"There are two tragedies in life," noted Oscar Wilde. "One is not getting what you want. The other is getting it." Indeed. We get what we want, and we are left longing for more, for it never seems to satisfy, does it?
What is it we want? Transcendence. As mere humans, we long to connect to something beyond ourselves, or escape our boredom and pain. And in this search, the metaphor of the market often serves as the exclusive image for guiding our thinking. "All paths to transcendence are equally valuable," we are told, and so any one will do, as long as it works for you and doesn't do harm to others. One path may lead one to God; another, to whatever provides escape and meaning.
Religious experience, then, is understood by many as a means of self-fulfillment—what the individual gets out of it—not whether there is "another" who is "outer" and "other" than ourselves. In this way, religion is domesticated, trivialized, and simply co-opted for personal and private use. It is what sociologist Os Guinness describes as a faith that is "privately engaging but socially irrelevant."
Yet there is One who stands outside and above, proclaiming "I AM WHO I AM" (Exodus 3:14). His voice disturbs us because He does not speak the language of the market, nor for that matter, of this world. Rather, He calls us to lay everything at His feet and to worship Him—and to worship Him because He is who He is, Holy Other. This is the God we see in the Scriptures, and it is the Christ we encounter in the Gospels.
In fact, God reveals himself to Moses as "I AM WHO I AM," and Jesus reiterates this phrase seven times in the Gospel of John. "I am the bread of life," he declares in John 6, and in John 8, "I am the light of the world." At the end of Jesus' sermon in John 8, we read, "'I tell you the truth,' Jesus answered, 'before Abraham was born, I am!'" Then John comments, "At this, they picked up stones to stone him" (John 8:58-59). Why did the people want to stone him? Because Jesus declared that he is not only the fulfillment of all our hungers, but even more, he is the fulfillment of all that is. He is the Eternal One, Truth Incarnate.
Theologian David Wells comments:
"Christ is not an agitator. He offers no new, intense experiences. He does not sell anything. He is, and that is all—like a flower on the restaurant table in the midst of the smoke and the talk. This is not what everybody else is promising today. In the advertisements… in the new spiritual movements the message is clear—we have exactly what you have been looking for! Here is the answer to all your questions! […] This simplification turns everyone into nothing more than a shallow consumer. Christ is not for consumption but for worship."(1)
O, that may we lay everything at his feet and worship Him who is Holy Other.
What is it we want? Transcendence. As mere humans, we long to connect to something beyond ourselves, or escape our boredom and pain. And in this search, the metaphor of the market often serves as the exclusive image for guiding our thinking. "All paths to transcendence are equally valuable," we are told, and so any one will do, as long as it works for you and doesn't do harm to others. One path may lead one to God; another, to whatever provides escape and meaning.
Religious experience, then, is understood by many as a means of self-fulfillment—what the individual gets out of it—not whether there is "another" who is "outer" and "other" than ourselves. In this way, religion is domesticated, trivialized, and simply co-opted for personal and private use. It is what sociologist Os Guinness describes as a faith that is "privately engaging but socially irrelevant."
Yet there is One who stands outside and above, proclaiming "I AM WHO I AM" (Exodus 3:14). His voice disturbs us because He does not speak the language of the market, nor for that matter, of this world. Rather, He calls us to lay everything at His feet and to worship Him—and to worship Him because He is who He is, Holy Other. This is the God we see in the Scriptures, and it is the Christ we encounter in the Gospels.
In fact, God reveals himself to Moses as "I AM WHO I AM," and Jesus reiterates this phrase seven times in the Gospel of John. "I am the bread of life," he declares in John 6, and in John 8, "I am the light of the world." At the end of Jesus' sermon in John 8, we read, "'I tell you the truth,' Jesus answered, 'before Abraham was born, I am!'" Then John comments, "At this, they picked up stones to stone him" (John 8:58-59). Why did the people want to stone him? Because Jesus declared that he is not only the fulfillment of all our hungers, but even more, he is the fulfillment of all that is. He is the Eternal One, Truth Incarnate.
Theologian David Wells comments:
"Christ is not an agitator. He offers no new, intense experiences. He does not sell anything. He is, and that is all—like a flower on the restaurant table in the midst of the smoke and the talk. This is not what everybody else is promising today. In the advertisements… in the new spiritual movements the message is clear—we have exactly what you have been looking for! Here is the answer to all your questions! […] This simplification turns everyone into nothing more than a shallow consumer. Christ is not for consumption but for worship."(1)
O, that may we lay everything at his feet and worship Him who is Holy Other.
(1) David Wells, Turning to God: Biblical Conversion in the Modern World (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989), 128.
Danielle DuRant is research assistant at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
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