An Uncommon People

 

 

As a little girl, I would admire my grandmother’s fine china dishes.  To me, they were the picture of classic beauty.  They were a soft white color with a fine line of silver around the rims and edges.  Each piece had a pair of soft pink roses with green-grey stems.  They were simply elegant.

Today, my grandmother’s china is displayed in a hutch in our dining room.  We don’t have a formal dining room.  It’s the room we eat in all the time.  It would more appropriately be called the “eating room”, as I can’t say that we “dine” often. The china sits displayed in the corner while we use our everyday Corelle dishes for meals.

Somewhat recently my husband and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary.  That night, we dined.  It wasn’t really planned.  In fact, it was a busy day.  Kevin was working and I was struggling to get a meal put together in a short timeframe.  Our boys decided to set and decorate the table to celebrate the occasion. They got into all kinds of drawers, pulling out special items that we rarely use.  My youngest asked to use the fine china.  I sighed.  It would have been appropriate.  We hardly use them.  However, not only would we need to hand wash them afterwards, but we’d have to wash them beforehand too.  They were dusty.  I simply didn’t have the time to deal with it.  I then remembered some fancy looking plastic plates that we could quickly use. As I look back, I wish we had taken the time and effort to use the fine china.

My grandmother’s fine china provides a good example of what it means to be holy.  To be holy is to be set apart.  It does not mean perfection or purity.  The opposite of holy is not sin, but common.  To be holy is to be uncommon.  My grandmother’s dishes are set apart in a special area.  We don’t treat them the same as our common dishes.

The very character of God can be summed up in this one word:  holy.  His love is uncommon.  His patience is uncommon.  His generosity is uncommon.  His knowledge and power are uncommon.  You know nothing that can compare.  This should draw us into a sense of awe and reverence.  At the same time, we are called to experience holiness ourselves.  Holiness is not inaccessible or impractical.  Too many of us view holiness as I viewed my grandmother’s dishes – too special or requiring too much effort to actually use.

We see “holy” used for the first time in Genesis 2:3, where God made the sabbath holy.  It was designated as an uncommon day, a day of rest.  The second time is in Exodus 3:5 with Moses and the burning bush. “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”  What made the ground holy?  The very presence of God.  Just as light overtakes darkness, God’s holiness overtakes the common.  Was Moses commanded to get off the holy ground?  No.  He was told to take off his shoes.  This is a response of reverence and awe, but what happened when Moses took his shoes off?  Moses was in direct contact with holiness.

So what does it mean when God says, “Be holy because I am holy.”  Notice the verbs here.  It is who you are, not what you do.  It is your identity.  It doesn’t say, “Make yourself holy.”  You can’t do that.  God has made you holy.  We are His saints, literally, His holy people.  Being holy doesn’t mean that we should separate ourselves from people, inaccessible and impractical, like china locked up in a cabinet.  Instead, we will respond to people and situations uncommonly because we have been made uncommon. 

We are God’s fine china.  He displays His beauty and reflects His character through us.  God uses us to set an uncommonly fine table so that the world might experience what it means to dine with Him. 

Savor these verses this week:
Hebrews 10:8-17
Hebrews 13:11-17
Deuteronomy 7:1-9
1 Peter 1:13-23
1 Peter 2:1-12

Originally posted August 5, 2019.