These were the words
that our dear friend and brother Keith sang each week to introduce the Gloria.
As he sang them, you
got a sense of the physical limitation with which Keith lived for many years. It
was always a very human moment for me. Keith did not full lung capacity, as we
know; and to be honest, fine musician though he was, the last note of the
phrase – ‘high’ – was sometimes not quite high enough.
Keith was a humble and
modest man, not keen for the spotlight, quiet and unassuming. He did not
announce his presence to the world. He was flawed as we all are – but Keith did
not deny this as many of us do. He was instead ready to recognise his mistakes
and to apologize. He did not receive public honours, awards, and medals.
Was the most high God
glorified in this humble life? Could the glory of the holy God who made all
things, who is infinite and who dwells in unapproachable light, shine through
such a quiet life as this?
The word ‘glory’ is
itself a curious one. CS Lewis tells us that it has two aspects to it: fame on
the one hand, and luminosity on the other. We see it in our modern cult of
celebrity: the red-carpet A-listers are those who literally glow with the
flash-bulbs. They are larger than life. Their fame makes them seem like gods
and goddesses to us. Their touched up and altered and buffed appearances,
tweeted and instagrammed across the globe, fairly glow with what we human
beings think of as glory. There is always something fake about this glory,
because we all know that these perfect bodies and faces are only human, and not
at all as glorious as they seem. For all our fascination with it, it is also
repellent.
With
the glory of God things are very different. In the second of our readings, from
the book of Revelation, we are given a vision of how things will finally be. We
see, with John, a great city, but a truly holy city, dressed like a bride. It
fairly glows with a glory not its own. As John says of it: ‘it has the glory of
God, and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal’. He
also says: ‘…the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory
of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb’. There is no need for burning
coal in this city. It is lit from within, by the glory of God, and the Lamb.
Do
you notice something about this glory? The glory – the reputation and honour
and the radiance and light – belong to God.
And
yet: he shares it with his people.
The
city is floodlit with it. God’s glory is their glory, his beauty is their
beauty. Our creaturely existence is not dissolved, like droplets into the sea.
Not at all: God’s glory is our glory, his honour is our honour, his beauty our
beauty, his light our light. This last scene is not of a God who sits in
splendid isolation: but of one who surrounds himself with his creatures, and
covers them with his glory.
At the centre of this
is the Lamb, that great symbol of Jesus Christ who died like a sacrificial lamb
to take away the sins of the world. It’s through Jesus that God takes what is
his, and shares it with us. In mercy, he shares with human beings his glory,
and righteousness, and honour, and wisdom. In Jesus we find not just the glory
of God, but a glory from God: from him comes, as Lewis put it, ‘good report
with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgement, and welcome into the
heart of things.
In Keith’s quiet life,
then, we see the glory of God displayed with as much intensity and
concentration as we see it displayed in the heavens above. Keith was a miracle.
It was a miracle of God that he was physically preserved for so long to serve
him and sing his praises here. But he was an extraordinary miracle in that God
himself was glorified in his life in ways that far exceed even the most honoured
and renowned human beings.
Today we grieve a dear
friend. But we know that Keith Game gave glory to God in his life, and with his
voice. And we know that that glory which he gave to God God now shares with
him. Keith will be changed: his all too perishable body will put on
imperishability; his mortality will give way to immortality; his weary body
will be changed so that it is glorious with glory of Christ resurrected body.
His voice will be joined to that great choir that gathers around the heavenly throne,
and he will sing again, and again, and again, with healed lungs and a glad
heart:
Glory
be to God on high.
