Ten Lies That Shatter Lives:

#2 - Put God In A Box

PREPARED BY

NEPEAN, ONTARIO

If you go to Cornwall, along the river, you will come to a huge concrete structure that cuts across the river. You’re looking at a hydro dam, built to harness and channel the hydraulic power of the St.Lawrence River. It backs the water up, holds it into a reservoir, and lets it run across the turbines and through the sluice gates as needed.

Great power contained and used for our benefit.

That kind of harnessing, channelling, containing and using of great power is something that human beings have been doing or trying to do for thousands of years in different ways, including spiritual ways.

Harnessing, channelling, containing, using spiritual powers for the benefit of humanity. One of the main ways they did that was by carving idols, erecting altars and temples, and developing certain rituals - some secret and some public. Use these idols, altars, temples and rituals in the right way, they said, and you will gain access to the deity they represent.

They will put you on the god’s good side.

You can curry favour from above.

You will appease divine anger through these devices.

And you’ve probably seen pictures in magazines, or maybe seen some of these items dug up and displayed in museums – statues, amulets, rings, icons and the like. It’s not like we popularly suppose, that people thought these were the gods. They could see that these things didn’t move or speak or act. They were the channels to the gods.

Very popular. And - says the Bible - very futile and wrong.

The idea that there can be some man-made, handcrafted gate through which divine power can be channelled into your life;

that there can be some box in which you can contain the power of God, releasing it as and when needed -

such an idea is wrong.

It’s a destructive lie!

Which is why the Word of the Living God, Creator of the Universe, tells us in commandment #2 -

You shall not make for yourself an idol.

You can’t confine, tame or control God.

Whatever you do, says the second commandment, don’t think you can approach a relationship with the Lord where, as the FIDO phone ads say, you are the master.

That’s the whole point of Deuteronomy 4's reading, too.

The book of Deuteronomy is actually a sermon. You think I preach long? Should’ve been there the day Moses preached Deuteronomy to the people of Israel. The whole thing - one sitting!

No more complaining about sermon length at Calvin! OK?

In that sermon Moses goes back over the years that he spent with the people of Israel as they were led out of slavery in Egypt into freedom and new life as a fledgling nation.

One of the definitive moments in the life of the nation of Israel was when God personally gave them His Holy Law at a place called Horeb. It’s an event described in Exodus 19 and following. A huge fence was put around the mountain. People had to put on special clothes. No one was to come near the mountain. Anyone who touched it was to be immediately executed.

And God came down.

There was thunder, lightning, earthquakes, smoke.

And the people were terrified.

Moses points back to that and says, "Never forget it. Whenever you’re tempted to try and build a box, an idol, a temple, or whatever that you think can contain, harness, or channel the power of God remember the events at Horeb."

The prophet Isaiah, later in Israel’s life, said the same thing:

"To whom, then, will you compare God? How can you describe what He is like?... Do you not know? Were you not told long ago? Have you not heard how the world began? It was made by the One who sits on His throne above the earth and beyond the sky; the people below look as tiny as ants. He stretched out the sky like a curtain, like a tent in which to live. ... To whom can the holy God be compared? His power is so great......."

[Is 40.18ff]

For Israel, for anyone, to ever say, "Here’s something I made and it represents God; this is our channel to God; you want the power of God to work for you in your life – I’ve devised the way for you to do that"

– to ever attempt something like that is to insult God, to demean Him, to give a false impression of Him to people.

It is a destructive lie.

And God will not honour such feeble attempts to reach Him.

He’s much more likely to come along and blow the whole thing right out of the water.

No idols - that was tough for Israel. They wanted something concrete. Some image. Some picture. Something about God they could hang on to and control.

They couldn’t remain satisfied with the knowledge that God is spirit and beyond containment – that any relationship with Him was dependant on His forgiving grace, and sheer divine goodness alone; that He called all the shots and set the drumbeat; that He led and they followed.

And so in 1 Samuel 4 we read of the people of Israel getting ready for an important battle. The odds don’t look good. They need all the help they can get. So they send a platoon back to the tabernacle and haul out the ark of God, the ancient representation of His presence among them. This, they were sure, would bring God’s power closer and assure them victory.

It became their idol, their good luck charm.

You can guess what happened. God causes them to lose - badly. The ark, which had become an image for Israel, is captured. Those who carried it were killed.

God will not allow himself to be stuffed into a box!

Not then.

Not now.

Now - get this right.

It DOESN’T mean that God is against His worshippers using symbols, rituals, and the like. In fact, whenever the Bible describes worship it is filled with descriptions of such -

from the rich and ornamental worship of the temple;

through the hymnbook of scripture - the Psalms - calling for worship that moves, is song-filled, vigorous, instrumental; disciples of Jesus gathered on bended knee, sharing elements of bread and wine, praying with hands up-raised;

right to the book of Revelation where heavenly worship involves instruments, rainbows, elders falling down, singing, and shouts of praise.

What God warns against is allowing these to become "stand-ins" for God, or ways we can control God’s presence or power. God warns against valuing such symbols or rituals to be valued for their own sake, rather than for their mere role of leading people in true spiritual worship of the One True God.

At that point, no matter how aesthetically pleasing, the ceremony or ritual or symbol must be removed. There is biblical precedent for that.

