Terrifying Holiness

My mind was wandering this morning as I thought about feminine beauty and the pitfalls that those who possess it can fall into. For some reason, Angelina Jolie came to mind and I began to think about the movie roles she has played. Over the years, she has played a number of roles where she is a woman acting in a typically male capacity. She is the female Indiana Jones in the Lara Croft role or she is a hunter as in the movie Wanted. I find it interesting that these kinds of female characters usually have a very cavalier attitude towards sex as well, as though being strong means treating sex as if it doesn't matter.

As I pondered this, I thought about heroines of the past; women who filled a masculine role in society, such as Queen Elizabeth or Joan of Arc. These women were associated with virginity. Their abstinence made them more powerful to the human mind. The Greek Goddess Artemis (Diana in Rome), the virgin hunter, was frightening. One of the myths tells of a prince named Actaeon who happened to catch sight of her taking a bath. She was so furious that she turned him into a stag and his own hounds tore him to pieces. Other myths about her show a similar fierceness in her reaction to threats to her purity or the purity of her attendants.

I had always found Artemis the least likable of the Greek/Roman gods, and now I think I know why. She had no need for human (or divine) love. Her judgments were quick and decisive. She existed completely independently of us. It was this, her holiness, that made her so frightening. By contrast, Zeus, the king of the gods, was not like this. He may have been much more powerful that Artemis, but he craved human love. He also feared the wrath of his wife and snuck around to fulfill his needs. Zeus' sexuality made him weak. How much more fearful would he have been if he had not "needed" human beings?

This is God's holiness: He is completely pure and does not need human beings. He exists completely independently from us. We cannot change his mind, we are not his counselors, we cannot sway Him or influence Him. He does not need what we can give. And no human argument can possibly distract Him from executing exact and divine justice and divine justice requires the death of every one of us. It is God's holiness that makes Him terrifying.

But He also loves us. We have a God who is terrifyingly holy, yet loves us and wants a relationship with us. So, rather than immediately executing that divine justice, He delays it, and gives us a way out. Jesus said, "I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved." God provided a way for us to escape divine judgment in Christ Jesus, but he only gave us one way out. As reasoning human beings, we want to convince Him otherwise. We want Him to make concessions and allow us to escape in other ways, but He is holy. He doesn't give us the opportunity. He formed a plan in the beginning, a divine plan, and He will not accept any human alteration or alternative to His plan. But to everyone who accepts His plan, who opens the door, He says, "I will come in and dine with him and he with Me."

Do you think this is unfair? If you do, you're right. Fairness would require that we all face eternal death because we have all turned away from Him. He did not offer His Son on the cross out of fairness, but out of mercy. It is out of mercy that He has given us one way, because justice demands no escape. But God told Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy." And He offers that mercy to us.

Have I sounded harsh? If I have, I apologize. I did not intend to offend anyone, I have just simply worked through my thoughts. The holiness of God is a difficult concept and I don't think I've seen it as clearly before as I did this morning, thinking about the Greek goddess Artemis. But as soon as it becomes clear how little God needs us, it is all the more amazing that He wants us and has provided a way for us, his disobedient children, to return to His Love. So I echo King David by saying, "What is man that you remember him, and the son of man that you look after him?"

Oh Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your name in all the earth!

If...

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With 60 second's worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

- Rudyard Kipling