, like a Supreme Court decision.  His acts are FINAL, like the sudden end of the playoff season.  His love and mercy are INFINITE and PERFECT, like the endless series of sunrise and sunset.

I found 285 uses of the word GLORY on the Biblegateway resource I use for all things Biblical.  Click the link and you will see a huge variety of applications, but then substitute the word 'weight' in a few and you will sense the real power of the word.

Here are a few examples.

Joshua 7:19
Then Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, and honor him. Tell me what you have done; do not hide it from me.”

Achan was accused (rightly) of stealing from the plunder of Jericho, and had hidden the goods in his tent.  Joshua is challenging him to give God the RIGHTFUL RESPECT that His WEIGHT deserves.

1 Peter 1:24
For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, 

People don't weigh much.  Compared to God, our 'glory' is like withering grass and we should know that.

Revelation 5:13
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”

But Jesus Christ, standing by God's throne after all He went through for our salvation is HEAVY DUTY.  He doesn't get praise, honor, power and...shiny light!  He deserves praise, honor, power and TONS of IMPORT, for what He has done for you and for me!