Grog Sees the Future
Please note: The story I'm about to tell you is fictional. I'm using some creative license to prove a point. If you keep reading I will tie it together so be patient.
An amazing ancient document was unearthed in Peoria last month. It contained the account in ancient writing of a man who lived before the time of the wheel and running water. This man - let's call him Grog - had a vision of something in the future and he described it in great detail. It starts with a vast hall...
Behold I saw a great hall. It was many cubits long and many cubits wide (the ancients were all about cubits), but the ceiling of the hall was low. The ceiling and the walls of the hall glowed with strange unearthly light. Indeed the hall was filled with wondrous magic all around, and with such sites and sounds as I have never seen before or since. There were many people in the hall. Some were laughing and some were angry but all of them were agitated. The great hall was filled with thunder like the coming of a storm. Nearly all of the people were involved in a ritual that was strange, wonderful and terrible to behold.
Near each group was a beast with a giant maw as large as a man's head. The mouth was dark and foreboding. There were 21 such beasts. One by one each person approached the mouth of the nearest beast and prayed to it with one hand hovering, palm down, near its mouth. As they prayed the beast would vomit up a strange and wonderful object. From the depths of the beast came a stone orb - but not like any stone I have ever seen. It was smooth as if it had been washed in a brook by the water of many years. It seemed wondrously round like the moon or the sun. It glowed and shimmered in the light. The stones came in many colors - blue, red, yellow, green and often black. Sometimes the stones seemed inlayed with quartz or jewels or pearl, yet somehow still smooth. When the beast delivered up a stone orb a worshiper would pick it up and hold it beneath his eyes - being careful not to look at it. Instead the eyes were focused on the other end of the hall.
At the other end of the hall there was group of tiny white trees placed as a sacrifice to the orb. A very straight and smooth path to the trees had been crafted from wood, but it was wonderful wood indeed! It was smooth like winter ice and it shined with a gleam like new fallen dew. The path was not for the worshipers. It was made to receive the orb. The worshipers would rush up to the edge of the path and fling the orb down the path toward the trees. The orb would roll on the path like a ripe fruit rolling down a hill, and it would crash into the trees. This crashing was the thundering sound that filled the hall. Sometimes the worshipers would fling the orb but miss the path. When they missed the path many of them would fall to their knees immediately at the edge of the path or even grovel prostrate on the ground. However, if a worshiper's sacrifice was successful and the orb crashed into the trees and threw all of them down, the worshiper and his companions would clap their hands together and raise a cry to heaven in rejoicing.
Now what is Grog describing? And more importantly, what is the point? As to what he's describing if you said a bowling alley you get a gold star. The short description above is how one of the ancients might describe bowling. The description is fanciful and uses points of reference (worship, beasts, stones, trees, paths) that seem laughable to us, right? Why is Grog having difficulty? Well you might think it's because he has never seen a bowling alley. But the problem with Grog is not justthat he's never seen a bowling alley. The problem is that he has never seen anything remotely like a bowling alley. He has no point of reference on which to hang his hat (or his animal skin). His only choice is to describe what he has seen based on what he knows and has experienced.
Feet and Trees
Now ask yourself how you see God. If you came face to face with God would you have any points of reference with which to describe the experience? Would your description make better sense than that of Grog's bowling alley? Well actually now that you mention it we we have some non-fiction descriptions of encounters with God in scripture. For example, how about our friend Isaiah? In chapter 6 he recounts the following:
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one cried to another and said:
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!"
And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So I said: "Woe is me, for I am undone! ...."
You have probably heard this passage before. Have you ever wondered to yourself about what Isaiah actually saw? What colors did he see? How loud was the noise really? What does a seraphim really look like? The points of reference used to describe the scene are ones that Isaiah could put his finger on - a robe, a train, a throne, and wings. We have in our mind an image of these seraphim that is cast in our own likeness, as men with 6 wings, a face, and feet. But did it ever occur to you that Isaiah may really be struggling to describe something that is beyond his reach? In my mind I imagine Isaiah grasping for words as he put pen to paper (or quill to papyrus). Do you think when we reach heaven and see a seraphim for the first time we are going to laugh and say to ourselves, "those don't look like feet at all" just like we would say to the ancient man "those aren't trees".
