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04.
Possibilities of Holiness Abound
Holiness is not always packaged as we expect it to be. At the hotel where I stayed recently, my friend and I met a gentleman named Frank who went for regular walks outside every morning. We learned Frank played the piano and decided it was worth walking two blocks to another hotel that had a piano so he could give us a concert. He played Beethoven and Bach in a 25-minute concert for us—two strangers just walking by. In between songs, he talked about the grace and love of God and told stories about how he had played the piano before four presidents and two popes. Here’s what makes it magnificent: Frank had only one hand. The music we heard sounded as if it were being played with two.
We experienced a holy moment with Frank as he played and reflected the love of Christ. He said to us, “People look at me and think I don’t have much to offer, but God is good, isn’t he?” And then he played another beautiful song. As my friend and I parted ways with Frank, my friend said, “Always remember, anybody can be a saint.” It’s true that anybody can be a holy one—and that we should keep our eyes open because holiness might not look the way we expect. For God, the holy one, has come, and he says, “Be holy as I am holy.”
What we see in Jesus is a way of holiness that is possible for us. Maybe you laugh at the idea that you could be holy. The family you came from just doesn’t produce saints. Even when you look back through several generations, the possibilities don’t look good. You wonder how you might have a fighting chance to live a holy life with your background. But if you read the genealogy of Jesus, you find Tamar (who slept with her father-in-law), Rahab the prostitute, and Uzziah, the leprous king. Quite a family tree. Their blood ran through the veins of holy Jesus, who walked on earth showing us that we can be holy as he is holy.
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05.
Holiness by Way of the Cross
Jesus, as holiness in the flesh, gives us a clue about what holiness looks like in our flesh. Much of his holiness was about his choice to go to the cross; our holiness is about following him there. Peter tied holiness and the cross together by quoting, “Be holy as I am holy,” and then explaining that Jesus showed us how to live by his suffering.
So when we think about being holy, we think about what Jesus did on the cross. Some theologians tell us he was substituting himself for us. As he hung on that cross, he paid the penalty for our sin instead of making us pay it. Before dying on the cross, he had a chance to escape but chose not to. He took our place. That’s why the cross is a symbol of love and forgiveness given by God, who pursues us. On the cross, Jesus absorbed the pain that was due us and told us, “Be holy as I am holy.”
Perhaps you know some people who have sinned and now face the consequences of their sin. Their consequences look so awful that you think, I can’t imagine what would happen to them if they had to experience that. How might you walk in the way of Jesus and substitute yourself? Maybe you can’t block all the pain, but can you alleviate some of their pain or absorb some of it? How might you be holy as Jesus is holy?
For example, a foster parent does this. Foster children have parents who have done wrong things or gotten caught up in troubles so that they lose their children to the foster care system. Sometimes those children become angry and don’t know how to respond to their foster parents, so they punch holes in the wall and break windows. They bite their foster parents and curse at them, and these parents feel battered and bruised at times. These parents are being holy as Jesus was holy, taking the pain that was reserved for someone else. Jesus says to us, “You can do this; be filled with the Holy Spirit. This is a life that is being made available to you: the way of the cross.”
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06.
Holiness: A Beautiful Way of Life
In the well-known story of Odysseus from Greek mythology, the hero has been off at war for a long time and wants to go home. He has to sail by an island of sirens, who sing a beautiful song that causes sailors to turn their ship toward the island and crash on the rocks. Then these cannibalistic sirens eat the sailors. So someone warned Odysseus to avoid the sirens by putting wax in the sailors’ ears so they could sail right by and not listen to the sirens’ songs. Odysseus takes this advice and has the sailors put wax in their ears. But he has a different plan for himself. He wants to hear the songs of the sirens for himself, so he has his crew tie him to the mast of the ship without putting wax in his ears. They were not to set him free, no matter what he did or said. When he heard the song, he begged them to untie him so he can visit the sirens. But they tied him up more tightly because they couldn’t hear what he was saying.
This picture of being tied up and yet wanting something else represents what holiness is for many people: trying to get it right and trying to be holy. The result, however, is just an outward façade. Our bodies are doing the right thing, but our hearts want something else.
Another adventurer from Greek mythology, Jason, makes it by the island of the sirens without putting wax in the sailors’s ears by using a different method. He brings along his friend Orpheus, a musician, and as they get close to the island of the sirens, he gathers the whole crew together and asks Orpheus to play them a song. As the story goes, the song of his friend Orpheus was more beautiful than the song of the sirens, and they sail right by the island without temptation.
That’s the kind of holiness Jesus calls us to. It’s a kind of holiness that asks, Can you see in the cross a more beautiful way of life? Can you see in the Kingdom a more beautiful way of living? Can you hear a more beautiful song?
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07.
Exercise for Holiness
Think about the difficult people in your life. How might a small willingness to help them with their pain make a difference to them? To you?
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08.
Ponder These Questions
- What color do you usually think of when you think of holiness?
- Now, what color(s) do you think of when you think of holiness as life giving, delightful, and a beautiful way of life?
- How does this change your view of holiness?
- If you were to say something to God about this, what would you say?
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09.
Books Robert suggests to help you take the next step
- Brother Lawrence. The Practice of the Presence of God (many editions)
- Kent, Carol. When I Lay My Isaac Down: Unshakable Faith in Unthinkable Circumstances. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004.
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10.
Holiness in the Human Container
“There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man [or woman] to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why he uses material things like bread and wine to put new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.”
–C. S. Lewis
The lead pastor of Colorado Community Church (Denver) and a graduate of Denver Seminary, Robert Gelinas is the founder of Project 1:27, which encourages adoptions for children in Colorado’s foster care system, and is the author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz Shaped Faith.