So, I mentioned the word “holy” in my last post and that got me to thinking. It’s not the first time I’ve considered the word and its implications. Not by a long shot. In fact, I’ve been aware of it for a very long time, at least back as far as my first spiritual wanderings in my late teens.

In those times, I learned of holy men; men who were set apart and somehow connected much more closely to God or whatever form of God we were talking about. In my mind’s eye, they were worthy of great respect and were extremely wise in the nature of the most important things … things often beyond the understanding of normal people. Usually, they lived apart, either alone or in religious communities. I don’t remember coming across a married holy man. Perhaps it’s impossible to be holy and to parent teenagers. During this early period on my faith journey, I met one holy woman. An enlightened Hindu yoga teacher of wide acclaim. She, herself, was a devotee of another holy person, a man with a very large following in India and, increasingly, in the west. I read accounts of holy people, both of the east and the west. Along with the Hindus, they were also Buddhist and Christian and usually possessed some mystical quality that disrupted one’s natural view of things. I found them captivating as they collectively seemed to call me to something greater than I had previously known.

These days, the word has taken on much deeper meaning, for which I’m glad. (Full disclosure: I occasionally let use with a “Holy Moley!” as a kind of exclamation at something surprising.) But, honestly, when I stop to think about holy for a moment, it tends to fill my consciousness. In other words, it’s anything but a toss-off. Rather, it’s a big deal.

Well, before I try to really delve into all of that, I’d like to address the nature of holy things and holy places. I find these to be relatively common and a fairly constant draw for the attention of many.

In what we may loosely call New Age thinking, there are certain places that are intensely “spiritual.” Now, I’m not sure people who think this kind of thing would also call them holy but I’d hazard a guess they’re talking about the same thing. It’s a place that is closer to the ultimate truth than other places which may be as near as a just around the corner or a short drive away. Some of these people will also say that things like crystals or pyramids are infused with such qualities and if we possess those things, we have a leg up. You can tell that I’m not a fan.

Now, to be direct, this is not to say that symbols of things cannot help direct us to what is holy. Symbols (of which language is made) are great at directing us towards holy. But, they are not of themselves, holy. At least that’s what I think. Hopefully, my explanation will make sense.

Places and things can bring holy to mind and in profound ways. They can call our attention away from the temporal to the eternal and that’s often a good thing, taken in doses.

Now, at the risk of making too fine a point, I’ll allow that places and things can be “sacred.” Sacred is about making a connection to that which is holy. I have no problem saying I stand on sacred ground. For whatever reason, it is consecrated, setting it apart as a sign pointing towards the main object.

One month from now, I’ll be walking along the shores of the Sea of Galilee and, hopefully, standing at the Western Wall on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. We’ll see how I respond to these places, centerpieces to what Christians sometimes refer to as the Holy Land.

So, God is holy. If we cannot accept that, then there’s no use going on. We would only be talking about human attributes like moral behavior or “enlightened” thinking whatever that means. I would have a tough time discussing the concept of holy with an atheist, for instance, although I’d certainly love to try!

Lacking a full education in these matters, I discovered, upon looking, that the Hebrew word for holy is “qodesh,” which can be translated as set apart and sacred. In the New Testament, the Greek word is “hagios,” which means pretty much the same thing. Jews and Christians collectively believe that God is wholly separate and wholly sacred. He is pure and transcendent and “carries the weight of glory.” If you believe that you are confronting the being powerful enough to create and know everything and that that being is perfectly pure, then holiness takes on quite a meaning. Stand back.

I learned sometime ago that when Jews said a word twice, they did so for great emphasis. Many times in scripture, we see words being used twice for emphasis. This is like raising the font size considerably, while simultaneously clicking the bold, underline and italics tabs. There can be no mistake about the point being made. There is only one attribute of God that is repeated three times in Scripture, not merely twice. He is Holy, Holy, Holy. In other words, for believers, the message is clear: Pay attention. We are responsible for knowing this above all else.

For modern minds, this may come across as a little pathetic. For the naturist, there can be no such thing as holy because we’re all made up of the same stuff. Interestingly, because they can’t help it and are hardwired for worship, naturists may conjure up their own things to be sacred or holy, things to which they assign their own versions of ultimate meaning. Gaia comes to mind. Think the movie Avatar. Consider what people worship and you’ll find their substitute for holy, while perhaps poo-poohing the idea of a perfectly Holy God.

Now, some Christians throughout history are taught that God is quite the serious judge and not to be messed with. As in, mess with God by being sinful and you’re toast. Invest in asbestos garments. Other Christians have a softer understanding. Jesus seems like such a friendly guy and he’s God. Right? Jesus is all about love and forgiveness and I can certainly identify with that. I’m saved and forgiven and that’s what really matters. Can’t wait to check out the new digs in the afterlife.

My understanding of things places me squarely in the middle which doesn’t mean that I see shades of gray … a cosmic compromise. No, I see a judge who hates sin because it separates us from him while he is simultaneously loving and forgiving. Anyone who has resolved the conflict between the two is simply blessed. As there is ultimate justice and ultimate love, contained within that which is Holy, we are called to pay attention.

