It's a mystery
Commentary
Object:
One of the most delightful movies I have seen in a while was Shakespeare in Love, which won the Oscar for the best movie that year. One of the favorite lines throughout the movie was, "I don't know. It's a mystery."
And that's what I feel like saying every time Trinity Sunday comes around: "I don't know. It's a mystery."
Isn't that, in a way, what even Jesus is saying when he speaks of the wind or Spirit? The wind, like the Spirit, is a mystery. You cannot comprehend it or control it. The wind goes where it will (v. 8). So does the Spirit.
The doctrine of the trinity is an attempt to explain a mystery that is, in the final analysis, unexplainable.
That's not such a bad thing. That is, I think, an expression of faith and sound theology. For how can we ever fully explain God? If we could, would God be God? There is always a hiddenness about God, a mystery. I think that is part of what's wonderful about God and our relationship with God.
"I don't know. It's a mystery." That's not a bad thing for us to affirm this Trinity Sunday and each day.
Isaiah 6:1-8
Isaiah 6:1 through at least 8:18 forms a memoir Isaiah shared with the whole world. It's really his own personal call to ministry. What he is sharing is deeply personal but something that made him who he was, determined his identity and place or work in the world.
His calling was within the scope of what was going on in his nation and world. Isaiah was called at a critical time in the history of his people -- the events leading to the Syro-Ephraimite War (when Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel banded together against Judah) and the pressure being placed on King Ahaz. These two kingdoms wanted Judah to join them in rebellion against Assyria but Judah was reluctant to do so and Isaiah will tell Ahaz not to listen to them as they will not last very long. Isaiah assures him he has nothing to fear. Ahaz doesn't listen. Isaiah's task, in other words, would not be an easy one (see verse 9ff, not in today's reading). It would be a word of judgment on a wayward nation and government. Many would oppose him. Prophets are not without honor except in their own countries. They are not the most popular of people.
Verses 1-3. The setting for Isaiah's call is most likely the temple in Jerusalem. From the description, Isaiah appears to be looking through the entranceway into the main aula of the temple. Why is he there? By what right? Perhaps he is already a priest serving there, as many scholars think, or maybe he was a court official of some kind.
Isaiah has a vision. The temple had become the throne room for God. God was high and lifted up on a throne and the train of God's robe filled the whole room. What a vision! Isaiah felt himself in the presence of God.
Earthly kings always had servants and bodyguards standing by. Likewise, Isaiah sees "seraphs," God's servants or attendants. They seem to be serpent-like creatures with three pair of wings but human hands and feet. They fly and they sing. Such creatures were often seen or used in Egyptian royal symbolism as the bodyguards of the king (some in the form of a winged cobra). But as far as we know there were actually no images of seraphim in the temple itself.
The seraphim are singing a song of praise to God: "Holy, holy, holy," which you might recall is the title of a popular hymn we use today. Many scholars believe what Isaiah is hearing, if he is indeed having this vision in a worship service, is the choral antiphon or song, or at least associated with the music used in the temple. The song sings of the majesty, mystery, power, and worthiness of God to be praised. Indeed, God's glory is such that it fills the earth. God's greatness can be seen everywhere if we look.
Verses 4-8. The voices from the choir and the seraphim and the incense all combined to make the prophet feel the temple or whole earth shake, tremble perhaps as a way of also praising God. So it's no wonder that the prophet himself begins to shake and tremble as well! The prophet has an intense fear that he is a sinner and not worthy to be in the presence of God. It might well be his doom! Perhaps he had sensed for some time this call from God but had felt and still did that his lips were unworthy of such a task as being God's messenger. He is certainly aware that he's not alone in his unworthiness and sin because all the nation is sinful. None are worthy of being God's people, God's servants.
Such a humble and repentant attitude was just what was needed. It led to his cleansing, shown here by one of the seraphs flying over and touching the prophet's lips with a coal from one of the censers. Fire purges and purifies. His sin is taken away, so that he is now ready to speak, to serve as God's messenger. He is empowered to fulfill his calling.
Then Isaiah hears God's voice asking who he can send to these sinful people. Without hesitation Isaiah says, like so many before and after him, "Here I am; send me."
