You Shall Be Holy

You Shall Be Holy

Leviticus 20:7-8

            Let’s face it:  Most of us are scared stiff of holiness.  We want no part of it.

            “Holiness?  No thanks.  Not me!  That’s for those super-religious people, the ones whose noses are so high in the air they point directly at the sky.  I just want to lead a good life and make it to heaven some day.  Let other people go the holiness route.  I’ll take the low road.”

            This is surely the wrong definition of holiness.  It is not some advanced state of Christian experience that one enters into and remains somehow protected from the world’s influence and the devil’s urgings.  Nor is it some holier-than-thou attitude that says to everyone, “I’m better than you!” 

            Unfortunately, these two images are what first come to mind when we hear the word holiness.  I think the word sanctification might even be worse.  Both conjure up pictures that make us shudder, that make us want to turn our backs on holiness—to get as far away from “sanctified people” as possible.

            Charles Colson may have expressed it best when he said, “Holiness is the everyday business of every Christian.”  Holiness is what Christians do, how Christians live.  When we make the declaration that Jesus Christ is Lord of our lives we begin the path of holiness.  Sanctification is not a destination to be achieved, nor a state to be entered into, but a path each Christian must follow. 

            God gave the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures—Torah—to the Israelites to define the God/human relationship for them, and to show them how to live.  If you read carefully through these books you will see that every one of God’s instructions has a purpose that will improve the life of the one who chooses to follow.  Many of these instructions have a basis in good health procedures.  Others are excellent rules for people living together in community.  The most important ones are those that delineate how we should relate to God.

            We find the word holy several times in the Torah.  Most often it is part of a sentence like, “You shall be holy.”  There is no equivocation here, no, “If you feel like it…,” or, “Some of you might want to try to…”  The instruction is clear: “You are to be holy for I the Lord am holy.”  Holiness is the everyday business of every Christian, not just some Christians on some days. 

We know we’ll never reach a perfect state of holiness, but that mustn’t stop us from trying.  In fact, it should encourage us to make all the progress we can in the short time we have.

Dag Hammarskjold, the beloved secretary general of the United Nations for much of the 1950’s, understood the business of holiness.  “In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.”

As with every part of the Christian life, holiness is not a “sit in your chair/think about God/contemplate sacred things” sort of experience.  Colson said holiness is the business of each Christian.  He might just as well have misspelled the word and said it is the busy-ness of every Christian.  Christianity is as Christianity does—not a self-righteousness, but a right-ness with God that leads us to work—busily work—to advance God’s kingdom throughout the world around us. 

We are to be holy because God is holy.  As a hymn written by Albert Orsborn says, our lives are to be Christ’s broken bread and outpoured wine.  We are to be consecrated to God, daily exhausting ourselves in God’s service, and daily being renewed with God’s strength.