Number 21 records that the people of Israel were punished for disobedience to the Lord and were attacked by poisonous snakes. They cry out in prayer and their leader is told by God to craft a bronze snake and put it on a pole. Those looking at the bronze snake were healed.

After it was over the snake was kept around in their church. First it was a reminder to remain pure to the Lord. But eventually the people began to place too great a value on the thing. They began, even, to pray in the presence of the thing, thinking they needed it to access the Lord. They began to depend on it. And so King Hezekiah, in 2 Kings 18.4, destroyed it.

How’s that come home to us?

Where could we root around and find images in our faith life that may need putting out with the trash? Are there ways in which something, even something that began as an innocent ritual or helpful symbol, has taken on too large a role, has begun to take value and devotion that should be reserved for the Lord Himself?

Find them and get rid of them. Be on guard for them!

Our Reformed forebearers did that in response to crass violations of this commandment in the church of the Middle Ages where images, icons, relics and the like were touted as having special spiritual powers. And if we put ourselves in their shoes I think we could well understand that they went as far as to push out virtually all symbolism and ritual and the like. A few, like Zwingli, went so far as to say that only talking, reading and preaching had a place in a church that honoured the 2^nd commandment.

Today we’re not at that point. And we recognize the scriptural place of symbol and ritual. Even the Protestant Reformed Church, one of the most conservative of our sister churches in the Reformed family of faith, said in 1990 that symbols were biblical and right.

We agree with them - and so it is that in Christian Reformed Churches you will see:

families lighting advent candles remembering the Light Of The World

art work such as decorates the walls of this room, filling our eyes with scriptural pictures and themes

the act of placing money in a plate passed round

passing and receiving of communion elements

laying hands as a symbol of God’s anointing on someone beginning in a special service of the Lord

the use of drama and sacred dance to give 3-d imagery to biblical motifs

- the sort of imagery here on stage: of a pulpit in the middle symbolizing the centrality of God’s Word; the empty cross representing Christ’s victory; the two white panels representing the curtain in the temple that was torn in two when Christ died - opening the holy place to all people.

the elder shaking the pastor’s hand as a sign of both Consistory’s authority over him and the blessing of God as he leads in worship.

the pastor raising his hands in blessing to conclude a service

And yet

yet......

While we have these symbols and others,

be careful, brothers and sisters.

for there can easily come a point where the symbol becomes the end rather than the means.

where we focus on them rather than the Lord they point to.

where we become more attached to them, and give them greater emotion, energy and effort rather than to Christ.

Then innocent symbols become modern bronze serpents

Never forget that our God who is Spirit, and infinitely glorious and great and pure and powerful can NEVER be chained down! We can’t tie down to any one image, method, or thought pattern the Holy One who, as 1 Timothy 6 says, is

"...the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honour and might forever. Amen."

Scripture advocates the use of rituals and symbols that jolt the senses, reach into the pit of the soul and stir us to reach towards Heaven, towards the invisible living God.

What Scripture loudly warns against, in screaming technicolour red language, is moving anywhere close to a position that begins to see God in these rituals or symbols, that apprehends Him there, contains Him, or is Him!

That’s what our Catechism is coming at when it says, "God forbids making or having images if one’s intention is to worship them or to serve God -

– carefully notice the next word -

through them."

We can certainly flash up a picture of a glowing sunset or mighty mountains while the organ thunders out the tune of "How Great Thou Art", and reflect on that – "What an amazing God to be able to create all that!" What a wonderful segment of a worship that would be. That’s similar to the use of grand pageantry in the ancient temple. That’s similar to the symbolic language of harps, rainbows and the like seen in Revelation.

Where we’d be skating on thin ice is if we would say, "You need to be in those mountains to access God, to truly experience Him."

Music is a tool that reaches right to the core of our soul. The bible’s book of worship, Psalms, is big on music. Old music. New music. Contemplative music. Upbeat, footstomping dance music. Choral music. Solo numbers.

BUT

If we begin to say, "The only good worship is worship with really fast riffs and syncopated beat. That’s when the Spirit moves. That old stuff is pathetic." Or if we say, "All this new music is cheap and trite. God is present when we sing the old songs."

If we do either of those things, do you see where we’re beginning to move? We’re starting to hammer together a box saying God is in this or that sort of music. And our catechism q/a 97 would begin to wail its warning siren.

While certain symbols, rituals, patterns and practices may be spiritually helpful, finally they are not what cuts it. They’re not – by a long shot – the most important thing.

- we come to God with openness of heart, mind and Spirit. We come as we are through Jesus Christ. That’s how we come to God. That’s how we meet our heavenly Father. That’s how we find our eternal home and space of belonging. Through Jesus. Wherever we may be. In our car. In our living room or bedroom. At the office. Or in a church building.

No symbol can bring you that.

No order of worship - whatever form it may take - can bring you there.

No picture, statue, fancy words, music, video or drama.

Just a simple spirit, open and receptive, surrendered to Christ. And that works every time!

We can’t box God in. He’s too powerful for that.

But the miracle of the gospel is that through Jesus this powerful God stoops to enter our existence. To go through life with us. To lift us, one day, out of life and into His powerful, glorious, beautiful eternity!