Boxes too Small

We are fallen people. Imperfect and flawed. This much few people argue with.

But one of the results is that we create images of things in our minds, and these classifications are so dominant that very few things have the ability to alter them.

We take what we have seen and experienced and we have sorted them into categories along with things we have noticed having similar traits.

It is one of the basics of science. And it solves several problems in this world.

But it creates the problems when we attempt to do this with God.

You might have heard that humanity has put God in a box, but I disagree.

I think we've placed Him in two boxes: The God of the Old Testament, and the God of the New.

One tends to veer towards jealousy and anger,

The other towards love and compassion.

And naturally we tend to gravitate towards the latter.

The problem is these are the same God, the One and Only.

In the first box is the depiction of God from the Old Testament. This somewhat harsh and unforgiving God partially has to deal with cultural and literal expectations of the time, but another part is because of our imperfections we are disassociated from God in a way.

He is the one to flood an entire disobedient earth, the one to set rules, and the one to enforce them when His people are defiant.

All of the other religions of the time had great powerful gods of war, and one god was not enough to satisfy them, so in order for the Israelites to be willing to follow The God He had to be bigger and more powerful than all of the other gods combined. And to them that meant a God who was completely in charge and who would not let His people control Him.

But God desires to be worshipped and true faithful worship goes hand in hand with reverence.

Because in order to truly worship something we have to consider it above ourselves. We have to consider it worthy of praise.

Because He so much more substantial than we are even our best intentions are not good enough.

Today in church we talked about 2 Samuel 6. And more particularly the death of Uzzah. Here was a man, who simply saw the Arc of the Covenant slipping from the cart where it was being  transported, and so in an act that came from a pure place in his heart, Uzzah touched the Arc of The Lord and died on the spot.

This is the brutal God that people place into that first box.

But what few of them think about is how it was all the fault of men that brought Uzzah to his death. God had given specific rules on how to transport the Arc and King David did not care enough to heed them.

The God of that time couldn't afford to be compassionate and forgiving of Uzzah because the sin of humanity created a disconnect between created and Creator.

But the God we've placed in the second box, came down to build a bridge.

He carried the links of the chains of sins that we are all bound, and He bound them to Himself instead.

That is why after the incarnation God becomes such a different picture.

It is because the price has been paid and He now has the ability to meet us where we are.

His anger was satisfied in Christ, making way for His Grace and Unconditional Love.

He always had it. He created us as a picture of it, but we messed it all up, and so He came down as one of us to cleanse the very creations that had ruined His perfection.

And while Uzzah lost the finite, I have no doubt Christ gave him the infinite.

And I think He would do it all over again. Even if it were just for me. Even if it were only for you.

So those boxes that we carry need to be ripped apart, because God is too massive and eminent to fit successfully in any box, in any single space. He is too big to try and categorize.

So why try?

Why not just enjoy?

Why not just praise a God who can love vaster than our understanding?