Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"
Exodus 3:1-5
Isaiah 6:1-5


Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are;
Up above the sky so high,
Like a diamond in the sky;
Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are.

Or, maybe you’d prefer this version of that familiar nursery rhyme:

Twinkle, twinkle little star,
I don’t wonder what you are,
An incandescent ball of gas,
Compressed into a solid mass;
Twinkle, twinkle little star,
I don’t wonder what you are.

Let’s take a vote.  How many of you preferred “Twinkle, Twinkle” number one?  And how many of you preferred “Twinkle, Twinkle” number two?  If you like number one better than number two, why was that?  Anyone willing to tell why you liked your preference between the two versions?

The main reason I like the number one version is because it expresses poetic wonder.  It allows for a certain amount of mystery.  It doesn’t need to know it all.  It is content to gaze in awe at the stars.  It allows the stars to be.  Part of that is a sense of holiness that comes from the mystery of the unknowing.

It seems to me that people have become less and less comfortable with unknowing and mystery.  We want to know it all.  We want to know which chromosome on the DNA strand controls which functions of the human body.  We want to explore everything--which isn’t bad in and of itself.  When I was a kid, that’s what I wanted to be when I grew up--an explorer.  Someone like Daniel Boone or Lewis and Clark.  Someone who went to unknown places with unknown people and unknown sights and made them all known.

But it isn’t so much the exploring and the desire to understand that is so bad.  It’s a certain attitude that seems to go along with that.  It’s the attitude that once something is discovered, it must be conquered or subdued.  It’s the lack of holy awe, to step back, remove your shoes, and say, “This is a wondrous sight.”

We are quickly losing our sense of reverence about life.  We want to understand mechanistic workings, but we miss seeing the holiness that permeates everything.  We don’t see “diamonds in the sky” any more.  We don’t look into the night sky and wonder.  We don’t look up and say, “I am on holy ground this night.”  Instead, we look up and see a night sky filled with “incandescent balls of gas, pressed into a solid mass.”

In the movie, “Contact,” Jodi Foster plays the part of a hard-nosed skeptical scientist.   She is listening for signals from space that might prove there is life out there in the universe beyond ours.  She’s searching for life on other planets.  She eventually picks up a signal.  It’s not a random signal, but one that has a pattern to it.  Within the signal are instructions for a space travel device.  The special space travel machine is built.  She gets to go as the sole occupant.

She traveled through time and space.  She had a conversation with another being.  But it appeared to those at mission control that her craft went nowhere.  She tried to convince them of her “holy ground” experience, but no one is convinced.  They show her the video tapes.  Nothing happens.  It appeared her craft just dropped into the water below.

It’s an ironic twist that her character, this hard-boiled scientist, had to convince other scientists and government officials of her spiritual experience.  Yet she doesn’t have the wherewithal to do it.  They all treat her as if she’d been hallucinating.  But she knows what she saw.  She knows what she experienced was real.

Or remember Sputnik, the first Russian rocket launch that sent the first man into space?  Yuri Gregorian.  That’s what started the whole space race.  I remember it all clearly as a young boy.  I remember how he came back to earth and said, “I have been to the heavens, and I did not see God.  Where is God?  He was not there.”

Maybe that was the start of the modern decline of sacred awe.  That’s when science and technology became our gods, and we have been bowing down to them ever since.  Isn’t it interesting that it was at that same time that attendance at church began to slow, and then reverse.  In our day and time there is a huge river of people draining our churches.  Organized religion is quickly becoming a dry lake bed.

Where once churches and personal piety formed people’s morals and drew the borders of behavior, now media and technology have taken over that role.  Sacred awe has all been explained if you only google it on the internet.  Reverence for God has been replaced by devotion to the micro-processor and the internet.  Al the “answers” are there.

Parents want to make sure their children are more adept at browsing, surfing the net, and word-processing than praying, contemplating, and worshipping.  We parents quickly hear ourselves saying things like, “My kids or grandkids are going to need to know how to work on the computer if they are going to get along in the world.”  How often do we hear ourselves say, “My kids and grandkids need to have an experience with the divine and living God if they are going to get along in the world”?

All people, young and old, need to be in touch with holiness.  They need to cultivate a sense of awe for the divine mystery.  They need to know what it’s like to be in the divine presence.  Maybe parents don’t make these kinds of statements about their children’s spiritual development, because they don’t make them about themselves either.

I have drawn your attention to two stories of encounters with God, recorded in scripture.  One is of Moses who is visited by God in a bush that is on fire but not burning up.  The other is the prophet Isaiah who sees God in the temple.  Both men’s experiences give us a glimpse of what it is like to be in God’s presence, and understand what it means to have sacred awe.

Once Moses is attracted by the sight of the burning bush, he is pulled into the presence of God.  Moses is first instructed by God to take off his sandals because he was “standing on holy ground.”

