The writer Frederick Buechner once made an interesting observation: “I think maybe it is holiness that we long for more than we long for anything else.”[1] The origin of the word “holy” is helpful in understanding what Buechner meant. The word holy comes from pagan and Jewish temple practices, and it literally means taking something that was common (like a cup) and using it for sacred purposes in temple worship. The ordinary cup becomes “special” or sacred because of what it is dedicated or devoted to. In pagan worship, the cup was devoted to an “idol,” or a substitute for God. In contrast, in Jewish worship the cup was devoted to the one true God, and by being dedicated to God, the cup became “special” or “holy.” To be “holy” means to become our true selves through devotion to something that makes us special.
The same thing happens to us. All of us are dedicated or devoted to something in life, and usually we devote ourselves to what we think will bring us the things we most desire, our “treasures.” Jesus was right (as he always is): “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:21). Whatever we love is like a weight or magnet, pulling our lives toward it. Augustine said that all evil comes from disordered loves. Those things that we love, that we have set our affections on, can twist us so that our lives become twisted, disordered.
There are hundreds of examples of this in our lives, ranging from a disordered love of money, success, fame, acceptance, work, pleasure, addictions, even a disordered love of family or friends. The Bible’s word for this twisted love is idolatry. Although we think these idols and loves will bring us the deep-down wholeness we are after, the problem with them is that they fail, in themselves, to bring us what we want. The Old Testament would often say that when people worshipped worthless idols, they became worthless themselves (Jer. 2:5). Instead of helping us become the humans we most want to be, these false idols can dehumanize us. When people give their hearts to these idols, “it is inevitable that their lives will be deformed in the image of the idol. Remade in the image and likeness of our own handiwork, we are revealed as commodities. Idolatry exacts its full price from us. We are robbed of our very humanity.”[2]
JESUS IS THE FLIP SIDE OF IDOLATRY
But there is something (or Someone) that we can love with all of our being which does bring deep-down wholeness and puts all of our other “loves” into proper perspective. This something is the experienced Love of God, expressed beautifully in the sacrificial love of Jesus and experienced through connection with Him by his Spirit. We are captured by God’s great love for us, and we respond by giving our hearts totally to King Jesus. By devoting ourselves to him and his love, we actually become the humans we most want to be. Instead of becoming disappointed when those “things” we seek for true wholeness in life let us down, the security of God’s love frees us up to really enjoy life and love others better. Jesus is the flip side of idolatry—we can actually love him with all of our hearts, and then “everything else will be added as well” (Matt. 6:33).
As G.K. Beale writes, “People will always reflect something, whether it be God’s character or some feature of the world. If people are committed to God, they will become like him; if they are committed to something other than God, they will become like that thing, always spiritually inanimate and empty like the lifeless and vain aspect of creation to which they have committed themselves.”(3)
Jesus is our escape from the grip of the idols that control us. How do we escape the grip of addiction and those things that twist our souls? The power of a Greater Love, the allure of a Greater Affection. “Only one thing can turn us away from what we love: a greater love.”[4] We cannot just remove our idols; we must replace them, and we replace them with the in-flowing and over-flowing Love of God. The Love of God is the greatest affection you will ever experience; the sacrificial, unconditional love of God displayed on the cross of Jesus can now be poured into your heart through the very Spirit of God, and you can begin experiencing the height, depth, width and length of the Love of God (Rom. 5:5: Eph. 3:21ff).
A NEW STORY
The love of God also helps us understand what “story” we are in. All of us live our lives as part of one or more stories. Our story may be to have a successful career, or be known for making money or for doing something well. Our story may be to have children and raise a large family. We all live inside “stories,” ways we think about our lives and how we want them to turn out. Our stories dictate what we value, and what we value dictates how we live. Christian philosopher Alisdair McIntyre put it this way: “I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’”[5] The way we act, our ethics and daily practices, come out of who we are (our character), but our character is formed by what story we see ourselves in.
What story do you see yourself in? The story of Jesus is a real story—Jesus actually lived at one time in human history, part of a very historical (and enduring) people, the Jews. Jesus also actually died a purposeful death and was resurrected from the dead with an indestructible body. This is a real, historical story. But the “realness” of it is how the story changes everything and how it has changed human lives and human culture dramatically over the last 2,000 years. The Bible helps us locate ourselves in the metanarrative (“big picture” narrative) of King Jesus, and this metanarrative is the fulfillment of the long Jewish narrative of how God has been with humans throughout history. King Jesus is the central character in God’s interactions with humans, the culmination of God’s story. That also means our story, the narrative of our life, has changed drastically. We now know where we have been, why we are here, and where we are going.
THE GREATEST STORY EVER
The metanarrative of King Jesus is the greatest story ever and the antidote to our postmodern aimlessness. Our world today is skeptical of the stories they have been told, and for good reason. But this skepticism and “deconstruction” have left us with nothing—no good and enduring metanarrative. Because of this, people experience what sociologist David Lyon calls “the vertigo of relativity” and the “abyss of uncertainty.”[6] The postmodern world of individual choice, consumer preference, distrust and pluralism “creates a heady cocktail that seems quickly to befuddle and paralyze.”[7]
But God has given us a metanarrative, the greatest story ever–the King Jesus Story. It is the story of the Great Spirit, the Creator of the universe, making himself known to us in a way we can understand. The story says that long before the Creator created everything, he had us humans in mind, and in fact, we were created in the image of the prototype for humanity, God the Son. God created us in love, to love, and to enjoy love, and he created us to be with other humans in community, reflecting the “community” of God himself. Because he is love, he didn’t create us as robots but as free creatures, able to respond or not respond to his love. Instead of becoming all God created us to be (gloriously, loving humans) we have chosen selfishly and fearfully to be our own gods, devoted to treasures that only destroy and divide us. But even before he created us, God already had in place the plan to rescue and restore us to reflect the image of God the Son. The cross was not an afterthought—God planned it even before he created the world. King Jesus has come to rescue us from everything that destroys us, even death.
The King Jesus Story changes not just how we view death, but how we view life. From a prison cell, Paul wrote the Christians living in Colossae, “seek the things above, where King Jesus is seated at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1). Paul is not saying “think about heaven and where you will be someday.” Instead, he is saying “Allow your vision of life, your worldview, your most basic life orientation, to be directed by Christ’s heavenly rule at the right hand of God.”[8] As Walsh and Keesmaat note, “Seeking that which is above is a matter not of becoming heavenly minded but of allowing the liberating rule of Christ to transform every dimension of your life.”[9] Fall in love with King Jesus, spend time with Him and His people, become like Him, and your life will take on the holiness you so deeply desire.
You can read more about hope in a dehumanizing world in my new book, How to be Human in an Inhuman World: Colossians for Daily Living, available on Amazon and through Sulis International (www.sulisinternational.com).
[1] Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark (New York: HarperOne, 2006), 242.
[2] Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire (Downers Grove, Ill163, quoting John Francis Kavanaugh, Following Christ in a Consumer Society: The Spirituality of Cultural Resistance (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1981), 26.
[3] G.K. Beale, We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry (Downers Grove, Il.: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 284.
[4] Peter Kreeft, The God Who Loves You (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), 123.
[5] Alisdair McIntyre, After Virtue: A Study of Moral Theory, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), 216.
[6] David Lyon, Postmodernity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 61.
[7] Lyon, 64-65.
[8] Walsh and Keesmaat, 155.
[9] Walsh and Keesmaat, 155.