Sermon Index
Trinity Sunday, May 26, 2024
Today I want to talk about the vision of the Prophet Isaiah. Isaiah saw the vision about the year 740 BC, in the last year of the reign of King Uzziah who ruled as King of Judah in Jerusalem for 52 years. This is about 250 years after King David. It was a time when the morals of the people were poor and, as always, there were threats from foreign armies.
“In the year that King Uzziah died” was a time of political change in Jerusalem. There was war with the Northern Kingdom of Israel and Syria. King Uzziah was succeeded by his grandson, Ahaz, but there was still turmoil. At such a time, God gave Isaiah a vision and a mission. The vision is symbolic, of course, but it tells us something about the nature of God. He is pictured like a king, but much, much greater than any earthly king like Uzziah or Ahaz. The Lord God is seated high and exalted on his throne. His royal robe, which is so large that it fills the temple, shows the power and richness of God.
At such a time, God gave a vision to Isaiah which would commission him to be a prophet to the people of Israel, to speak the Word of God to them.
This is the vision:
It is a scene of the great throne room in Heaven, which Isaiah sees like a temple. The Lord God is seated on the throne, “high and exalted.” The train of his magnificent robe was so long that the whole floor of the temple was covered with it! The honor guard is two angels, called "seraphs" or "seraphim" [Hebrew plurals end in “-im.”].
I think they might have looked like flying serpents or dragons with wings and hands and feet. They each have six wings. Two to fly above the throne, two to cover their faces so that they cannot look directly onto the glory of God, and two to cover their body in modesty and humility before God.
Their purpose seems to be for praising God. They call out, saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” And “at the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.”
The word “seraphim” means “burning ones.” If the seraphs were like fire-breathing serpent-dragons, then their breath would fill the temple with smoke. I can imagine that when they praise the Lord, it is like flashes of lightening and peals of rolling thunder that shake the foundations of the building and fill the temple with smoke.
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” We Christians like to think that saying the word “holy” three times points to the Holy Trinity, but it probably means that God is very, very, very holy. Or maybe like in modern English when we cheer someone we say “Hip, hip hooray” three times.
Seeing all this, the Prophet Isaiah is shaken with fear! “Woe to me! 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.” In the presence of the Holy Glory of the Lord, Isaiah fears for his life. He knows his sin, he confesses his sins of thought and the words of his lips.
Fear is the correct reaction when seeing God. We too know that same fear when we think of our own sin. In humility, we know the holiness and purity of God. When we see Christ on the cross, every Christian feels the seriousness of sin. In shame, we wish that we had wings to cover our eyes and our bodies and had wings to fly away from the awesome and fearful glory of God. We can say with Isaiah, “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.” But there is no escape: our whole world is unclean: lips and mind and hearts and deeds.
But the Lord Almighty has mercy on Isaiah. One of the burning seraphs takes a burning coal from the altar and touches Isaiah's lips to purify and forgive his guilt. The altar is the place of sacrifice to forgive sins, and so the fire from the altar forgives Isaiah.
We too have seen the love and mercy of God. It is the fire of the Holy Spirit. It is the water of Baptism. It is the bread of the Lord’s Supper. Our guilt is taken away, our sin is atoned for by the sacrifice of Christ on the altar of the cross.
Now forgiven, the Prophet Isaiah is filled with devotion to the Lord and wants to serve him. God said, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” Isaiah said, “Here am I. Send me!” And then God sends Isaiah to proclaim the Word of the Lord to the people of Israel.
It is a word of judgment and warning and hope. He answered, "Here am I! Send me!" When our hearts are blessed and purified, we no longer fear the judgment of God, but become eager to become his prophets to our world today. "Here am I! Send me!"
In the New Testament, we have been given a vision of the throne of God, but it is not the same as Isaiah's vision. Our vision is that of Jesus on the cross. “High and exalted,” perhaps, but his robe was taken away from him and gambled for. Instead of a pair of six-winged seraphs, there are two robbers nailed onto crosses next to him. Rather than songs of praise, there are mockings and jokes about Jesus. There was darkness like the smoke and there was an earthquake to shake the foundations of the Jerusalem temple and to tear the curtain of the temple.
And when we see this vision, as the Holy Spirit reveals it in the Gospel, we too react with fear like Isaiah, “Woe is me! I am lost, I am ruined! I am doomed! For I am a person of unclean lips, unclean hands, an unclean heart. And all the people around me are sinners. There is no escape.” When we first see God, whether God in the Old Testament or God in the New Testament, whether in Glory or on the Cross, we see God's Holiness, his Otherness, his Power. He looks dangerous. And the proper response is fear. Fear because we fear death. When we see Jesus on the cross, we see that we should be the person dying there. The cross is a symbol of condemnation.
The Prophet Isaiah was shaken with fear! And then the Love and Mercy of God sent him the burning coal from the altar to forgive his sin. The Love and Mercy of God sends us something different from the altar. The altar in the New Testament is no longer a place to burn animal sacrifices, the altar is the cross of Jesus. What purifies us is the blood of Jesus shed on the cross. It is the blood of Jesus that forgives our sins. This is given to us, not as a burning coal, but as cooling baptismal water. It doesn't burn us, but it does drown us. And then there is the being born again, born from above, a heavenly birth.
Or perhaps there is a fire. Last week was Pentecost. We read in Acts 2 how the Holy Spirit came down from heaven and appeared as tongues of fire upon the disciples. When the disciples saw this revelation of God, they were filled with awe, and began to speak the Gospel to people in their native languages. It was like the reaction of Isaiah. When God asked, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" Isaiah heard the call and dedicated his life to speaking the Word of God, "Here am I. Send me!" Jesus sent his apostles to proclaim the Word of God and to make disciples. We who have seen the vision of God Almighty, especially as we have seen it revealed in the Gospel, also hear the call of God and say, “Here am I. Send me!"
The Prophet Isaiah wrote down his vision to encourage the people of Jerusalem.
In the New Testament, St. John also wrote down his vision to encourage the people of God. His vision is in the Fourth Chapter of the Book of Revelation. (Rev. 4:1-11) The Lord God is on his glorious throne. There are no seraphim, but there are four living creatures.
“7 The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. 8 Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around.” They sing the same eternal song as the seraphim:
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come."
Amen.
Michael Nearhood, Pastor
Okinawa Lutheran Church