A.W. Tozer wrote, “What comes to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, in describing the wonder, awe, greatness and mystery of God, The statement “God is” is an understatement.” 

No one doubts that in Jesus’ 2nd Temple Judaism culture the term “God” was highly revered. So holy was God’s revealed name (YHWH) that the Jews refused to speak it. God was indeed Maker of heaven and earth, Creator and Sustainer of life. He was holy and majestic. He was LORD God Almighty.

Yet, God was lovable, too, and the Shema called Israel daily to “love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength.” God was compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love and mercy. Israel obeyed a God who loved like a father, nurtured like a mother and led like a courageous and caring shepherd.

Having been sorely chastened by the Babylonian Captivity for their idolatry (toward God) and their injustice (toward people), the Jews in Jesus’ day were quite touchy about idols, emblems, and images. A trend of thinking developed that basically said, “Let’s keep God safe and pure and invisible.” For them, God was dwelling in the holy of holies in majestic mystery. Obedience to Torah was the best gift to give him. God became equated with Torah (this, too, was a spin-off of captivity). God is very clean; and the obedient-to-Torah Jews were his very clean people. And on the slippery slope down the religious cleanliness scale, you had disobedient Jewish men, women, proselytes, impaired, shepherds, mamzers, Samaritans, Gentiles “dogs,” lepers, tax-collectors, etc. (I made up the scale from memory and it could be skewed a little, but you get the idea.) Clean people were Jews who obeyed Torah, especially keeping Sabbath, being circumcised, eating Kosher, and avoiding contact with human riff-raff. Some were in, others were out. A few were acceptable (to God), most were rejects…”people of the land.”

Holiness was quite fragile so it became bubble-wrapped in thousands of laws, regulations and guidelines. And the recurring irony of the Gospels is that the people most dedicated to God’s Name and God’s holiness were the most obnoxious and hateful to Jesus Christ. Jesus was God without religious bubble-wrap. He was a Jewish anomaly. He was Truth without barriers. He loved you without scrubbing you all over with Lysol first.Now, within the emergent conversation, do we battle for the openness or closeness of God? Are we dealing with the Great “unblinking cosmic stare” (Dallas Willard’s phrase) who, in his Platonic perfection, never changes. What is perfect cannot change and if it does change that proves it wasn’t perfect. Or, are we dealing truly with a Person like us? The last “image” I want to be conformed to is “an unblinking cosmic stare.” I’m not going to address “openness” as it relates to God’s omniscience, but as it relates to God as a relational being.

I want to know the God revealed in Jesus Christ. A God whose holiness is so verile and dynamic that it doesn’t need my ant-size obedience to protect it. I want a God with Jerusalem mud between his fingers because he will stoop and wash the feet of knot-heads. I want a God wrapped in skin that bleeds when cut, not buffered by bubble-wrap. I want a God who will talk to me like Jesus talked to Nicodemas and to the woman at the well and to Peter around a Galilee sea-side fire. I want a God like Jesus who camped out at the bottom of the social cleanness scale and revealed to “those people” the wonder of being made in the “image of God.” I want a Jesus who invites dirty people to his Father’s table because his Father is deeply in love with them to the shock of those who think they deserve a place at the table. I want a God who will listen and interact with his people and not pretend to answer their prayers with a predetermined decree. (”Well, God ordains the means as well as the end.”) I want to know a God who knows how to tell a riveting story that takes my breath away and draws me to follow him and not just some big-shot God slinging commands around. I want the God who dances with love and unity–Father, Son, and Spirit in eternal, joyful harmony because sin and brokenness do not have the last word, but holiness and wholeness and joy (shalom) do.

I want to know a God just like the One Jesus, the Jew, revealed.

Jesus claimed to be Israel’s Messiah. Being Messiah did not necessarily mean the claimant had to be deity. Jesus courageously redefined Israel’s concept and mission of Messiah and his people were incensed—a crucified Messiah was a bad Jewish joke. Can you imagine the brain cramps the Jews had when Jesus’ followers began to proclaim that this “crucified messiah” was also Yahweh, the LORD God Almighty!? Yahweh = Jesus? The carpenter from Nazareth was Yahweh?  Ridiculous. Moronic.

Somehow we, too, have been seduced to think that the more we can make God remote and removed, wholly “Other” and majestic, sovereign and in control of all, severely holy and big and mysterious, the better people and Christians we are. We have protected God’s character. Bovine manure. Plato’s christianized “god” leaves us as cold, unloved, and unmoved as “it” is.

I want a God with feelings.

Will you imagine God washing your feet?

You’ll come undone by his touch, his voice and his love.
Begin to shape your vision of God by gazing at Jesus on the cross. ”Amazing love, how can it be, that You, my God, would die for me!?”

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