A Thought For The Week Of May 2, 2016

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts! All the earth is filled with his glory!" (Isaiah 6:3b) It's the opening verse of a beautiful and well-known hymn: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty." Those words "holy, holy, holy" say so much to us about God and God's nature. As humans we have always had a tendency to want to remake God according to our own image - to make God seem like us. And so, there's the ridiculous image of the old man with a beard in the sky who controls everything. I don't deny that this is an image that's deeply imprinted in many people and even many Christians. But in reaction to that image I think a lot of people - and even many Christians - have gone so far in the other direction that they've re-created the basic problem of creating God in their own image. So, in reaction to the "old man with a beard in the sky who controls everything," God still becomes like us - except now not in physical appearance but in the creation of a God who's essentially powerless - not involved, never intervening, etc. The so-called non-theist movement is as much an example of creating God in our own image as what it reacts against. In fact, it perhaps creates a God who is less than we are, in that we intervene in the created order and we screw up nature all the time, while God at best (according to this view) simply watches and lets it happen. But here - in these few rods from Isaiah - is a marvellous statement; a corrective to these problematic views. "Holy, holy, holy is God." God is other than the creation and above the creation, but still "the earth is filled with his glory." God is revealed by and active in creation; God is an integral part of all that exists, even while existing beyond all that exists. We don't need to re-create or re-image God. Actually, to do so is idolatry, as much as the idolatry it tries to counter. God has no image that can fully capture the divine being. God is beyond our ability to imagine. But God is here, God is revealed and God is active. That is both our hope and our faith!