Now why take off your sandals when encountering holiness?  Partly it was a sign of respect in the presence of a great one.  Old Testament priests serving in the temple, especially those who went into the Holy of Holies, performed their duties barefoot.  It was an expression of humility.  It was also a way of avoiding polluting a sacred place.  The sandals would be removed, and the feet would be washed, and then they would enter the temple for their religious duties.

When I visited the Holy Land, we were in Jerusalem for a couple of days.  We went to the Dome of the Rock, a Moslem holy place, where the great Jewish temple once stood.  Before we were allowed in, we had to remove our shoes and socks.  There were literally hundreds of pairs of sock stuffed shoes in piles outside the main entrance.  The place was full of bare-footed tourists and worshippers inside.  (I didn’t have to worry about anyone “trading up” and taking my shoes out of the pile; I didn’t see anyone there who looked like they wore size 16.)

It made me think about what we do, that symbolizes our attitude when we come into the sanctuary to worship.  What is it that we do, that is similar to taking the shoes off our feet, to demonstrate our sense of awe and humility in the presence of the holy?  I couldn’t think of anything.  And I began to wonder if we’re missing something.

I’m not sure about this next statement, but it feels right to me.  Maybe Moses, and all the others, took off their shoes so there was nothing separating themselves from the touch of holiness.  Maybe God wanted their skin to touch and feel what holiness feels like.  The bottoms of your feet are the most sensitive part of your body.  Is it possible that God wanted people to have just a touch of what holiness felt like through the most sensitive parts of their bodies?

When we approach God, or an experience with God, we do that bare-footed.  That is, with humility, with respect, with deference, with all the sensitivity we can muster so that we know we are treading on holy ground.  When we meet God, we bow in humility before the one who is unbelievably awesome.

Which brings us to the next thing Moses does:  he hides his face in fear.  This is probably one of the most common reactions to being in the presence of God.

Remember the story of the prophet Elijah.  He had had all the false prophets in the land executed.  Queen Jezebel was furious.  Elijah ran into the wilderness and hid in a cave.  He was feeling sorry for himself.  God came for a visit.  Fire, storm, and earthquake passed before the mouth of the cave where Elijah was hiding.  Then a “still, small voice.”  Elijah knew it was God.  Elijah stepped out to the mouth of the cave to talk with God.  But before he did, he wrapped his cloak around his face so that he wouldn’t look at God.

In the story of Isaiah the prophet, Isaiah sees God sitting on the throne in the temple.  Six-winged creatures were flying around.  With two of their wings they were hiding their faces so the couldn’t look at God.  Isaiah himself cringes in fear because he looked at God, and now awaited his quick death, because no one looks at the face of God and lives.

No one could look at pure holiness or God’s radiance and survive.  Emperor Hadrian once said to Rabbi Joshua ben Hannah, “I desire to see your God.”
Rabbi Joshua said, “Face the sun, sire, and gaze upon it.”
“I cannot!  It is too bright!  It blinds my eyes.”
Then Rabbi Joshua said, “If you are not able to look upon the sun, which is only a servant of God, how much less can you gaze upon the Divine Presence?”

Among the prophets in the Bible, there was tremendous wonder, mystery and awe about God, to the point of taboo and fear of death.  Being in God’s mysterious presence was not like sitting on your grandfather’s knee.  It was terrifying and wondrous all wrapped together.

Even the name of God was not spoken, it was considered so holy.  God has a name, but that name was only spelled in the Bible with consonants.  The vowels were left out so that it couldn’t be pronounced.  Other names or words for God were substituted for the actual name.  Words like “adonai” which means “lord;” or, “Elohim” which means “great one;” or, “el shaddai,” the “almighty.”

In light of these reactions to the presence of God, I wonder how we have gotten to be so flip with God, so casual.  How is it that we think we can just stroll into the throne room of God and not be terrified by what we see?  Not take off our shoes?  Not be overwhelmed by the mystery?  Where did we lose that fearful respect that had always been a part of the worship and awe of God?

In C.S. Lewis’ excellent story series, The Chronicles of Narnia, the main character is a magnificent lion named Aslan.  Aslan is the Christ figure in these stories.  In one of the books, Aslan shows himself to two children.  They tell their sister Susan about Aslan.  She isn’t sure she wants to meet a lion.  She is talking about this with Mr. Beaver inside the beaver dam.  “Is he, is he quite safe?” Susan asked Mr. Beaver.
“Safe?  ‘Course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good,” replied Mr. Beaver.

We have, in our minds, removed all the teeth and claws from God and made God into some kind of cuddly stuffed animal.  But those who have been in God’s presence have told a different story.  They tell about a God who is awesome, and terrible, and scary, and wonderful, all at the same time.  A God who is mysterious with weird creatures flying about.  A God who is so totally other, that the only way God is described is by mystery, and clouds, and blinding light.  A God who is “up above the sky so high, like a diamond in the sky.”

A God whose presence makes us understand immediately who is God and who is the creature.  A God whose presence forces us to hide our faces--a God whose presence makes us want to look and not look at the same time.  An awesome God.

Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
With wisdom, power, and love
Our God is an awesome God.