Romans 8:12-17
The Christian has been given a life on another level -- the level of the Spirit -- and must seek to live on that level. It's explained here as living as God's children. Because the Spirit dwells within us, we are God's own children. So we can call upon God as our heavenly parent and look forward to a share in a great inheritance.
Verses 12-13 really sum up and build on what has gone before this. Paul addresses them in more friendly, intimate terms as "friends" or "brothers and sisters." They are free now from the domination of sin, the lower nature, and even from death. But they can fall back into it and that would mean death to them. What Paul seems to have in mind is going back to living in the flesh, sarx, following the way of the lower nature, the way that does not follow Christ and the leading of the Spirit. Such actions or lifestyles are listed in Galatians 5:19-20. All of these must be put to death. Refusing to go back to that way of life, with the help of the Spirit, then results in true life, life as God intended it to be.
Verses 14-17 explain the nature of this new life given in and by the Spirit. We are sons and daughters of God. The Spirit makes us this. The Spirit creates a whole new relationship with God. Paul fears, however, that they might forget their new and exalted status, they might go back to dependence on the law for their justification and that would be slavery, he says, and to doom themselves to a life of fear, never really knowing for certain if they were right with God. But that is not their birthright. The Spirit gives them an assurance of being loved and accepted by God as children, not based on who they are or what they have done or not done, but based solely on the free grace and love of God.
We come to God just as we are, experiencing the unconditional love and acceptance of God. We do not and cannot stay the way we are. God's love changes us. The presence of the Spirit within us loves us away from the old life, the old values and priorities, replacing them with the values and example of Christ, but all of this is a result of our acceptance and not a requirement for receiving it.
Knowing such love and having the presence of the Spirit, we are able to call upon God as "Abba," or "Father." It is very much the word a child would use for her dad. It's an intimate word, a word that shows a close and loving relationship with God. This is what Christ desires for us to have with God. It is our birthright. We were created for such a relationship, but sin broke it. Christ restores it through the power of the Spirit. Then, working in us, the Spirit enables us to call upon God as a heavenly parent, really knowing and feeling that God loves us like a parent, even more so -- like the most loving parent we could ever have. The Spirit keeps working to assure us that we are children of God.
Because we are God's children, we are heirs and joint heirs with Christ. We stand to inherit all the things one might receive being an heir of God! This does not include only material things but more spiritual things. The greatest inheritance is the presence of God, that is, knowing God each and every day. What greater thing can God give us than God's own self? Yet, this inheritance also includes eternal life -- life always in the presence of God.
John 3:1-17
John 3:1-21 is a series of dialogues between Jesus and a Pharisee named Nicodemus who witnessed some of the signs/miracles Jesus had been doing (John chs. 1-2) and came to Jesus at night curious about just who this man was.
In this encounter with Nicodemus, we see the new confronting the old, as the new wine Jesus just made replaces the old. Nicodemus is a teacher of Israel, a theologian, an expert in the laws and traditions of Judaism. He is a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin -- their supreme court. If ever there was an expert in the Jewish faith, then Nicodemus was that.
Nicodemus was curious about Jesus. Here was a whole new movement. Nicodemus had heard things, seen things, but now wanted to meet Jesus personally and see for himself what Jesus was all about.
Many have made much of the fact that he came to Jesus at night, as if in shame or so no one could see him. We do not know why he came at night. Maybe it was for some or all these reasons. The important thing is that he did come to Jesus. As we know, he would to some extent stay with Jesus to the very end, even helping arrange for the burial of Jesus.
As learned as Nicodemus was, Jesus in essence tells him that he needs to make a whole new beginning. What's needed now is not new information, new laws to follow, but a whole new birth, a new start, a new orientation to God. It can only be compared to a whole new birth.
Impossible! Nicodemus says, thinking only in physical terms. Jesus is thinking of spiritual rebirth or regeneration -- coming to a whole new understanding and experience of how God relates to us and works in our lives. This would be the way of grace and love, not works and law. All of this was what God was bringing about in the life and teaching of Jesus. This would be as difficult for Nicodemus to experience and understand as labor pains. He could not grasp it.
This wondrous new work of God was already happening as John the Baptist was preaching repentance and then giving baptism. But more than water was needed. One also had to be awash in the Spirit or born of the Spirit (v. 5). This gift is only given by John's successor, Jesus. (Who John said of himself, "I wash or baptize you with water, but the one coming after me will baptize you in the Holy Spirit.") Christ restores our fellowship with God, so that God's own Spirit lives within us (as Paul says in the epistle reading for today).
