Oil Tank Culture Park (Seoul, South Korea)

It’s the third Sunday that dad and I are attending the 1 p.m. service at Saemoonan Church. This morning, we biked along the Han River and made our way up to the Oil Tank Culture Park. After my short visit to Ivory Coast last month, I returned to Korea with dad, who had spent 40 years there. Now he’s beginning a new chapter of his life in his home country, and I’m grateful to have him back and to share these moments with him in person. Although the weather wasn’t ideal and it started to drizzle, being in nature with dad filled me with joy. I hope every Sunday for the rest of my life can be like today—morning walks in nature with dad, followed by afternoons at church.

John 12:27-33

27 “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!”

Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.

30 Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.

When we hear the phrase “glorify God,” we naturally think of God’s name being exalted and honored, and of the church’s influence being evident in the world. The reason is that we have understood “glory” in a Greek rather than a Hebrew framework.

In the Greek world, glory was something conferred from outside—reputation, honor, or fame in the eyes of others. Its pinnacle was the glory given to the emperor. But all the writers of the New Testament were Hebrews. When they used the word glory, they carried with it the meaning of the Hebrew kavod, which means “heavy.” God’s glory is not about His reputation being elevated, but about God’s true nature being revealed. Christianity was Hellenized, and after Constantine, the emperor’s glory came to be equated with God’s glory, stripping away this profound Hebrew understanding.

In the passage, Jesus is deeply troubled as He faces the cross. The way of glory is not a path that avoids suffering, but one that goes through it. Yet He holds firmly to His mission: “My soul is troubled. Should I ask to be saved? No, it is for this reason I have come. Father, glorify your name.” This prayer means: “Through my death on the cross, let the world see who You truly are.” God’s true nature has already been revealed through Jesus’ life and will be revealed most perfectly through the cross.

What is God’s true nature? It is one of humility, self-emptying, dying, and serving. In this sense, the parable of the grain of wheat pictures God’s glory. Before the grain dies, what is inside cannot be seen. Only through death does the life within spring forth. The cross is the same. God’s love was always there, but it became manifeste on the cross. The glory revealed on the cross is a God who humbles Himself, who empties Himself, who loves to the point of death.

Therefore, it is not rising but humbling, not possessing more but giving and emptying, that reveals God’s glory. The church glorifies God not by being friends with the powerful but by standing with the weak and powerless. We are called to turn away from the pursuit of distorted, false glory and commit ourselves instead to true glory—the revealing of God’s true nature in the world.

I’ve just realized that from the first Sunday I returned to church until now, we have been in a period called Lent. Lent is a Christian season of about 40 days leading up to Easter (the resurrection of Jesus Christ), during which believers purify their body and mind and live in devotion and reflection. Each week I’m introduced to big words like sacrifice or glory, but the sermons bring these abstract concepts into everyday, simple life.

Sacrifice, for example, can mean giving up your life as an offering to God, which sounds too heavy for me, but the sermons showed that it can also be about putting others first in daily life—like listening instead of arguing, or focusing on what I can give in a relationship rather than calculating what I can receive. Glory, as I learned this week, is about God’s true nature being revealed, and God’s true nature is one of humility. Glory doesn’t have to be something grand or spectacular; I can glorify God simply by humbling myself and following His true nature in everyday life.