Distracted from Christ's Glory

It seems that often the saints are distracted from the greatest glory of our Lord Jesus.

When Jesus made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, no doubt many of the disciples thought that this was the beginning of Christ's great glory. He was acclaimed as the promised Messiah, He entered the temple, cleansed it, and set up shop there preaching and healing!

Surely this was the bringing in of the glorious kingdom of Messiah! When the leaders criticized the peoples' praises, Christ put them in their place with a magisterial rebuke from Scripture -- out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou has perfected praise!

On top of all that, the Gentiles came to Jesus to see Him. The apostles must have recalled those prophets who foretold that Christ would be a light to the world that the Gentiles would flock to one day.

And then Jesus said those beautiful words: the hour is come, that the Son of Man should be glorified.

But then Jesus brought crashing down their hopes of a glorious kingdom about to be brought in. He declared that His glory was to die to save His people and give life to poor sinners.

All that time, they had mis-perceived Christ's true glory - His sacrifice on the cross to save His people from their sin. All that time, they had been distracted from viewing the great glory of the Lamb!

Hebrews 2 makes clear that Christ's being given a body and offering a sacrifice for sin was the crowning of Him with glory and with honor! All of His excellencies later described flow from that glorious sacrifice He made for us.

At the Lord's Supper, Jesus declared that now He was to be glorified. We celebrate Christ's glorification when we remember His death.