In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
~ John 1: 1, 14
Dear People of St. David’s,
If you are joining us on our year-long journey, going “cover to cover” through the Bible, then right now you are deep into the historical books of the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures. For a few weeks we took a detour into a series of laws and religious regulations, and we’ve had our fair share of genealogies and lists of tribes and land holdings, but there’s been a larger story of patriarchs, a time of captivity, a fight for freedom, a journey in the wilderness, and now we’re building a real kingdom.
If you’ve been listening in on our weekly podcast, then you’ve heard Natalee, Elliot, and me try and lift out the particular theological and spiritual themes of the texts we’ve been reading. Already, in less than three months, I think we’ve plumed the whole spectrum of human emotion and experience.
The historical books in particular though touch upon a larger issue: the fact that God again and again seeks to enter into human history and affairs.
There are two basic ways to understand God: transcendence and immanence. When we look at God as “transcendent” we see God as beyond reach and beyond comprehending. This is the God who fills the whole universe, who created every star and planet, and who reigns from a throne in Heaven. This is the God who we remember each Sunday as being surrounded by the angels and the archangels and all the company of Heaven who ring out the unending song “holy, holy, holy.” This is the God who is not bound by time, by location, and especially by our feeble imagination or our brightest minds.
But then there is the God who is immanent—close. Near. Right here. This is the God who knows your name, who lifts you up when you are down, who wipes every tear from your eye. This is the God who not only notices the one who is lost and in despair, but this is also the God who comes to comfort and save. This is the God who leaves the ninety-nine sheep to go off and find the one who has wandered off.
What we find in the historical books is a God who time and time again seeks to enter into human life and history. God hears the cries of Israel in Egypt. God leads them through the wilderness as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. God provides manna each morning, speaks to Moses intimately. God engineers the passing of the mantle from Moses to Joshua, from Joshua to the period of the Judges. God joins Ruth—a foreign Moabite woman—to Boaz and makes her the great-grandmother of King David.
In the historical books we find a God who watches over each step, each leader, each marriage, and each child. A God who provides each morsel of food, each drop of water, and every ounce of protection.
Of course, these two different ways of understanding God aren’t diametrically opposed. The God who spoke to Moses intimately is the same God who fills the universe. The God who called Deborah to be a judge is the same God who exists beyond time. The God who chose David—the youngest of eight brothers—to be king, is the same God who is beyond comprehension and who sits on the heavenly throne.
In the prologue to the Gospel of John, we find Jesus presented as God from whom all things created had their beginning, and we also find Jesus “becoming flesh” and “dwelling” with humanity.
Irish theologian and philosopher, Dr. Peter Rollins, coined a term to describe the relation of transcendence and immanence: “hypernymity.” For Rollins, hypernymity—with the same root as “anonymity”—means that what obscures the transcendent God from us isn’t God’s tremendous distance from us, but God’s overwhelming closeness to us.
In our cover-to-cover journey, we aren’t just learning about things that happened and stories that were told thousands of years ago, but we’re hearing from our forefathers and foremothers about the God who is with us, and who comes nearer and nearer to us. Our God who hears you when you cry. Our God who knows every hair of your head. Our God who knows your name and loves you more than you will ever know. This is also the same God who set the stars in the sky, who brought the universe into being, and who reigns from a celestial throne.
We’re not just reading about ancient people and storylines. It’s God’s storyline. God keeps making it into our storyline too.
The Rev. Rick Morley
Rector
Published on March 20, 2025