Are we there yet?

If you have children, and travel by car, then ‘Are we there yet?’ may well be a very familiar cry. It is not easy to answer when you are maybe 30 minutes into a journey you know is going to take 4 hours. Finding things to keep ‘little people’ occupied and avoid the fractious “she hit me”, “no I didn’t”, “yes you did”, “well he hit me first”, scenario takes creativity, imagination and potentially frequent intervention.

So spare a thought for Moses. He ended up leading, not a family that could be counted on

one hand on a day trip, but one of about 600,000 on foot plus children¹. No one was quite sure how long it would take, they did not seem terribly convinced that they wanted to get to their destination or at times that they wanted him as leader of the expedition! If that was not enough, the terrain was inhospitable, food and water stops sometimes difficult to find and the ‘loos’ literally a hole you had to dig for yourself.²

One of the books in the bible that tells the story of some of the key parts of that journey is called, in the Hebrew version, ‘In the wilderness’ because that is where they were travelling; but it is perhaps better known by its name in the English bible ‘Numbers’. It contains the account of a census in chapter 1 and another in chapter 26. It took this particular family, the children of Israel, 40 years to get from the first census to the second; and the intervening events make back seat squabbles look like a ‘picnic’.

To say that things did not go as planned would be an understatement. God’s intention seems to have been a trip of a little over 2 years from Egypt to the ‘promised land’. The eventual 40 year journey is portrayed, in the book of Numbers, as a divine process of recovering lost ground resulting from a lack of trust and faith by heads of families from the tribes that made up the emerging nation. Only two men, Joshua and Caleb, stood against the river of doubt that flowed from the mouths of the other spies. Unfortunately that river undermined the confidence of the people and the result was ‘wandering’ until the generation of adults that left Egypt had died out.

Everyone of us has some impact on God’s ability to work where we are – be that in our street, office, factory, school or home. However the effect of the behaviour of leaders of a community is greater. The relative significance of the sacrifices to be offered by priests, leaders and ordinary people in the event of inadvertent offending hints at this strongly³

If you have doubts about the proposition that people can, to some extent, limit the power of God to act in their community read Mark 6:4-5 and Matthew 13:58. Both these Gospel passages reflect on Jesus lack of miracles in Nazareth because of the unbelief of the people who lived there. Please do not misunderstand, I am not saying God is weak. He is the source of all power but his essential nature is love⁴. God can, of course, wrap up the world or the whole of the cosmos whenever He likes. That is his right, he made it; but so far his choice has been not to do so. He has chosen to work through people who will respond to him in faith and love. For example Abraham responded to God’s promise to him, that not only would he be blessed but also that he would be a blessing to the whole world⁵ God also promised Abraham the land in which he was living at that time. The same land where his descendants where camped on the borders.

The children of Israel, having refused to respond to God and enter the promised land, with its abundance, embark on 40 years of wandering so that God has a new generation of people who will trust him. It is tragic that God could not give the promised land their parents, but all they could see was the strength of the opposition. Very strangely they could not see the power of God who had delivered them from slavery in Egypt, led them to safety through the red Sea, provided food and water in the desert and clearly demonstrated his presence with them.

Somehow, despite the constant and visible presence of God, in the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, the ‘children of Israel’ could not see what God wanted to do for them.

As my daily reading of the bible moved from Leviticus to Numbers, a couple of things struck me and caused me to ask a specific question. The things that provoked my question may seem a little strange to us as twenty first century readers but here goes:

• First, the prohibition on sacrificing children to Molech⁶. Why would anyone want to sacrifice their child and why would that profane God’s name⁷ or defile His sanctuary. Such a things would surely not happen in the tabernacle!

• Second, in Numbers it says the Levites should pitch their tents around the tabernacle so that “there should be no wrath on the congregation…”⁸

Somehow, having God living in the middle of his people was dangerous for them. They needed the protection of the Levites camping between them and the tabernacle and also needed to be holy so that they did not defile ‘His sanctuary’.

The passages I have just mentioned that provoked me to ask ‘What is holiness?’ The nation of Israel is told five times in Leviticus by God “be holy for I am holy”⁹ In addition, the apostle Peter uses the same phrase as an instruction to Christians in his first letter.¹⁰

Traditional answers to the question ‘what is holiness?’, for example, ‘it means to be separate’ or ‘to be pure’ really do not satisfy and as importantly do not help ordinary Christians in the twenty first century grasp in practical ways what it could mean for them to be holy. I grew up in the Open Brethren and have childhood memories of preachers quoting from the King James bible “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord…”¹¹ It was an argument used against various form of technology and entertainment or for not playing sport on Sunday. Some religious groups are still identified with cultures that avoid modernity. They appear to many as somewhat quaint and out of touch. They may as a result have less pressure and live lives at a slower pace; that is probably no bad thing, but does it have anything to do with holiness and if not what is holiness?

The first time the concept of holiness occurs in the Bible is in the creation story.¹² God rests from his work on the seventh day, and depending on the English translation you read, is said to ‘make it holy’ or ‘sanctify it’. Jesus makes the comment¹³ that “the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath”. When the concept of Sabbath is articulated as part of the Jewish law¹⁴ it specifically says that the purpose of the Sabbath is to enable people and working animals to have time to be refreshed. So then we have a link between being holy and being refreshed. This same principle of ‘being refreshed’ or ‘having time for recovery’ can be seen in the biblical concept of the year of Jubilee and also the Sabbath year where the land is left unploughed and unused so that the poor are able to get food from it.¹⁵ Specific times then, one day a week, one year in seven and the Jubilee, were set aside with the purpose of bring life and recovery. They were ‘holy time’.

The Hebrew word transliterated ‘qodesh ‘ and translated ‘holy’ seems to also carry the meaning of being devoted. God says he is Holy, so in what sense might holiness and being devoted be linked? Perhaps it helps to explain this in the context of the relationships in the trinity where ‘the Father is devoted to the Son and the Spirit and then each to the other’. They each want the best for the others, that is also what love is – wanting the best for someone else.

When Moses meets God at the burning bush¹⁶ God gives his name as ‘I am who I am’. God is the only being in the universe that has life in himself. He is the ‘non contingent being’; as humans we are a contingent. We owe our life to, and are dependent on, something else. Moses is also told to take his shoes off because he is standing on holy ground. He is then commissioned to go to Pharaoh, speak on God’s behalf and lead the children of Israel to freedom. Once in the wilderness his role seems to be one of forging a nation out of disparate but related groups of people, to help them relate to the God of their forefathers and learn how to live with his presence with them. They had to be holy if they were to survive with Him.

Dallas Willard¹⁷ described holiness as “the presence of the Trinity in our lives”. However I want to suggest a different answer – God’s holiness is ‘being the ultimate source of life’, so being holy means ‘being a source of life for those around us’. My suggestion does not mean that you or I can do what ever might occur to us. Some actions bring broken relationships and others can and do hurt people. Actions that hurt and damage people are a denial of life and love and are therefore unholy.

The challenge is to ‘be holy as he is holy’ or in keeping with my definition above, ‘bring his life’ to the people we encounter. Encouragement, healing, hope and relief from the pressures of life are all expressions of holiness. They are expressions of His life, expressions of the character of God revealed in Jesus.

Inevitably such love can also mean us laying down things that we might want, for ourselves, for the benefit of others; but that is in essence of what love is – wanting good for someone else! I know I have a long way to go. I know ‘I am not there yet!’