Tuesday, June 01, 2021

Sermon - Isaiah 6:1-8 - Holy Trinity Sunday


Isaiah 6:1-8

Normally when we come into God’s presence, we gather in his name – his Triune Name – we call that the Invocation.  We invoke God’s name.  In Isaiah’s vision, however, no one invokes God, but he appears to Isaiah without invocation or provocation.  It’s a blessed vision. 

And in this blessed vision, God reveals to Isaiah, and to us, a glimpse of his true glory, his true nature, his true identity.  He shows us what truly matters when we, like Isaiah, stand before him.  And when he shows mercy to Isaiah, it points us to the mercy of the Trinue God that is found for us in Jesus Christ our Lord.

One notable feature of this passage is the song of the angels.  The angels sing, and we echo the song even today in the Sanctus, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts (or Sabbaoth)”  That is, the heavenly armies.  “heaven and earth are full of his glory” And in this short verse there is much to say.

The Lord is holy.  Yaheweh is holy, holy, holy.  In saying it three times we have great emphasis.  In Hebrew, saying something three times like this indicates the superlative.  God is most holy.  He is the holiest of all.  The most set apart of anyone or anything that is ever set apart.  He is in a class by himself, creator apart from his creation. 

The three-ness of his holiness also hints at the Triune nature – Father, Son and Spirit.  All throughout the Old Testament this teaching is set forth in mysterious ways.  Even from the plural self-reference of God in creation, “Let us make man in our image”.  The Spirit hovering and the whole of creation spoken into being through the Son, the Living Word. 

And then, the angels sing of his glory.  His glory fills heaven and earth, even more than the train of his robe fills the temple.  Yet his throne is far above both.  Nothing can contain him.  Rather, he fills everything.  Nothing is above him, rather he is above all, over all.

And even the mighty Seraphim are compelled to praise him constantly.  With their majestic wings and booming voices that shake the whole place.  Seraphim in Hebrew means, “burning ones”.  They are bright and aglow with power, and yet they tremble and hide their own faces and feet from God’s glory.

What a grand and glorious and powerful sight it must have been.  But there is a problem. 

Isaiah is a sinner.  His reaction to seeing God might surprise you.  You might think he’d be glad.  Joyous.  This should be far more exciting than meeting a famous person, or even winning the lottery!  You get a visit with the king of kings!  You have some quality one on one time with the Creator, Isaiah!  Isn’t that great!?

No, instead, “Woe is me.  I’m ruined.  Done for.  I’m in way over my head with this one.”  Why?  Because I’m a man of unclean lips in the midst of a people of unclean lips.  I’m a sinner.  And I’m in the midst of sinful people. 

Sin cannot stand before Holy Holy Holy God.  He cannot stand it.  He hates it and will justly destroy it.  And woe to the sinner who thinks he can withstand such pure, ultimate, all-encompassing judgment.  There is and should be nothing more terrifying than to stand before God’s throne and have no answer for your sins.  You simply must be destroyed, condemned, doomed.  And Isaiah knew it.

Do we know it? Have we lost a sense of the fear of God?  Yes, we should love and trust him, but first fear him, Luther teaches us in the meaning of the First Commandment.  Fear God.  Consider how awesome and terrible a God he is, and what you deserve were you to stand before him in your sin.  With all else stripped away – no distractions – no one else to use for comparison – only you and the one who knows all.

Unclean lips, unclean hearts, unclean hands, we are totally undone by the holy law of the holy holy holy God.  We stand no better off than Isaiah or the people of Israel. 

“Woe is me,” Isaiah says.  It is a confession of sin.  And the Lord does not leave him hanging.  He doesn’t wait for Isaiah to justify himself, explain away his unclean lips, concoct and execute a plan to cleanse himself (as if he could).  He doesn’t even make him wait and wonder what his due punishment will be.  He immediately sends the angel to act.  To have mercy.  To forgive.

The angel takes a coal from the altar – the place of sacrifice, and he touches it to Isaiah’s mouth.  The place of sacrifice is where sin is atoned for.  In the Old Testament, thousands of beasts shed their blood to make atonement.  But that ocean of blood wasn’t even worth a drop of the blood that was to come, the sacrifice they all anticipated and foreshadowed.  The Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. 

The altar of that sacrifice was the cross, and the consuming fire of God’s wrath was upon Christ.  It hadn’t yet happened in Isaiah’s day, but it was planned from the foundation of the world.  For God so loved the world, that he sent his only Son, sent him to be lifted up on the cross, so that all who look to him, believe in him, would not perish, but have everlasting life.

But more than that.  It’s not an altar somewhere far off or a Jesus on a cross on a green hill far far away.  The sacrifice of atonement that has cleansed you of your sins is up close and personal.  The angel, the messenger of God, got right up in Isaiah’s face with that hot coal from the altar.  He spoke a word of mercy to Isaiah, a word of absolution – your sin is atoned for, forgiven.

So also today.  You come here, to this messenger, not a heavenly angel but a sinner like yourself, but one who nonetheless speaks a word of absolution to you.  Your sins are forgiven, in the Triune Name.  His holiness is now yours.  Your woe has already gone to Christ.  And so you are not ruined.  You are, rather, made clean.

So also, that forgiveness touches your lips, in the body and blood that Christ offers you from this altar.  Here you touch and taste forgiveness in the body and blood which were sacrificed, given into death, but also raised to life.  When this has touched your lips, your sins are also forgiven, atoned for, and you are made clean.

It is no accident that when we gather to receive the Sacrament of the Altar, we sing this song of the angels, the Sanctus.  Holy, Holy, Holy.  For in the body and blood of Christ, we see the fullness of God’s glory which fills heaven and earth.  And we, like Isaiah, rather than ruined, are made clean by this encounter with the Holy, Holy, Holy.

And you might say, “then not just my lips, but also my head and hands and feet” and Jesus would say, “Someone who has bathed is already clean”.  You have been baptized.  Your lips are clean, your whole life is clean, renewed, reborn in the water and the word.  In the Triune Name you bear.

And with cleansed lips, we can and do confess anew the name of God.  We confess Father, Son and Spirit.  We confess his mighty works, and tell what he has done for us.  We say back to him what he has said of himself, and join our voices in the ancient and universal confessions of the church – the creeds, Apostolic, Nicene, and Athanasian.  We confess the Holy Holy Holy one in three and three in one.

Isaiah, too, was called to confess.  To preach and prophesy to a people who needed that same cleansing.  Whom shall I send?  And now fearing no more, Isaiah answers the call, “send me!”

Wherever you are called, Christian, go with the same zeal.  Wherever God has placed you to serve and witness, do so with the clean conscience of a child of God whose sin is atoned for.  And when you sin, return again to the Holy Holy Holy one who always has mercy.  In Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

 

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