The Weight of Glory

Our pastor, in discussing Romans 8 this morning, read the following portion from C.S. Lewis' sermon, The Weight of Glory, which was originally preached in the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, on June 8, 1942.

It so well described what I have often felt within myself when I'm out in nature that I thought I would share it here.



And this brings me to the other sense of
glory—glory as brightness, splendour,
luminosity. We are to shine as the sun, we
are to be given the Morning Star. I think I
begin to see what it means. In one way, of
course, God has given us the Morning Star
already: you can go and enjoy the gift on
many fine mornings if you get up early
enough. What more, you may ask, do we
want? Ah, but we want so much more—
something the books on aesthetics take
little notice of. But the poets and the
mythologies know all about it. We do not
want merely 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. That is why we have peopled air
and earth and water with gods and
goddesses and nymphs and elves—that,
though we cannot, yet these projections
can, enjoy in themselves that beauty grace,
and power of which Nature is the image.
That is why the poets tell us such lovely
falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind
could really sweep into a human soul; but
it can’t. They tell us that “beauty born of
murmuring sound” will pass into a human
face; but it won’t. Or not yet. For if we
take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if
we believe that God will one day give us
the Morning Star and cause us to put on
the splendour of the sun, then we may
surmise that both the ancient myths and
the modern poetry, so false as history, may
be very near the truth as prophecy. At
present we are on the outside of the world,
the wrong side of the door. We discern the
freshness and purity of morning, but they
do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot
mingle with the splendours we see. But all
the leaves of the New Testament are
rustling with the rumour that it will not
always be so. Some day, God willing, we
shall get in. When human souls have
become as perfect in voluntary obedience
as the inanimate creation is in its lifeless
obedience, then they will put on its glory,
or rather that greater glory of which
Nature is only the first sketch.