One of the most memorable sermons I've ever heard was on the glory of the risen, ascended, and coming-again Jesus. Usually, the preacher observed, we picture Christ in the garb of his earthly ministry. We imagine his sandaled feet caked with dust, his tunic drab, and his beard perhaps a bit unkempt. We picture how he needed to eat and sleep and, occasionally, retreat from the crowds to rest. We think, above all, of his willingness to go all the way to death on our behalf.
All those things have a proper—and central—place in the Christian imagination, the preacher said, but we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that's how Jesus looks and behaves now. He pointed us to the so-called high priestly prayer in the Fourth Gospel, in which Jesus asks his Father to clothe him once again with the glory he had lost in his earthly humiliation, and John the Seer's vision, in which a radiant Jesus looks like nothing so much as a towering angelic warrior (Rev. 1:16). The preacher urged us to contemplate Jesus in his present glory—a glory that outshines the itinerant simplicity of his pre-resurrection ministry as fireworks outshine a candle.
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