“The Weight of Glory,” a sermon delivered by C. S. Lewis at Oxford in 1941, has to rank in the upper echelons of all his thinking/writing. It is filled with memorable images. One of the best is this one:
If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith.
Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak.
We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
While we wallow around in the mud, the Lord wants to show us a greater glory than we’ve ever imagined. It’s time to look up from our silly little mud pies and walk—no, run—to the glorious “holiday” He has promised. That’s where the real joy is found.