Jesus is simply inviting Nicodemus to do what his other disciples had done -- to take the baptism of repentance John offered, then come and follow him in the new order God was creating through him.
Then perhaps a night breeze blows through the place they are that evening and Jesus uses that to further explain what he means. "This is a mystery. I know it is hard to understand. So is the wind that we feel right now. It comes and goes as it wishes. We cannot see it but we feel its presence and see its power. Likewise, this new thing God is doing, which you need so much, is the work of God's Spirit. You may not see the Spirit, but, if you open your heart and mind, you will feel the presence and power of the Spirit moving in your life, making you a new person."
The heart of this passage is verses 14-16. Jesus makes reference to the Numbers account of the bronze serpent, how it was lifted up and those who looked up in faith to the God who had commanded it be made were then healed, given life. Likewise, when Christ is lifted up (the Greek word here for "lifted up" is hupsoun, which means both lifted up on the cross and lifted up to glory -- ascension) those who also look up in faith or who "believe in him" will receive not just life but eternal life.
Verses 17-21. But God's gift of love in Christ also brings judgment, though this is not why Jesus came (v. 17). Jesus came to bring life, salvation, light, and truth. But in doing so how one reacts to Jesus brings condemnation or salvation. In Jesus the love and grace of God comes into our world. That presents us with a choice, a decision. Will we believe God loves us? Will we accept it? Will we then let that love flow through us and in everything we do? To believe is to live. To not choose or to reject is to close ourselves off from the life and love God gives in Christ.
Application
(walk in front of the congregation carrying a cell phone)
Can anyone tell me what this is? (hold up the phone)
What's it used for? (let them respond)
Yes, people can call you and you can call and talk to them, right?
It's exciting getting a call, well, sometimes, especially if it's someone you really want to talk with, right?
In our Bible lesson today we saw how a young man named Isaiah got a call too -- except his call was from God. No, it wasn't on a phone that looked like this. In a place of worship like this one he heard God calling him, asking him to be a servant for God, to use his life to serve God and God's people. When Isaiah answered he said, "Here I am…"
God still calls us. God calls you, too, to service, to loving God and others. Maybe you will hear that call today in this place or sometime in a place like this. Or it could come to you most anytime and place. Maybe it will be when you grow up some and begin to discover what your gifts are, what abilities God has given you that you can use to serve God and others in the world.
(Here you may wish to share your own call story or sense of it, or that of others you have known).
(Have someone dial the cell number of your phone and it will ring. Answer it. Say to everyone, "It's for you… God calling. Amen.")
Alternative Application
"... I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of God's robe filled the temple..." (Isaiah 6:1).
Isaiah looked up...
That is our first and most important act when we gather for worship... to look up... not down or around, consumed with our own thoughts or situations but come longing for and looking for and expecting to see a fresh glimpse of the Creator, the holy God who made us and all things.
In worship, heads must not be nodding down in sleep but gazing upward in great expectation of seeing God, catching a glimpse of that holy hem that still fills each temple in which God is truly worshiped.
For when you look up, when you catch that glimpse of God, it changes the way you see everything else. Challenges do not seem so insurmountable. Light begins to come into the dark, scary places. We do not feel so alone because we've looked up and been reminded that God is with us.
"Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips..." (Isaiah 6:5).
Isaiah looked in....
It can be a most disturbing experience when you do get a glimpse of God, when God's presence becomes real to you. You begin to see yourself in a different light. In the holy presence of God Isaiah became keenly aware of his sinfulness, and how short he fell of who God would have him be.
Who likes a mirror thrown before them that reflects the true condition of their souls? Who likes to be shown exactly who and what they are? Yet, that is precisely what we need: the truth about ourselves. Only then can we truly and fully receive the cleaning, the forgiveness that Isaiah received.
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 6:8).
Isaiah looked out....
Isaiah went from a life-changing vision of God, to an experience of conviction and forgiveness, and then he could not help but notice that he lived also "among a people of unclean lips...." He volunteered to be God's messenger to them.
