Trinity Sunday

Awe

Ps. 93 God's majesty, 150 Praise God in his sanctuary; isa. 6:1—8 Holy, holy, holy; John 16:5—15 The Father, Jesus and the Advocate

'One called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory."' Isaiah 6:3

John Wayne

When they were filming the biblical epic The Greatest Story Ever Told, John Wayne, hero of so many western movies, played the centurion at the crucifixion. At the first take, he's supposed to have said his one and only line in a totally flat, emotionless tone of voice: ‘Truly-this-man-was-the-son-of-God.' ‘No, no, John,' protested the director, ‘say it with awe, A W E awe!' In the second take, the great actor duly said, ‘Aw, truly-this-man-was-the-son-of-God.'

Awe

What is awe, spelt A W E? The dictionary definition is ‘dread mingled with veneration, as of the Divine Being'; ‘solemn and reverential wonder, tinged with latent fear, inspired by what is sublime and majestic in nature'. This may have been the first feeling of religious emotion that human beings ever knew. A man came to a gnarled and knotted tree in a clearing, and realized it was very, very old – far older than he was, or any of his relatives. He stood still, transfixed with awe at the unimaginable length of time, and the brevity of his own life in comparison. He called it a holy place. Or he climbed to the top of a mountain, and gasped when he saw another valley beyond the one he lived in, and another, and another. He sat down, wondering at the wideness of the world, and how little of it he knew. These feelings of awe continue today. Most people, the first time they look through a telescope, are overcome by the vastness of space, the whirling galaxies millions of light-years away, how many stars there are, and how tiny we are. The only possible reaction is to keep a respectful silence. Awe before nature is the beginning of sensing the holiness of God, the ‘fascinating and frightening mystery'.

God

God made the universe, so God's far greater than the universe; greater than we can even begin to imagine. This sense of awe before God's majesty runs right through the Bible. When Isaiah received his call to be a prophet, he saw the invisible God high and lifted up, and heard the seraphim singing the praise of the Trinity: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.' Then Isaiah said, ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!'

The holiness of love

Isaiah discovered that the holiness of God is a moral holiness. Many tribes believed in the ritual purity of their temple, and that nothing unclean or ritually defiled must be taken in. But Isaiah's awe-struck reaction was to be ashamed of his words: ‘I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.' It was what he and his people had said that made them unworthy to come into the presence of the Holy One: their words of hatred, their words of pride, their gossip about their neighbours, and the lack of charity with which they judged them. That's what makes us unholy, that's why we're all unholy, why none of us is worthy to come into the presence of God as we are. We've all spoken words lacking in love. And what should make us stand in dread and fascination before almighty God, is not just his greatness, but the incredible greatness of his love. How can unloving and unlovely human beings dare to come into the presence of high-voltage love like that? We should be burnt to a cinder. ‘It is a terrible thing to fall into the presence of the living God.' What frightens us is the holiness of love. That's what truly calls forth our awe.

The solution

There is, however, a solution to this dilemma. God sends a red-hot coal from his altar and sears away the sin from our lips, cauterizing them with his burning love. The love of Jesus on the cross, the flame of the Holy Spirit. Now we're pure enough to approach God, and hear the One-in-three saying,

‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?' ‘You must be holy, because I am holy.'

Now that our lips have been cleansed by the holiness of God's love, we're fit to answer: ‘Here am I. Send me.' All the words of hatred are burnt away, so that we can carry God's messages of love to his children whom he loves, that we may all become holy in love. What an awe-inspiring idea!

Suggested hymns

Bright the vision that delighted; Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty; I, the Lord of sea and sky; Majesty, worship his majesty.