The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power;
    in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress.
Job 37:23 (NIV)

Yesterday, among our local gathering of Jesus’ followers, we focused on a the strange and wondrous description of John provides of his experience being given a glimpse of God’s heavenly throne room in Revelation 5. His description echoes some of the same themes as Isaiah’s similar experience in Isaiah 6. In order to help us imagine the descriptions, the room yesterday was set up “in the round” just as the John describes the multitudes encircling the throne. A censer was lit with incense just as the text describes the prayers of the people rising like incense. The smoke continued to waft upward during the service. In John’s vision, angels never stop proclaiming God’s holiness and eternal presence repeating “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty. Who was, and is, and is to come.” Our gathering sang multiple songs proclaiming and praising God’s holiness.

Holiness is a concept that is I’ve long misunderstood. As a child, I was taught that holiness was basically synonymous with moral purity. Our children’s generation have, with some justification, decried the “purity culture” with which institutional church culture was obsessed for a while. There is an entire sub-culture of individuals from their generation writing books and podcasting their anger. As a result, there are many who have walked away from the church and their faith. In my observation and contemplation of this generational reformation, one of the institutional churches mistakes was an emphasis on moral purity that was at least partially rooted in this misconception of “holiness” as “moral purity.”

The word “holy” is easily misunderstood precisely because it is hard to easily define with words. This, I find, is a lot like God Himself. In his Holy Shift tour, Rob Bell uses a lot of human experiences to describe “holy” moments when, as humans, we know that there is something happening that is far greater, more powerful, and other worldly than ourselves. This is the gateway to that which is “holy.”

One moment that comes to mind is the moment my mother breathed her last this past March, with my dad and sister and I sitting next to her. When suddenly there is one less person in the room, but the same number of bodies, than where a moment ago is a holy moment. Likewise, when a woman gives birth and there is one more life in the room is a holy moment. I remember sitting in a car with my friend on the easter shore of Lake Michigan at sunset staring at the Chicago skyline in the distance and watching a massive, angry, severe thunderstorm moving our way with non-stop lighting and thunder and churning clouds. It filled me with awe and wonder that I have never, ever forgotten. These experiences do begin to allow me to understand was “holy” really means. It reminds me of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart whose definition of pornography was “I know it when I see it.” It’s that way with holiness. The simple description is perpetually elusive, but when you encounter a holy moment, you know it.

Today’s chapter marks the end of Eli the younger’s run-on discourses in response to the suffering Job. I have to admit that, while young Eli is not “perfect in knowledge” like he thinks he is and claims to be, he did save his best stuff for last. In wrapping up his words to Job, Eli points Job to the awe inspiring wonders of creation to describe a holy God who is beyond our human imaginations. He basically says to Job that Job’s complaints are puny and hollow in relation to a holy God.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself wrestling with this elusive definition of holy. Holy is certainly exceedingly, abundantly, beyond the simple notion of a teenager meeting the moral standards of his or her parent’s or church’s perfectionistic checklist. That paltry definition calls for reformation and a “holy shift.” It felt to me like young Eli was getting close in today’s chapter, perhaps as close as any finite human can. And that is what I’m going to take with me into this week. I’m asking God for some holy moments. I’m seeking them out. I have my spiritual antennae up.

I’m not sure how to define or anticipate what those holy moments might be, but I’ll know them when I experience them.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.