In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty . . . And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory" (Is. 6.1,3)

I

Just what is holy to you?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the meaning of the word "holy" in pre-Christian times probably meant "inviolate, inviolable, that must be preserved whole or intact, that cannot be injured with impunity." But it also meant "health, good luck, well-being." To regard something as holy is to treat it with reverence, to not use it for ordinary purposes, for it might contribute to your health and well-being! In Christian use, "holy" is the English translation of the Latin sanctus, and means a closeness to God, or a partaking in the divine nature, much the same meaning as sacred. We usually think of the word as an adjective, holy Bible, holy day, holy ground, holy communion.

But I want to talk about The Holy as a noun. There was a very important book published in 1913 by German theologian Rudolph Otto called Das Heilige, published in English as "The Idea of the Holy." He wrote about The Holy as the "mysterium tremendum"--the terrifying mystery, the terrifying mystery that was yet fascinating. The Holy frightens us, yet draws us to it.

He said that it works like this. There is, in the religious realm, this tremendum that is experienced by humans in three ways: it is awe-some (inspiring awe, even profound unease), it is overpowering (which inspires in us feelings of humility), and it is sheer energy (creating in us an impression of immense vigor). Some of you may have read in college religion courses about his work, or the later work of Mircea Eliade, the Romanian scholar who wrote The Sacred and the Profane.

Let me give you a sense of what this means. One writer describes this ancient sense of the holy this way: "That which is sacred has a mysterious or uncanny power which may be exercised for the benefit or the harm of men. Since it may work harm, and since it is communicated by contact, it must be treated with special precautions... The king, the magician, the stranger are endowed with it, and in still higher degree the divinities. These, their belongings and the places they inhabit, possess it or perhaps we should say are infected with it. For this reason the sanctuary must not be entered with the shoes on. [we might think of Moses encountering the burning bush--take off your sandals for this is holy ground--or the way Muslims take off their shoes before entering for worship. But to continue...] The danger is twofold--on the one hand the shoes might bring in something unclean (displeasing to the divinity) and thus arouse anger; on the other they might contract the sanctity of the place and this would unfit them for ordinary use." [Mathews, Dictionary of Religion & Ethics, 206]

Now, is this taking-off of shoes superstition? Or is it a show of respect and reverence? How you answer may indicate your level of tolerance of religious difference!

Consider this. When Catholics enter church, they have genuflected, that is, knelt one knee to the ground and crossed themselves. My Episcopalian poly sci professor in college once said that's too much, a nod or bow toward the altar is adequate. The Puritan and the Unitarian, of course, would say that the altar is just a table, wood to hold flowers and bread & wine and even (here at First Parish) the offering. It's what goes on inside-you, in heart and mind, we have said, that's important, not the outward gestures!

But here, I suggest, is the great question of Advent: before what, or whom, do YOU kneel, or nod, or bow, externally or internally?

This month we are talking about encountering The Holy, and I urge you to think about that question. It may make Christmas even more of an O Holy Night.

II

This Sunday I want to spend a moment or two on the terrifying mystery. Most of us were raised in homes and churches where God is friendly, loving, kind. Some might even say God was so domesticated as to be uninteresting or unbelievable. But what might we be able to make of that other image of the divine: about The Holy as mysterium tremendum?

I think today is a good time to consider the topic, for both winter and Advent have a touch of approaching danger. I've often thought this must be something like the first human who wandered north and discovered days shorter, temperatures colder and then snow beginning to fall--perhaps it's something in primordial memory: the danger of winter! The traditional Advent hymns have it too --"O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel ... bid envy strife and quarrels cease." And "Watchman tell us of the night ... darkness takes its flight, doubt and terror are withdrawn." But it is our closing hymn "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence" that most evokes, in the music even more so than the words, a sense of The Holy.

In our spiritual autobiography class the other day, one exercise was to draw "a childhood image of God." Somewhat to my surprise, I drew a picture of an ocean: God, to me, has always seemed like the ocean. (For someone who grew up in Nebraska, oceans are certainly a mystery!). Picture the ocean--buoyant, huge, sometimes smooth as glass, sometimes storm-tossed, the surface reflects the skies overhead, the depths contain unknown mysteries. What a different image than a man with a white beard on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

And consider Otto's three elements:

• There is awe: I feel awe before the Grand Canyon, awe looking up into the stars, but also awe before the ocean's width and depth.
• There is overpoweringness: the ocean can suck down the Titanic but can also float Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I see the ocean as embracing, supporting and yet also threatening, in the sense that it can kill us.
• And third, energy. Does anyone doubt the sheer energy of the ocean, waves crashing on the shoreline, changing landscapes, pounding ships.

Can you see the idea of The Holy as receiving awe and wonder at its overwhelming power--even the sense that that power is not always interested in MY personal happiness but is somehow into bigger projects? Imagine, a God bigger than meeting MY needs, a God to whose ways WE need to accommodate, rather than the other way around?

Brother Roger, the founder of the famous Taize ecumenical monastic community in Taize, France, wrote this: "Rest your heart in God, let yourself float on the safe waters, loving life as it comes, with all the rough weather it may bring. Give, without counting how many years are left, not worried about surviving as long as possible."

There is in Jewish and Christian experience the idea of "the fear of God." It's not too popular in the modern world, but it's still there. Psalm 111, verse 10: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." It seems to be about awe or dread before overwhelming power: don't mess with God, you'll lose.

It's also part of Advent scripture: John the Baptist is the harbinger of Advent in the Christian scriptures, and he says "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come" and "I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming... He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire" (Lk. 3.7,16).

But of what is John the Baptist afraid? It's not the mystical, it's the practical, the moral.

"Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wage."

Do you see how it works? We need to do good, do the right. It's that simple. Yesterday, December 1st, was World AIDS Day. It's important to remind ourselves of how HIV/AIDS continues to devastate families, especially poor families in Africa. I was impressed to read that the United States, as of September 30th, was supporting life-saving anti-retroviral treatment for some 1.36 million people living with HIV/AIDS in 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Things may be improving here in the US, but that should not let us lessen our commitment to fight this terrible epidemic.

We need to think of God as friendly loving kind. But I think it good for our souls to acknowledge, maybe only on wintry days, that The Holy is mysterious and powerful, that The Holy expects something of us and asks us to live moral lives. It teaches us some humility, and maybe even make us understand and appreciate Christmas better.

III

My friends, your ministers promised to teach a spiritual practice each month. This is from Eastern Orthodoxy: The Jesus Prayer. It is very ancient, references to it come as far back as 5th century. The words are very simple: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." It may sound alien to modern sensibilities, and maybe that's why it can help shake us and take us out of the hustle and bustle of today, if only for a few moments of rest and recuperation. Simple, repeated often, for some it becomes like breathing. Repetition is key to quieting the mind. Frederica Mathewes-Green writes: "The problem is not in God's willingness to have mercy, but in our forgetting that we need it. We keep lapsing into ideas of self-sufficiency, or get impressed with our niceness, and so we lose our humility. Asking for mercy reminds us that we are still poor and needy, and fall short of the glory of God. Those who do not ask do not receive, because they don't know their own need." [Jones, Sacred Way, 63]

So, for this Advent of expecting The Holy, I offer this simple prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.