Let’s look for one of my favorite moments in the life of Jesus as is described in detail in three of the four gospels. Preceding that, we get a picture of Jesus and his ministry that is very familiar to all who pay attention. I don’t have to recount it. But, on this particular evening, Jesus decides to take three of his disciples up a local mountain to get away a bit and pray. Those disciples are Peter, James and John. While up there, all of a sudden, Jesus begins to shine with rays of massively bright light. He is shortly joined, according to the account, with the prophets Moses and Elijah and they start to talk. In other words, the veil separating this world from the true world of Jesus falls away and the disciples are confronted with a starkly different reality from that which they’d known previously. While they had already seen miracles, this was a whole order of magnitude different. It is referred to as the Transfiguration and Thomas Aquinas described it as the greatest miracle during Jesus’ life. It was the point where human nature met God’s nature, when the temporal met the eternal and it was beyond astonishing. With Jesus’ face lit up as the sun and his clothes bathed in nearly blinding light, the disciples were dumbfounded and fell on their faces in fear, whereupon he touched them and told them not to be afraid.

I cannot escape this picture or the message it delivers.

We can write off stories such as this one as myth. We can relegate stories of visitations by angels throughout scripture as lore. Should they be true, however, we are on notice.

Things are not as they may seem, nor even how we might choose if we had our druthers.

Holy, Holy, Holy.

This is also a description of the heavenly chorus of which we will be part. Again, at the risk of totally conflicting with the modern mind, we are designed for worship, dedicating all of our being to that which is most important and governs our lives. To worship that which is holy is the calling, pure and simple.

I have two ways of dealing with this view of reality, to which I hold, for good reason.

One is the knowledge that I will come face to face with what those disciples experienced on the mountain. That knowledge makes me think I’ll be doing a really fast face-plant immediately upon crossing over. The other is the knowledge that I will be touched and told not to be afraid, lifted up in order to live with Holy and in the glory that is its expression.

I am not worthy and have every right to be afraid. Nothing can stand against Holy without forgiveness. But, I am not afraid now. That may come later. I just don’t know. Now, I stand on a promise. A promise that is an invitation towards Holy that begins anew this very moment and every moment. And, it is the knowledge that Holy is also incomparable love and beauty that bursts beyond anything we can possibly imagine. We are given glimpses and messages in this life that help us to focus in that direction. We do not want to miss those.

There is another word that points to holy and that is “reverence.” A modern definition is to have deep respect, which I found reasonable but somehow not complete. I then discovered that it comes for the Latin, revereri, which means “stand in awe of.” Awe is defined as “having reverential respect mixed with fear and wonder.” Think about that.

To what do we stand in awe these days? Many would quickly point to some aspect of nature like a majestic mountain or the vastness of space, with the knowledge of all it contains. To be in awe is to be struck silent in the face of things as we try to process an incomprehensibility. Then, to layer over that reverential respect, now entering into a relationship with that object and understanding its power and authority in some fashion over and against our own. What, in the modern relativistic mind that is centered on our own feelings and concerns, engenders the kind of awe, respect and reverence we’re talking about?

I don’t think it’s possible to be truly reverent, to be full of awe (awe-filled, awe-full, aweful) when focused on one’s self. In our mad dash to get the most out of life, to ensure our own standing, to be convinced that others respect our feelings, which reign paramount, is to also ensure we are in no position to be reverent. With the elevation of science to a religion (I’d be happy to argue that point and I do so as one who loves science), we just await the next announcement that another mystery has been solved. We are, therefore, inoculated to mystery. We can sort of shrug with the knowledge that everything is completely knowable, it’s just a matter of time. Reverence is a tough call when the thing is extremely familiar and obtainable.

And, so we slide away and begin to discard something that is truly a treasure. We don’t take time in our life to regularly pause, step back, and bow on bended knee. Why should we? We are our own gods and no one or thing compels us otherwise.

We don’t like God to be scary because that would mean we can no longer control him. He is no threat and why should he be? I liked the book and movie, The Shack. They portrayed come characteristics of God that needed to be portrayed: Loving and Forgiving. Approachable and Personable. Redemptive. In this, the story and screen certainly touched people who have experienced Christianity as intensely judgmental and oft-putting. Why not? Who wouldn’t want a parental God to laugh and joke? Who would not want Jesus to be so friendly and encouraging? Who would not want an ethereal female spirit flitting about in a garden, telling us that this is our life?

But, there was nothing reverential in any of this. There was nothing holy. And the lesson on judgment was to refrain from it, which is true to a point for us mortals.

As I’ve said a number of times, I can’t conceive of a reality without ultimate justice. Ultimate love requires it. All things are not equal and that includes us and God, despite how many of us want to put him on the same plane.

All of this puts us once again at a kind of crossroads. We can choose to bypass reverence and awe because those tend to be pretty distracting from the things immediately in front of us. We can kick the can down the road, telling ourselves these are just things we don’t know enough about and we’ll just have to see what shows up in the end. Assuming we believe in a God, we can tell ourselves that he’ll be just as we want him, no worries. Of course, holy is impossible in any of these contexts.

Or, we can look at things differently. We can ask what holy really is. We can ask what a holy God is and will be like. We can ask how we should relate to holy.

The first set of directions are easy. They require little or nothing of us. This last one is hard. It requires a lot of us. I did not understand until I did and there was nothing left but to fall down in reverence, especially given what I was shown. Nothing else made any sense.

Do I fear holy? You bet. I have a mighty fear, born of knowledge and experience. Do I desire holy? You bet. More than anything. When I come across holy in small doses, I’m allowed the slightest glimpse of the vastness of it. Which brings forth that other word. Glory. It is glorious and there can be no more apt description. Amen