Holiness For The Unclean

Woe is Me! Woah! Send Me!

5.30.21 [Isaiah 6:1-8] River of Life (Trinity Sunday)

Fishing boats and fifth wheels. Frozen drinks and floaties poolside. Loud music, hot grills, and cold beverages. Memorial Day weekend is typically a weekend a lot of people look forward to getting out and relaxing. Especially this year, with all the pent-up energy and COVID cabin-fever our country is feeling. And you’re here. According to Woody Allen, 80% of success is just showing up.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy about that. (Ps. 122:1) I rejoice with those who have demonstrated, there’s no better place to be this morning than the house of the Lord. But sometimes, and especially during the summer season when the attendance here tends to be a bit lighter than normal, we may begin to look at our worship like Woody Allen might. 80% of success is just showing up. And I showed up. Look at all the empty seats, and all the people who didn’t.

Now we would probably never admit that out loud. But there is a seed of that in each of us. A part of us that thinks that God should be happy that we at least showed up this Sunday.

For that reason alone, this text—this eye-opening vision from Isaiah 6—serves us well. This glimpse into what and who our Triune God is and does is exactly what we all need. So we begin where Isaiah does. Or rather where God has chosen to begin to reveal himself.

Isaiah gets down to brass tacks quickly. (Is 6:1) I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne and the train of his robe filled the temple. There is little that surprises us in this description. The Lord God is where we might expect him to be, on a throne in the temple. Except, the Temple—the one in Jerusalem—didn’t have a throne. Right off the bat, the Lord wants us to see something important. The Lord sits (Is. 6:1) on a throne. (Rev. 4:11) He is worthy to receive all glory and honor and power, for he created all things and by his will they were created and have their being. At the same time, Isaiah doesn’t actually see God. He sees that the Lord is seated on a throne, but the only thing he really sees is the hem of his robe. And that alone is enough to fill the whole Temple. This is good for Isaiah. Because when Moses asked to see the Lord’s glory, God told Moses that (Ex. 33:18-20) no one could not see the face of God and live.

And before Isaiah crosses that threshold, new divine figures enter the scene. Seraphim angels with six wings. A strange sight indeed. But it gets even more surreal. Because they don’t use all six wings for flying. (Is. 6:2) With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet. Then these divine servants, these heavenly messengers, break the silence and nearly bring the house down. (Is. 6:3) “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” These words have become familiar to us in our celebration of the Lord’s Supper, but in this case, they serve a different function. Instead of a song that paves the way for us to come close to God himself, to taste and see that the Lord is good, this song eclipses Isaiah’s already obscured vision of God. (Is. 6:4) The doorposts and the threshold shook. The very place that a person would have to enter to be in the presence of God quaked at the announcement of the holiness and glory of God. The temple itself (Is. 6:4) filled with smoke. And Isaiah was filled with inner dread.

(Is. 6:5) Woe to me! That reaction makes sense to us. Every time a sinful mortal sees an angel they are instantaneously filled with fear and dread. That’s how the shepherds in Bethlehem and the women at the tomb and so many others responded to the presence of angels. But what Isaiah says reveals that this is more than just fear about being in the presence of the holy and powerful seraphim angels. (Is. 6:5) “I am ruined! Ruined. Isaiah is experiencing spiritual destruction in real time. The kind of horror that leaves you almost catatonic. The kind of awful distress that robs you of any ability to respond or react.

Why? (Is. 6:5) For I am a man of unclean lips…and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Among the sins that shame and grieve us most, what we have said typically doesn’t rank as highly as what we have done. But in this moment, as he stands in the presence of God and hears the heavenly angels sing God’s praise, Isaiah is undone. His own unclean lips had wrecked himself. The things he had once said now haunted him. The way he talked about his God, his neighbors, and himself incriminated him in the divine courtroom. But it was more than just that.

(Is. 6:5) I live among a people of unclean lips. He had heard others lie and gossip, slander and use the Lord’s name in vain and he had said nothing or far too little. His speech and his silence had been self-serving and sinful. (Is. 6:4) Though the earth was full of his glory, Isaiah and his people had complained about how and where and when and why God showered his blessings upon them.

What’s more was how Isaiah had not used his lips in light of what he was now hearing. These angels were holy, perfect, heavenly beings. Yet, they readily recognized they were not holy enough to bare their faces or their feet in the presence of the Lord Almighty.

