If we look at the Scriptures as a whole, both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures, one conclusion becomes inescapable. Throughout these sacred writings, it is evident that God wishes from the outset to reveal Himself. Unfortunately, our human language is inadequate to express that self-revelation. We simply do not have the words to express who God is, but that doesn’t stop us from trying.
In the reading we heard from the Book of Exodus today, the sacred writer records an episode of God’s self-revelation. God commanded or summoned Moses to ascend Mt. Sinai. In turn God descended upon the mountain. Then according to the sacred writer, God used five adjectives or phrases to reveal who God is. God proclaimed that God is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, kind, and faithful. What do these five attributes tell us about God? One thing is very clear. Each of these descriptors speaks of a God who is in a relationship. One cannot be merciful without a person on whom to dispense mercy. God cannot be gracious, slow to anger, kind or faithful unless there is another person who is present to receive God's graciousness, God’s patience, God’s kindness, and God’s fidelity. God’s relationship with God’s people is how God is described by the Lord. God’s name, which is not to be spoken, is defined by these virtues and the relationship which is presumed.
The Gospel goes further to describe God by telling us that God loved the world. That loved is defined by two actions. First, God gave us the gift of the Son. Second, God sent the Son to save us. The actions might seem to be one and the same. However, while they may seem to be one action, they actually reveal two things. The gift of the Son tells us the scope of God’s love, tells us how much God loves us. By sending the Son to save us, the author tells us the price God was willing to pay to make that love visible.
As I said at the beginning, our language is so limited that it is difficult to fully describe who God is. God is more than our imaginations can conjure. God’s love is larger than we can fully appreciate. Throughout our history and in every page of the Scriptures, our efforts to express the reality of God is flawed because our minds are too small to fully understand God’s true nature. That is precisely why God’s people long to see God’s face. We want to understand. We want to perceive. We want to destroy the veil that exists between us. The cloud that descends upon Mt. Sinai both reveals and conceals God at the same time. Try as we might, we cannot penetrate the cloud to gaze upon God and realize the full mystery of God.
What can we do? We can recount what God has done. First we know God as the One who has created. God has given birth to us and has given us a place to live out our lives until the day when we stand in God’s presence. Using our human experience of giving birth, of creating, we have named God as Father and Mother.
God has also saved us. God has paid the price of our salvation by dying for us on a cross. Because God has defeated death and made it possible for us not to die in our sins, we have named God as the Son whom God sent.
God has also pledged to remain with us. God lives with us. We need not go looking for God. God is here among us. Whenever we gather in God’s name, even if there are only two of us, God is with us. We have named the person who remains with us the Holy Spirit.
None of us wants to be defined by what we have done. We are more than the sum of our actions. Yet this is about all we can do when it comes to naming God, when it comes to describing God. We look at what God has done. However, like us, God is so much more than what God has done. God’s nature is the same whether we are describing God’s creative power, God’s willingness to die for us, or God’s promise to remain with us. One God who does all these things, three persons who takes on these different roles.
I fully realize that my words are just as limited as the words of the sacred authors of Scripture. I cannot do any better in defining or describing God than they did or could. Yet we will continue to make these feeble human attempts to understand God until we see God face to face.
In the meantime, we are called to worship God just as Moses did on Mt. Sinai, for our worship of God is the only response of which we are capable. God has loved us. We try to love God in return. God has shown us the way to salvation and gone that way before us. God has promised to remain with us so we must make every effort to remain with God by obeying God’s commandments.
St. Paul tells us how to best praise God. We are to rejoice, to mend our ways, to encourage one another, to agree with one another, to live in peace with one another. When we follow this plan of action, we give praise to the God who created, who saved, and who remains with us.
Our Eucharist is God’s gift to us, the fulfillment of God’s promise to remain with us. As we approach the table of the Lord, we do so ready to remain with God throughout our lives until the day when we see God face to face.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator