“Majesty”
Isaiah 6:1-8, [9-13]
Psalm 138
I Corinthians 15:1=11
St. Luke 5:1-11
INI
Beauty
This morning I am going to devote myself to the first reading for today – the commissioning of the prophet Isaiah, as recorded by the first of the Isaiah’s. To me it is a scene of incredible beauty – the vision of the God of Hosts in the Temple/Palace, with Seraphim (literally “burning ones”) flying about, attending to the Sovereign and hymning him with holy words. Isaiah’s description of these beings, these fiery ones, with wings covering their faces, for it was not possible to look upon God, and another pair covering their body, and the final pair available for flight make us realize that the importance of their attendance with their voice – their word. This ought to be a familiar theme – one that we know from the Prologue to John, “And the word became flesh.”
Luther took this passage and formed the Sanctus in his Deutsche Messe – his German Mass, where the hymn on the seraphim, the burning ones, becomes the Sanctus sung at the mass. It’s all encapsulated in a hymn he wrote – “Isaiah Mighty Seer in Days of Old.” At the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saint Luke in Chicago, where I did my intern year, we had a Eucharist for staff and children of the school on Wednesdays, and often we would sing this hymn as the Sanctus. Imagine 300 plus treble voices singing:
Holy, is God the Lord of Sabaoth,
Holy, is God the Lord of Sabaoth,
Holy, is God the Lord of Sabaoth,
Behold his glory filleth all the Earth.
Often it left me with my knees quaking, as I made a profound bow at the words. The children’s voices, and the holiness and majesty of God made for a perfect combination.
Isaiah, perhaps present at the enthronement ceremony of Jotham, the king who followed the King Uzziah, saw in the present reality the heavenly reality that would become a part of his message. The beauty and power of God convince him of several things, some of which lead to a new understanding of himself, and others which move him to a message he is to proclaim. That is, I hope, what motivates us here, as we sing, as we pray, as we do liturgy, so that we might become the word – the message.
Reality
There is, however, a reality that is quite beyond and behind Isaiah’s experience. The first reality is that the excellence of Uzziah’s reign would be superseded by the growing threat of the Assyrian Empire, and by Israel’s forsaking of its relationship with YHWH, its God and its patron. The situation that Isaiah’s sees amongst the people he first divines in his own soul and body. His reaction to the beauty of the scene in the Temple/Palace is a contrast to the scene: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” He and the people are lost, and the reality is that God has judged them and found them wanting. This, the prophet sees in himself.
What follows is an equally compelling scene, where the seraph flies to the altar with a pair of tongs, takes from the altar a burning coal, and with it touches the prophet’s mouth. Something is burned away in the process, for the seraph announces and absolution: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out." It must have been an excruciating pardon, and it left its mark. I think it left its mark in the same way that the crucifixion of Jesus leaves its mark. A scene of horror becomes the reality of redemption and forgiveness.
The Russian poet, Alexander Pushkin, was also moved by this scene, and wrote a poem about it, called “The Prophet”. I’d like to read it to you, because he graphically takes the scene of forgiveness, and moves it to a place beyond.
My spirit was athirst for grace.
I wandered in a darkling land
And at a crossing of the ways
Beheld a six-wing'd Seraph stand.
With fingers light as dream at night
He brushed my eyes and they grew bright
Opening unto prophecies
Wild as a startled eagle's eyes.
He touched my ears, and noise and sound
Poured into me from all around:
I heard the shudders of the sky,
The sweep of angel hosts on high,
The creep of beasts below in the seas,
The seep of sap in valley trees.
And leaning to my lips he wrung
Thereout my sinful slithered tongue
Of guile and idle caviling;
And with his bloody fingertips
He set between my wasting lips
A Serpent's wise and forkèd sting.
And with his sword he cleft my chest
And ripped my quaking heart out whole,
And in my sundered breast he cast
A blazing shard of living coal.
There in the desert I lay dead
Until the voice from heaven said:
"Arise O Prophet! Work My will,
Thou that hast now perceived and heard.
On land and sea thy charge fulfill
And burn Man's heart with this My Word."
Not just a tongue, but the heart as well – touched with living fire. The whole of the body is cut asunder in order that something new might be placed within. In the Ancient Near East when a covenant was made, the sacrificial animals were cut into two halves, and the agents of the covenant walked through their midst – both participating in their sacrifice and blood. So, Pushkin sees us cut asunder and something new put in its place. “And burn Man’s heart with this My Word.”
Now the prophet is ready for the call, “Whom shall I send , and who will go for us?” And the prophet responds ecstatically, “Here I am, send me!” The message that is given is even more difficult, however. It is one that battles the mind. Following the forgiveness and call given to Isaiah, one expects the same for the people, but God does not see it that way. This is final justice – a final reckoning. The words of this call are hard for us to hear, for we are the people:
So, the judgment has been rendered and nothing is to remain. It is like Noah and the Flood – all is to be destroyed. This was Isaiah’s present reality, for soon Israel would be laid waste by Assyria, and much later Judah by Babylon. These were the agents of the Lord’s judgment.
Majesty
In the final verses of the reading we meet a theme that Isaiah will expand on in the next chapters and verses of his oracles. It is the notion of the remnant. He writes: “Even if a tenth part remain in it (the destroyed cities and land) it will be burned again, like a terebinth, or an oak, whose stump remains standing when it is felled.” And now here it comes, a final dose of majesty, for those living in desperation and sorrow. “The holy seed is its stump.”
In my own personal ecclesiastical history and journey this is a poignant symbol. When all is lost, there is still the sprout that is left – a new tree – a new terebinth. We know this in the reality of our own forests, and it has been taught to us by the peoples who lived there before we took the land from them. The fire renews the woods. The fire makes possible the new growth. Smoky was wrong! What is it that we must burn away or prune? What is it that obstructs our return to God? What is it that convinces us that we are not worthy?
I wish we had a ceremony in which we could all have our lips touched with God’s grace and finger – in which we realized the majesty of our own message of grace, seen in Jesus’ life, and seen in our own. It’s time for a vision – its time for a new sight. It’s time for all of us to shout, “Here I am – send me!” Our redemption is our majesty.
SDG