Are we any less ruined? Whom among us has kept a tight enough rein on our tongues? How many of us would be proud to see the transcripts of our past week? How many of us would share them with our loved ones? You might think of your struggle with vulgarities. That’s hardly holy speech. But even if we don’t drop four letter bombs in common conversations, are the subjects of our conversations holy—set apart for the Lord? All the gossip, the prejudiced remarks about complete strangers, the things and people we ridicule and criticize without once offering to help improve. We speak recklessly one moment. Arrogantly, the next. Our foolishness and haughtiness are hard to hide. Our lips lie and deceive. They destroy the reputations of those we don’t like and flatter the egos of those who might be able to help us in some way. We insert ourselves into arguments that have nothing to do with us, and they are suddenly mute when we should be rebuking another. What’s the common thread? Our lips are quick to serve ourselves.

Consider how quick we are to complain about so many trivial things in the house of God. We find this person’s habits or personality irritating. Have we forgotten that they are, just as we are, a part of the body of Christ? We find that song boring or tedious. It’s not my favorite, we say. Whose praises are we singing? Why are we here? Yet time and again, we long for a different style of worship, a different group to gather with, or something new or exciting to stir our imaginations or delight our senses. Have we completely forgotten where we are?

We lack a fear, awe, respect, and honor for the different-ness of God. He is holy, we are unholy. Our lips are unclean because their root, our hearts and our minds, are unclean. He is the Lord of hosts, we are people of weakness. The earth is full of his glory. Our lives are proof positive of our smallness, our lacking, and our ineffectiveness. We have failed our Father and deserve nothing more than his wrath and punishment. We have not just ruined some assignment, we have ruined ourselves.

And that is where our stories should end. (Is. 6:5) Woe to me! I am ruined! I have seen the King, the Lord Almighty and I cannot live. (Rm. 6:23) The wages of sin is death.

But ruined Isaiah does not die. Rather God sends the seraphim angels on a remarkable mission of mercy. First to the altar, where these fiery servants of the Lord Almighty do his bidding. (Is. 6:6) With the tongs they snatch up a live coal and fly to Isaiah and (Is. 6:7) touch his mouth. The living God, in love, reaches out and touches the unclean lips of a man in anguish over his own sin. Isaiah doesn’t ask for this, but God, out of pure grace, gifts Isaiah the full forgiveness of all his sins. Not just the ones he feels at this very moment. But the guilt that goes far beyond that. Every single time Isaiah missed the mark is covered by the mercy of God. The Lord Almighty himself accomplishes Isaiah's atonement.

What Isaiah experienced was anticipating God’s great atonement of all sinners. The Holy, holy holy Lord Almighty whose glory fills the whole earth, chose, purely out of his grace, to forgive our wickedness and cover our guilt with the lifeblood of his Christ. On Good Friday, God’s glory was revealed and the Temple shook and sinners were forgiven. That’s what happened at Jesus’ crucifixion, which Jesus describes as (Jn. 12:23) his hour of glory. The glorious Son of God took the place of disgraced sinners. The Lord Almighty became weak and vulnerable and died. The holy, holy, holy One of God became sin so that we would be made holy in God’s sight. Our goodness would never have been good enough. Only Christ’s sacrificial death atones for our sins. Jesus experienced the searing pain of hell so that our guilt might be taken away forever. God’s holiness and his love cooperate perfectly on the cross and we are gifted both, by faith.

It is at this point, that the Holy Trinity finally speaks up. Isaiah hears from the Lord Almighty. (Is. 6:8) “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

Of course it is remarkable how God speaks about himself—in both the singular and the plural. This would be confusing, if it were not utterly consistent with the rest of Scripture. We fear, love, and trust in a three-persons-in-one God. But what is most striking is what God asks. (Is. 6:8) Whom shall I send? The seraphim angels would be far more qualified candidates. But they have not been chosen for this task—as much as they would love to be. God has chosen sinful people to be his mouthpiece. Men and women of unclean hearts and minds and lips who have experienced their guilt being taken away and their sins being atoned for are now sent out into the world to speak of the holiness, the glory, and the grace of God.

God has called us to that same task. Our speaking is different to be sure. God has not called any of us to speak for him as his prophet Isaiah did. But we are compelled to speak. Because we have seen God’s holiness. We have encountered his glory. We have experienced his undeserved love. What more can we say than Here am I! Send me!? And he does. The Lord of hosts sends you, (1 Pt. 2:9) members of his royal priesthood, citizens of his holy nation, pieces of God’s special possession that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were unclean and unholy. Now you have have been cleansed in the blood of Christ and made holy by the righteousness credited to all who believe in his name. Once you were ruined. But, by God’s grace, you have been redeemed. And you have been made ready. Who will go out into this world for our Triune God? What more can we say? Here am I! Send me! Send me! Amen.