Our God is Holy, Holy, Holy

BY DAVID O’BRIEN

God is holy. In fact, according to the bible, God is holy, holy, holy (Is 6, Rev 4). We repeat these scriptures every week at Sunday Mass when we pray the Sanctus.

To describe God as thrice holy is the biblical way of saying God is super holy, mega holy, muchisimo holy; that no one or no thing is as holy as God.

But precisely what is the holiness of God? Simply put, it is the description of the Lord’s otherness. God is not like anything else. Even humanity, made in the image and likeness of God, is far from being God.

The Lord himself says in Hosea 11:9-"For I am God and not a man, the Holy One present among you."

On a practical level, scripture invokes God’s holiness to distinguish the God of Israel from the false gods of other nations. Yahweh is not like the gods of Israel’s neighbors or the pagan idols of Egypt. God’s thoughts are different. God’s ways are different. God’s expectations of humanity are different.

In fact, God tells us: "You shall be holy; for I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from other peoples to be my own." (Lv 20:26)

In other words, God’s people are meant to be holy, holy, holy-different, different, different--set apart, a city on a hill, a light to the nations. The people of God have been chosen to mirror God’s distinctive ways in the world through faithfulness to God’s unique plan.

Throughout the scriptures, the Lord teaches us what it means to be holy in every aspect of life.

We see this beginning with the covenant between God and Israel. After 400 years of suffering under the unjust systems of the Egyptians, God outlines in the covenant how Israel is to avoid repeating the sins of Egypt but rather structure their new nation in the Promised Land to reflect God’s design.

The covenant describes a society based on the holiness of God, a society where every person matters, political power is shared and economic resources are meant for all. In God’s society, the vulnerable have a right to special care, especially the widow, the orphan and the immigrant. (Ex 22:20-3; Dt 10:17-19; Zech 7:10)

The Fourth Commandment illustrates this radical call to be God’s holy (different) people. It states: "Keep holy the Sabbath day" (Ex 20:8-11; Dt 5:12-15). Most of us were taught that the Sabbath is a day for religious observance- Saturday for Jews, Sunday for Christians. But the Ten Commandments never mention that.

Instead, the Fourth commandment brings up the fact that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt (Dt 5). And how many days do slaves get off from work to rest? None! So God orders Israel to not be like Egypt, or the other nations that exploit people. They are to be holy, different, because God is holy. And God cares for all people, especially the weak and oppressed. Therefore, in Israel everyone gets a day off including the children, the resident aliens (immigrants), slaves and even the animals.

As disciples of Christ and children of the New Covenant, we are expected to reflect the attitudes and priorities of the Lord in our personal lives and our communal lives, in our political, economic and religious decisions. Our behavior and our choices should differ dramatically from the ways of the world.

To conform to society’s values, which are often subtle forms of idol worship, is to violate the holiness of God, in whose image we are created.

We do well, then, to consider the awesome and fearful duties that come with being sons and daughters of a holy God. If we dare stand before the Lord in all honesty, we might fall on our face and cry out with the prophet Isaiah: "Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips". (Is 6:5)

About David O’Brien David O’Brien is the Associate Director of Religious Education for Lay Ministry for the Archdiocese of Mobile. His column, Everyday Faith, appears regularly in the archdiocesan newspaper, the Catholic Week. Email David at dobrien@mobilearchdiocese.org.