Holy

“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.’” (Isaiah 6:1-3)

Way back in the 1980’s, there was an HBO show called Not Necessarily the News, which sometimes included a segment by the comedian Rich Hall called sniglets. Hall defined a sniglet as “any word that should be in the dictionary, but isn’t” – words like “cinemuck – the combination of popcorn, candy, and soda pop on movie theater floors that makes them sticky,” or “hydrocondiment – the water discharge that accumulates in the mustard or ketchup bottle that comes out first and makes your bread all wet.” The genius of sniglets was how it captured those common but nameless life experiences in a single, memorable word.

I got to thinking about sniglets today as I reflected upon a word that is often used to describe God. After all, God is so many things – He is loving, just, merciful, all-powerful, and all-knowing. He shares some of His attributes with us, but in so many other ways, He is nothing like us, perfect while we are flawed, eternal while we age, never-changing while we are always changing. How do you capture God’s perfection and “other-ness” in a single, memorable word?

Holy.

Holy is one of those words that appears in countless worship songs, not to mention so many prayers in the Bible. But does it have meaning to you? Or is it just one of those churchy, religious words that you say without really knowing what it means?

When you read through the Bible, you often find times where the writers seem to be at a loss for how to put the majesty, beauty, and perfection of God into words. Think of Paul in Romans 11:33, exclaiming “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” Or Solomon at the dedication of the temple, praying “But will God really dwell on earth with men? The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!” (2 Chronicles 6:18). For those of us who have walked with God a long time, it can be just as hard to put into words what it is like to daily know the love, faithfulness, forgiveness, and presence of the God of the universe. The best and most Biblical word to use is “holy.”

I encourage you to take the word holy, and let it be the word that contains all the perfection, beauty, majesty, and “other-ness” of our great God. When you speak the word, or when you sing it, let it bring to your heart and mind the ways that God has been good to you. Remember His faithfulness, His dependability, and most importantly the salvation that He has given to you. There is a word that captures both the perfection and other-ness of God, and it is Holy.