Holy

Phenomenal writing regarding what is Holy.  For me this has extraordinary clarity.  The rest of the writing is on this post.  Apparently is is part of the manuscript for a book that is still in writing entitled Holy is a Four Letter Word.  Any emphasis on it is mine.

Jesus is the champion of the holy life. Not only his deeds and good works, but more than these, his voluntary death on the cross. I’m first reminded of the story in John 2 about the wedding at Cana. As the host family finds themselves short on wine, Mary, Jesus’ mother, invites Jesus to intervene. Jesus, however, seems reluctant. He responds to Mary by saying, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come” (John 2:4). This, at first glance, seems a bit bizarre in two ways. First, it seems that Jesus is speaking harshly with his mother. Second, and more to the point for us here, he responds as if he is not going to get involved, but we all know that in the end he does, in fact, turn the water into wine.

So, what did Jesus mean when he said “My hour has not yet come.”? He clearly didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to help, because he did. What Jesus meant is that the primary mission of his earthly ministry was not to turn water into wine. Rather, Jesus came to die. All the other stuff of Jesus’ ministry simply points to his death. His death is the ultimate demonstration of the inner life of God—the life of holy, self-giving love.

We are not the only ones with the same tendency to misunderstand the holy life. The religious leaders of the Jews during Jesus’ time misunderstood as well. Their misunderstanding also meant that they were misguiding their followers. They were supposed to demonstrate the holy love of God summed up in the cross. Unfortunately, they failed. This resulted in people having the wrong idea of the inner lie of God’s self-giving love. This being the case, Jesus in his earthly ministry was redefining people’s theology—Jesus came to redefine how people understood what it meant to be holy, to be set a part for God, to share in his nature. We all know that people misunderstand God today in much the same way that they misunderstood God more than two thousand years ago. During the time of Jesus, people thought that God was impossible to please, judgmental, fierce, quick to anger, and highly exclusive. People believed this because this is precisely what the leaders of God’s covenant people testified in their public example (the pharisees, scribes and other temple officials). Unfortunately, people today have the wrong notion of who God is for the same reasons. The testimony of the church is intended to be the window into the inner life of God, just as Jesus was. We are the body of Christ. When we fail at this, we too become the object of these harsh words of Jesus to the scribes and pharisees: “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter go in.” Jesus came to give people the right idea about God. That idea is Love.

Our testimony, my testimony, as the body of Christ, is to show people who God is.  Do I do that in a ready fashion?  Is God that apparent in my life?  I would ask others but I am afraid at the answers I might receive.  Does my family show people who God is?  Is God that apparent in our life?  And, corporately, does our church show people who God is?  Is God that apparent in the life of the church?  ...  These are hard questions, but necessary ones!