Sermon:
The heights of Holiness and the Depths of Love Sunday
4th. December, 2005
Quantum
Mechanics – that’s the study of what the world is like at the level of
electrons, photons, atoms, particles*. And what scientists have discovered over
the past few years is that the world at the level of electrons and particles is
an extraordinary world indeed.
Take
electrons. If you throw a rubber ball against a wall of course you expect it to
bounce back every time. But because electrons are so small – they often just
keep going straight through the wall and out the other side. And scientists
tell us, that there is a small probability if you were to keep bouncing a ball
against a wall on one of the bounces the ball could go right through the wall
and out on the other side! Though, the statistics are that you would need to throw the ball for
billions of years if you ever wanted to see it go right through, the chances
are so small. But what an extraordinary world the world of atoms and particles
is.
Or,
on the other hand, take photons, which are particles of light. When a photon
encounters
a drop in energy – sometimes they bounce back.
And scientists tell us that there is a small probability that if you were
rolling a marble off a flat level table, there is a small chance that when the
marble reached the edge it would bounce back instead of dropping on to the
floor! Though, again, the statistics are that you would need to be rolling that
marble for billions of years if you ever wanted to see it go bounce back from
the edge, the chances are so small. But what an extraordinary world the world
of atoms and particles is.
While
our grandparents or great grandparents might have laughed at this and said
these things are impossible, the more scientists study the world of particles
the more they are discovering that the world is more extraordinary than we
could ever have thought. Reality is much more wonderful than we might have
thought, and
very different from anything we might expect, very different from anything
previous generations might have expected.
Much
more wonderful than we might have thought, very different from anything we
might expect.
That
is exactly what the prophet Isaiah declares of the living God – the Word of the
Lord, proclaims Isaiah, is this.
As the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts
than your thoughts
Isaiah 55. 9
The
message of Isaiah is that the living God is not, in the first place how, or who
we think He ought to be, our minds
are too narrow, and our thoughts too shallow.
No – in majesty, the living God is beyond our gaze, in might and power,
He is beyond all that we can ever comprehend, in purity and holiness, unapproachable.
His love and faithfulness beyond any limits that we might
place on Him.
For
the Word of the Lord is this As the heavens are higher than the earth, so
are my ways higher than your ways
So
we can understand why the prophet Isaiah attacks the idols he saw the people of
12 The
blacksmith takes a tool, says Isaiah, and
works with it in the
coals; he shapes an idol with hammers, he forges it with the
might of his arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength; he
drinks no water and grows faint.
13 The
carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline
with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it
with compasses. He shapes it in the form ofa man, and then he puts in a shrine.
………..he bows down to
it and worships. He prays to it and says, "Save me; you are my god." !?!
You
can hear the sheer incredulity in Isaiah’s tone. The living God of Israel has
brought His people out of Egypt, given them the land they live on, given them
the wonderful Law to guide them, and in the Temple a place where they could
meet with Him – so Why Why ? would anyone want to turn their backs on Him, turn their
back on Life ? Isaiah is blunt in his answer……… it is, he says, because:
18 They know
nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes
are plastered over so that they cannot see, and their minds
closed so that they cannot understand.
Isn’t
this such a very human thing ? - to prefer our own ideas about what life is
all about, to prefer our own threadbare approach to life, to prefer the idols we make for ourselves –
above the living God….. ?
But,
here’s a question - if, as we read in
Isaiah 55, as the heavens are higher than
the earth, so the Lord’s ways are higher
than our ways, and His thoughts higher than our thoughts………..
How can we know what God is like ?
The
whole record of Scripture, Old and New Testaments is this – that
we can know what God is like because He has come to us. Though as
the heavens are higher than the earth, His ways are higher than
our ways, His thoughts higher than our thoughts……… Yet, He has spoken to us, He
spoke to Abraham and called him, promising him a people, He spoke to Moses and
called him, and through Moses the living God called
In
this Advent season...........its exactly that that we look forward to - the fact
that in Jesus of Nazareth, God has come down to us, has lived among us this same human life, as a
human being like ourselves, being born as a baby of a human mother!
The
Eternal Son who dwelt with the Father in heaven........ has
taken on himself, our life, our humanity, become a human being, born among us.
You see the reality of God is much more wonderful than we might have thought, and very different
from anything we might expect.
As the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, says the Lord.
Who
could have thought that the living God, would come in this way, and recreate
the wrecked and ruined life of human beings…….. restore
human life – so that you and I could experience it for ourselves ? But this is
what He has done in Jesus. Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, who has come that we might have fullness of life in His name.
Foretold
by the prophet Isaiah, described in the gospel of Matthew, written in the
glorious words of Paul in Philippians........... in
Jesus, our loving Father, has come into human life, He knows its frailty and
limitations and sinfulness, He knows the needs and longings of human life,
sympathises with our suffering, and knows even death itself. But in this way, through Jesus, God has taken
up into himself our
human life, with all its joys and sorrows, and sin and death, and has
transformed and recreated life for us.
As the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, says the Lord.
There
are many mysteries, and extraordinary wonders scientists are discovering in the
world of quantum mechanics – but the most stupendous and astonishing wonder
which could ever occupy
the human mind—is that the eternal, infinite Creator of the
universe should enter our human life, and take to Himself our human nature, by
being born as a child, laid in a manger. That we might have life,
and life in all its fullness.
AMEN
*see:
http://www.hi.is/~hj/QuantumMechanics/quantum.html