A Prophet on the Edge
Another Old Testament writer who saw a vision of God was Ezekiel. In the first chapter of Ezekiel he describes his encounter. Unlike Isaiah, Ezekiel takes more time to really try and describe what he's seeing. He starts out with a great fiery cloud with dust and lightning. He has figures he describes as "like a man" except for multiple animal faces and some other peculiarities. From there things get stranger. He is clearly describing something for which he has no point of reference. In fact what he is describing is so far out of the realm of human experience that Ezekiel's description begins to sound like a man on the edge. Feel free to read the whole of Ezekiel chapter one at your leisure. Meanwhile, consider verses 15 through 21 (New King James Version):
Now as I looked at the living creatures, behold, a wheel was on the earth beside each living creature with its four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their workings was like the color of beryl, and all four had the same likeness. The appearance of their workings was, as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they moved, they went toward any one of four directions; they did not turn aside when they went. As for their rims, they were so high they were awesome; and their rims were full of eyes, all around the four of them. When the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. Wherever the spirit wanted to go, they went, because there the spirit went; and the wheels were lifted together with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.
Hmmm.... maybe like me you have heard this passage of scripture from the pulpit before. Perhaps you have heard a quixotic remonstrance on the theological implications of the four creatures. Maybe some rare theological talent in the academic underbelly of a seminary has decoded this image into something that is understandable. As for me, I can't help but think, "What in the ham sandwich are you talking about Ezekiel?" It seems obvious that whatever Ezekiel saw, he did not have the words to describe it adequately. It was quite simply beyond him.
Glimpses of God
As we approach worship one of our goals is to see God as He is. This phrase crops up often enough that I'm afraid it might lose its power and meaning. There are times in worship where something is happening that we cannot explain. My father would call it "the glory falling". Some might call it "the anointing". Pastor Les might refer to it as a "thin place". Whatever we call it, the presence of God becomes powerful and real. It engages us and pulls and tugs at the blinders that keep us from seeing Him. When it occurs it can leave us changed. We do not have a point of reference to describe exactly what we are experiencing. The moment is completely "other" than anything we have experienced before. In fact, some worship leaders have used the term "otherness" to describe this exposure to God's holiness. The Greek word for holy, Hagias, is often interpreted as "set apart" or "other". Try a Google search for the "otherness of God" and you will stumble onto a number of articles about it including this excellent article on The Otherness of God by a Trinity favorite, Matt Redman.
How Do We Get There?
So how do we begin to drop our pretensions about God and see him for who he is? I wish I had a single answer - but I'm on this journey too. The Word of God gives us many clues - spiritual hunger, humility and repentance all figure among them. One key is to be able to acknowledge our tainted view of God so that we can divest ourselves of it. Paul said in First Corinthians that now we "see through a glass darkly but then we will see face to face." I must to be willing to acknowledge that I do not know Him as he is. I only know Him insofar as I have yielded to Him. I only know Him insofar as I have released myself and become absorbed into His life. I still carry around many pre-conceptions and expectations that need shredding.
In the "Screwtape Letters" author C.S. Lewis has an older demon writing to his nephew instructing him on how to be a better tempter. On the subject of prayer Uncle Screwtape lectures on the importance of keeping the "patient" (the tempter's human subject) focused on the image of God he has constructed in his own mind. He writes:
This is my prayer... That I would worship God not as I think He is but as He is. I love that turn of a phrase by Lewis, "what Thou knowest Thyself to be". God is so Holy and set apart from creation that the only point of reference that really holds weight is His own knowledge of Himself. That is deep enough to fry your noodle. If we really grasp what it means it can shake us to the core (or as Anna Marie says it can "rock our faces off"). I suspect that when we truly are exposed to his holiness we will be filled with wonder and awe. Perhaps our language will be insufficient to describe it any more than that of Grog's shining orbs and tiny white trees, but I know that we will never be the same.
Choir Director, singer, piano player, technologist and erstwhile blogger.