True worship always moves from looking up and in to looking out and going out to a world that God created and God loves... to helping others begin to look up and in themselves. Indeed, we cannot truly look up and in without then looking out, going out... one just follows the other as surely as night follows the day.
And that's what I feel like saying every time Trinity Sunday comes around: "I don't know. It's a mystery."
Isn't that, in a way, what even Jesus is saying when he speaks of the wind or Spirit? The wind, like the Spirit, is a mystery. You cannot comprehend it or control it. The wind goes where it will (v. 8). So does the Spirit.
The doctrine of the trinity is an attempt to explain a mystery that is, in the final analysis, unexplainable.
That's not such a bad thing. That is, I think, an expression of faith and sound theology. For how can we ever fully explain God? If we could, would God be God? There is always a hiddenness about God, a mystery. I think that is part of what's wonderful about God and our relationship with God.
"I don't know. It's a mystery." That's not a bad thing for us to affirm this Trinity Sunday and each day.
Isaiah 6:1-8
Isaiah 6:1 through at least 8:18 forms a memoir Isaiah shared with the whole world. It's really his own personal call to ministry. What he is sharing is deeply personal but something that made him who he was, determined his identity and place or work in the world.
His calling was within the scope of what was going on in his nation and world. Isaiah was called at a critical time in the history of his people -- the events leading to the Syro-Ephraimite War (when Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel banded together against Judah) and the pressure being placed on King Ahaz. These two kingdoms wanted Judah to join them in rebellion against Assyria but Judah was reluctant to do so and Isaiah will tell Ahaz not to listen to them as they will not last very long. Isaiah assures him he has nothing to fear. Ahaz doesn't listen. Isaiah's task, in other words, would not be an easy one (see verse 9ff, not in today's reading). It would be a word of judgment on a wayward nation and government. Many would oppose him. Prophets are not without honor except in their own countries. They are not the most popular of people.
Verses 1-3. The setting for Isaiah's call is most likely the temple in Jerusalem. From the description, Isaiah appears to be looking through the entranceway into the main aula of the temple. Why is he there? By what right? Perhaps he is already a priest serving there, as many scholars think, or maybe he was a court official of some kind.
Isaiah has a vision. The temple had become the throne room for God. God was high and lifted up on a throne and the train of God's robe filled the whole room. What a vision! Isaiah felt himself in the presence of God.
Earthly kings always had servants and bodyguards standing by. Likewise, Isaiah sees "seraphs," God's servants or attendants. They seem to be serpent-like creatures with three pair of wings but human hands and feet. They fly and they sing. Such creatures were often seen or used in Egyptian royal symbolism as the bodyguards of the king (some in the form of a winged cobra). But as far as we know there were actually no images of seraphim in the temple itself.
The seraphim are singing a song of praise to God: "Holy, holy, holy," which you might recall is the title of a popular hymn we use today. Many scholars believe what Isaiah is hearing, if he is indeed having this vision in a worship service, is the choral antiphon or song, or at least associated with the music used in the temple. The song sings of the majesty, mystery, power, and worthiness of God to be praised. Indeed, God's glory is such that it fills the earth. God's greatness can be seen everywhere if we look.
Verses 4-8. The voices from the choir and the seraphim and the incense all combined to make the prophet feel the temple or whole earth shake, tremble perhaps as a way of also praising God. So it's no wonder that the prophet himself begins to shake and tremble as well! The prophet has an intense fear that he is a sinner and not worthy to be in the presence of God. It might well be his doom! Perhaps he had sensed for some time this call from God but had felt and still did that his lips were unworthy of such a task as being God's messenger. He is certainly aware that he's not alone in his unworthiness and sin because all the nation is sinful. None are worthy of being God's people, God's servants.
Such a humble and repentant attitude was just what was needed. It led to his cleansing, shown here by one of the seraphs flying over and touching the prophet's lips with a coal from one of the censers. Fire purges and purifies. His sin is taken away, so that he is now ready to speak, to serve as God's messenger. He is empowered to fulfill his calling.
Then Isaiah hears God's voice asking who he can send to these sinful people. Without hesitation Isaiah says, like so many before and after him, "Here I am; send me."
Romans 8:12-17
The Christian has been given a life on another level -- the level of the Spirit -- and must seek to live on that level. It's explained here as living as God's children. Because the Spirit dwells within us, we are God's own children. So we can call upon God as our heavenly parent and look forward to a share in a great inheritance.
