The newscast I was watching last evening referred to the Dalai Lama, a 72 year old Buddhist monk who is visiting Canada, as "his holiness." While I realize that this is probably some kind of honorary religious title given as a form of respectful address, by Christian standards it is completely over-the-top and represents a profound debasing of the word "holy." With all due respect to the humanity of the Dalai Lama he is not "his holiness." That title is reserved for the triune God who made the world and everything in it, who is the sovereign ruler of all, including Tibet, and who calls on all human beings, including the Dalai Lama, to repent and surrender himself to the gracious rule of his Son whom he raised from the dead and has exalted on high.
It is sad to see the adoration on the faces of 5000 people who crowded into the sold-out Ottawa Civic Centre yesterday to see and hear a man whose answers to the problems of life are a mixture of truth and error at best. Humankind's problem is deeper and more extensive than anything that man-made religion can even begin to fix. We are scarred and stained by sin, we are guilty and helpless before its power unless we know and experience the liberation of the cross of Jesus Christ. All other solutions are superficial at best and at worst they keep people from seeing their lost and hopeless condition apart from God's grace. The polytheism of Buddhism is an empty cistern that cannot quench the thirst of those who are made in the image of God. Only Jesus can repair the damage we have done to ourselves and inflict on others. Let us pray for the day when his name alone is regarded as holy and he is worshiped as Lord.
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