In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the
Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his
robe filled the temple. 2 Above
him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their
faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were
flying. 3 And they
were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds
shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 5 “Woe to
me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I
live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live
coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and
said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your
sin atoned for.” 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom
shall I send? And who will go for us?” And
I said, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isaiah 6:1-8)
This Sunday is Trinity
Sunday—a day of liturgical rank that is considered a Major Festival (one of 6)
on the Lutheran calendar.
From the preacher’s
perspective there are, however, a few difficulties with the day. The first is
that the day itself is a “DOCTRINALLY THEMATIC” day. One need only look at the
traditional collect of the day in order to discern this:
“Almighty and everlasting
God, who has given unto us, thy servants, grace, by the confession of a true
faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity and in the power of the
Divine Majesty to worship the Unity, we beseech thee that thou wouldst keep us
steadfast in this faith and evermore defend us from all adversities; who
livest, etc. etc. Amen.”
But doctrinally thematic
days can equate to very BORING sermons: “today you get to listen to me drone on
for 20 minutes about doctrine...” Sounds enthralling, doesn’t it? It’s also not
the easiest thing to super-impose a predetermined doctrinal theme on texts.
Second, the word “Trinity,”
itself, does not appear in the Bible. It’s a church-coined word to EXPLAIN a
theological truth. God is one, but God exists in three distinct ‘persons.’ But
even in saying that the word “explains” something is somewhat misleading,
because the first thing we learn about the Trinity is that full understanding
is beyond our ability to mentally grasp. Separate, but unified? Three in
person, but one in Divinity? ...Cue the computer voice: “does not compute.”
Clearly the effort here is not to UNDERSTAND the Trinity, but rather to know
what the Faith of the Church is (and has always been) so as to be able to know
the right thing to SAY in worship.
All of which brings me to
the appointed Old Testament text for the day, Isaiah's heavenly vision. It is a
text with myriad rabbit trails in which to wander. Boiled down to its essence,
however, it amounts to this: WORSHIP
LEADS TO ACTION. Yes, the worship component is important. The Seraphim SAY the
right things in worship: "holy,
holy holy." The triple repetition of the Hebrew word qadowsh is a proto-revelation of the
triune nature of God. Did the Seraphim fully understand how God could be
one-God-in-three-persons? Who knows; and it doesn't matter. With their lips they are SAYING the right
things in worship.
This, in turn, prompts
Isaiah to say the right things as well. He begins with confession: “Woe to me!” I
cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among
a people of unclean lips. Most commentators agree
that Isaiah's blurted confession isn't so much an admittance that his
'sinfulness' is limited solely to foul language, but rather that this is his
way of saying that his entire life--when compared against the holiness of
God--does not measure up. He recognizes his ruin. And yet, God does what God
always does when we lowly mortals recognize and confess our sinfulness. He
pardons. See, this has touched your
lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. The Hebrew
word used there is kaphar. It
basically means "covered." The idea isn't that Isaiah suddenly
becomes a new/different non-sinful person. He's still the same old person.
What's changed is what God sees. His sin is 'covered,' and what God sees is
acceptable. This is the very definition of grace and mercy.
And if the passage ended there, the sermon
would be all about worship.... and in particular SAYING the right thing about
God. God is holy; the Father is holy; God is holy; the Son is holy; God is
holy; the Spirit is holy. The end. Goodbye. But the passage doesn't end there.
WORSHIP LEADS TO ACTION. Then I heard
the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for
us?”
The application seems clear
enough. Encountering God, saying the
right things about God, having and rigidly guarding our correct doctrine about God is meaningless if in
response to the question: “Whom shall I
send? And who will go for us?” ....our response is...
not me.
Cheers,
TM
No comments:
Post a Comment