Verses 12-13 really sum up and build on what has gone before this. Paul addresses them in more friendly, intimate terms as "friends" or "brothers and sisters." They are free now from the domination of sin, the lower nature, and even from death. But they can fall back into it and that would mean death to them. What Paul seems to have in mind is going back to living in the flesh, sarx, following the way of the lower nature, the way that does not follow Christ and the leading of the Spirit. Such actions or lifestyles are listed in Galatians 5:19-20. All of these must be put to death. Refusing to go back to that way of life, with the help of the Spirit, then results in true life, life as God intended it to be.
Verses 14-17 explain the nature of this new life given in and by the Spirit. We are sons and daughters of God. The Spirit makes us this. The Spirit creates a whole new relationship with God. Paul fears, however, that they might forget their new and exalted status, they might go back to dependence on the law for their justification and that would be slavery, he says, and to doom themselves to a life of fear, never really knowing for certain if they were right with God. But that is not their birthright. The Spirit gives them an assurance of being loved and accepted by God as children, not based on who they are or what they have done or not done, but based solely on the free grace and love of God.
We come to God just as we are, experiencing the unconditional love and acceptance of God. We do not and cannot stay the way we are. God's love changes us. The presence of the Spirit within us loves us away from the old life, the old values and priorities, replacing them with the values and example of Christ, but all of this is a result of our acceptance and not a requirement for receiving it.
Knowing such love and having the presence of the Spirit, we are able to call upon God as "Abba," or "Father." It is very much the word a child would use for her dad. It's an intimate word, a word that shows a close and loving relationship with God. This is what Christ desires for us to have with God. It is our birthright. We were created for such a relationship, but sin broke it. Christ restores it through the power of the Spirit. Then, working in us, the Spirit enables us to call upon God as a heavenly parent, really knowing and feeling that God loves us like a parent, even more so -- like the most loving parent we could ever have. The Spirit keeps working to assure us that we are children of God.
Because we are God's children, we are heirs and joint heirs with Christ. We stand to inherit all the things one might receive being an heir of God! This does not include only material things but more spiritual things. The greatest inheritance is the presence of God, that is, knowing God each and every day. What greater thing can God give us than God's own self? Yet, this inheritance also includes eternal life -- life always in the presence of God.
John 3:1-17
John 3:1-21 is a series of dialogues between Jesus and a Pharisee named Nicodemus who witnessed some of the signs/miracles Jesus had been doing (John chs. 1-2) and came to Jesus at night curious about just who this man was.
In this encounter with Nicodemus, we see the new confronting the old, as the new wine Jesus just made replaces the old. Nicodemus is a teacher of Israel, a theologian, an expert in the laws and traditions of Judaism. He is a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin -- their supreme court. If ever there was an expert in the Jewish faith, then Nicodemus was that.
Nicodemus was curious about Jesus. Here was a whole new movement. Nicodemus had heard things, seen things, but now wanted to meet Jesus personally and see for himself what Jesus was all about.
Many have made much of the fact that he came to Jesus at night, as if in shame or so no one could see him. We do not know why he came at night. Maybe it was for some or all these reasons. The important thing is that he did come to Jesus. As we know, he would to some extent stay with Jesus to the very end, even helping arrange for the burial of Jesus.
As learned as Nicodemus was, Jesus in essence tells him that he needs to make a whole new beginning. What's needed now is not new information, new laws to follow, but a whole new birth, a new start, a new orientation to God. It can only be compared to a whole new birth.
Impossible! Nicodemus says, thinking only in physical terms. Jesus is thinking of spiritual rebirth or regeneration -- coming to a whole new understanding and experience of how God relates to us and works in our lives. This would be the way of grace and love, not works and law. All of this was what God was bringing about in the life and teaching of Jesus. This would be as difficult for Nicodemus to experience and understand as labor pains. He could not grasp it.
This wondrous new work of God was already happening as John the Baptist was preaching repentance and then giving baptism. But more than water was needed. One also had to be awash in the Spirit or born of the Spirit (v. 5). This gift is only given by John's successor, Jesus. (Who John said of himself, "I wash or baptize you with water, but the one coming after me will baptize you in the Holy Spirit.") Christ restores our fellowship with God, so that God's own Spirit lives within us (as Paul says in the epistle reading for today).
