Day 7: Power

Today we acknowledge the worship due to the great and mighty Holy One, the Lord of hosts. We know from Scripture that our God is a living God. Perhaps this was made most evident to us in the incarnation: he was seen, heard, and felt. He broke bread, taught, and healed. And it is this very knowledge that God is alive – indeed the source of all life – that should strike a reverent fear into our hearts. Because a living God has power. A living God is an actual King. Remember in Gethsemane, when they came to arrest Jesus? John’s gospel says that he knew what would happen. Only a Living God has omniscience. It says when he answered their query of whether he was Jesus with, “I am he,” they fell down, mimicking the action typical in the Bible of any human character who finds themselves face to face with the awesome brilliance of the Living God. With a mere word from Jesus, the will and strength of armed soldiers faltered and failed. When we read of his submissive humility, we must also remember that this is the Jesus from whom six-winged seraphs must veil their faces. And that makes his presence among his people even more wondrous.

Scriptures to consider:
What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols! Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise! Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it. But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him. Habakkuk 2:18-20

Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, “I am he.” They drew back and fell to the ground. John 18:4-6

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the voice of many angels, numbering myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” Revelation 5:11-12

Hymn to enjoy:
Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly minded,
for with blessing in His hand
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
as of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture –
in the body and the blood.
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
spreads its vanguard on the way,
as the Light of light descendeth
from the realms of endless day,
that the pow’rs of hell may vanish
as the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six-winged seraph,
cherubim, with sleepless eye,
veil their faces to the Presence,
as with ceaseless voice they cry,
“Alleluia, alleluia!
Alleluia, Lord most high!”

3rd century hymn; English translation by Gerard Moultrie; modern arrangement by Ralph Vaughan Williams, set to a French medieval folk melody

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