Jesus is simply inviting Nicodemus to do what his other disciples had done -- to take the baptism of repentance John offered, then come and follow him in the new order God was creating through him.
Then perhaps a night breeze blows through the place they are that evening and Jesus uses that to further explain what he means. "This is a mystery. I know it is hard to understand. So is the wind that we feel right now. It comes and goes as it wishes. We cannot see it but we feel its presence and see its power. Likewise, this new thing God is doing, which you need so much, is the work of God's Spirit. You may not see the Spirit, but, if you open your heart and mind, you will feel the presence and power of the Spirit moving in your life, making you a new person."
The heart of this passage is verses 14-16. Jesus makes reference to the Numbers account of the bronze serpent, how it was lifted up and those who looked up in faith to the God who had commanded it be made were then healed, given life. Likewise, when Christ is lifted up (the Greek word here for "lifted up" is hupsoun, which means both lifted up on the cross and lifted up to glory -- ascension) those who also look up in faith or who "believe in him" will receive not just life but eternal life.
Verses 17-21. But God's gift of love in Christ also brings judgment, though this is not why Jesus came (v. 17). Jesus came to bring life, salvation, light, and truth. But in doing so how one reacts to Jesus brings condemnation or salvation. In Jesus the love and grace of God comes into our world. That presents us with a choice, a decision. Will we believe God loves us? Will we accept it? Will we then let that love flow through us and in everything we do? To believe is to live. To not choose or to reject is to close ourselves off from the life and love God gives in Christ.
Application
(walk in front of the congregation carrying a cell phone)
Can anyone tell me what this is? (hold up the phone)
What's it used for? (let them respond)
Yes, people can call you and you can call and talk to them, right?
It's exciting getting a call, well, sometimes, especially if it's someone you really want to talk with, right?
In our Bible lesson today we saw how a young man named Isaiah got a call too -- except his call was from God. No, it wasn't on a phone that looked like this. In a place of worship like this one he heard God calling him, asking him to be a servant for God, to use his life to serve God and God's people. When Isaiah answered he said, "Here I am…"
God still calls us. God calls you, too, to service, to loving God and others. Maybe you will hear that call today in this place or sometime in a place like this. Or it could come to you most anytime and place. Maybe it will be when you grow up some and begin to discover what your gifts are, what abilities God has given you that you can use to serve God and others in the world.
(Here you may wish to share your own call story or sense of it, or that of others you have known).
(Have someone dial the cell number of your phone and it will ring. Answer it. Say to everyone, "It's for you… God calling. Amen.")
Alternative Application
"... I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of God's robe filled the temple..." (Isaiah 6:1).
Isaiah looked up...
That is our first and most important act when we gather for worship... to look up... not down or around, consumed with our own thoughts or situations but come longing for and looking for and expecting to see a fresh glimpse of the Creator, the holy God who made us and all things.
In worship, heads must not be nodding down in sleep but gazing upward in great expectation of seeing God, catching a glimpse of that holy hem that still fills each temple in which God is truly worshiped.
For when you look up, when you catch that glimpse of God, it changes the way you see everything else. Challenges do not seem so insurmountable. Light begins to come into the dark, scary places. We do not feel so alone because we've looked up and been reminded that God is with us.
"Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips..." (Isaiah 6:5).
Isaiah looked in....
It can be a most disturbing experience when you do get a glimpse of God, when God's presence becomes real to you. You begin to see yourself in a different light. In the holy presence of God Isaiah became keenly aware of his sinfulness, and how short he fell of who God would have him be.
Who likes a mirror thrown before them that reflects the true condition of their souls? Who likes to be shown exactly who and what they are? Yet, that is precisely what we need: the truth about ourselves. Only then can we truly and fully receive the cleaning, the forgiveness that Isaiah received.
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 6:8).
Isaiah looked out....
Isaiah went from a life-changing vision of God, to an experience of conviction and forgiveness, and then he could not help but notice that he lived also "among a people of unclean lips...." He volunteered to be God's messenger to them.
True worship always moves from looking up and in to looking out and going out to a world that God created and God loves... to helping others begin to look up and in themselves. Indeed, we cannot truly look up and in without then looking out, going out... one just follows the other as surely as night follows the day.
