Sinners ministering to sinners
Commentary
This Sunday's lessons pair two call narratives: that of Isaiah the prophet and that of Simon Peter the apostle. Sandwiched between them, we have Paul's words concerning eyewitness testimony to the things of first importance in our faith. Overall, then, there is a theme of witness, a presentation of how ordinary human beings function in the revelation of God's word to the world.
There is a new commentary on Luke's Gospel coming out from Eerdmans. It is written by Joel Green and will be published in the New International Greek New Testament series. You may want to save a few pennies to buy this one. I checked my "sneak preview" advance copy on the Gospel lesson for this day (Luke 5:1-11) and noticed that Green helpfully compares it to our Old Testament reading from Isaiah 6. He describes a "type scene" that presents the stories in these two texts as parallel:
Isaiah 6:1-4
epiphany
Luke 5:4-7
Isaiah 6:5
reaction
Luke 5:8
Isaiah 6:7
reassurance
Luke 5:10b
Isaiah 6:8-10
commission
Luke 5:10b
It would almost make a good sermon outline. If only there were three parts instead of four!
Central to the first lesson and the Gospel is the awareness of human frailty (represented as "sin") that a genuine epiphany produces. Equating humanity with sinfulness is not a popular concept these days. When I was a college student, I attended a career development center and, after taking the standard tests, had a fairly routine interview with the psychologist who was up for that day. As far as I know, he had no relationship with the church or with Christianity. At some point, for some reason, I said, "I know that I'm a sinner ..." His eyes grew wide and he sat up straight. I thought, "Oops, now he's going to take that to mean that I have low self-esteem or something." So I went on: "I don't mean that I think I'm an especially bad person. I just mean that I'm a sinner like all people are sinners."
Now he almost exploded. "What?! All people are sinners? All people? How can you say that? You don't even know me! Do you think that I'm a sinner, when you don't even know anything about me?" At that point, my eyes drifted over to his desk, where I saw a tall stack of books with orange covers, about twelve of them, all titled I'm Okay, You're Okay. Then, I knew I was in over my head.
Isaiah 6:1-8 (9-13)
The prophet has a vision in which he sees the Lord in the temple, yet he describes only the throne, the robe, the angelic attendants ... everything but the Lord. Such reticence is typical of the respect biblical writers have for the majesty of God. One sees and yet one does not see. The author of John's gospel certainly knew this passage, yet he could confidently write, "No one has ever seen God" (John 1:18).
God's grandeur is so great that even the seraphs must cover their faces. Even they are unable to look directly upon the Lord. How much more wonderful, then, is the blessing reserved for the pure in heart (Matthew 5:8) or the promise from last week's lessons that we will "see face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12), or from next week's that through Christ we may already behold God with "unveiled faces" (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Why do the seraphs cover their feet? It seems a bit odd. Most commentators connect this to a "hiding of nakedness" (cf. Genesis 3:7), since the Hebrew word "feet" is sometimes used as a euphemism for genitals. But why would seraphs, presumably unaffected by the fall of humanity, have to hide their nakedness?
We hear that not only the temple but the whole earth is full of God's glory (v. 3). And awareness of divine glory brings instantly an awareness of sin. Verse 5, then, provides the closest parallel to our Gospel text (Luke 5:8). Awareness of God inevitably brings awareness of us, and the results of the comparison are usually obvious. Preachers! If you want your parishioners to acknowledge that they are sinners, don't tell them how bad they are. Tell them how good God is. Reveal God's glory, and see whether they can't figure the rest out for themselves.
Notably (pop psychologists, take note!) Isaiah does not mean to identify himself as an especially bad person. Probably a priest, he had, if anything, reason to believe he was better than most. "I am a man of unclean lips," he says, "and I live among a people of unclean lips." Pretension, deception, all the disguises that religion offers fall away. And he is left to confess, "I'm just a sinner like everyone else."
Then Isaiah receives an unexpected (indeed, unre-quested!) gift of forgiveness. Pure grace. No penance, no sacrifice, no amendment of life, just a pure, unmotivated gift of divine grace. Then he responds, "Here am I; send me!"
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
The fifteenth chapter of Paul's letter to the Corinthians treats the theme of resurrection. Next week, we will learn why the subject is important to Paul -- Christ has been raised as the first fruits of those who have died. Faith in his resurrection is intimately connected to hope in the life to come.
The verses appointed for this Sunday introduce that discussion with an almost creedal summary of the gospel Paul preached. They are prized as the earliest testimony to these events in the life of Jesus. (Paul writes decades before the first Gospel was written.) He regards three things as of "first importance": the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
The significance of the first and the third may be obvious, but why is Christ's burial elevated to such a level? For one thing, the burial emphasizes the reality of the death and thus also of the resurrection. But the burial of Christ also took on symbolic import for Paul, signifying baptism (see Romans 6).
Paul also provides the Bible's most detailed list of eyewitnesses to Christ's resurrection. The list is impressive but not comprehensive. Notably, he omits the women. According to the Synoptic Gospels, women were the only Christian witnesses to Christ's death and burial and the first witnesses to his resurrection. Luke 24:11 may provide a clue as to why Paul excludes them. Their gender marked them for many as unreliable sources.
Paul makes a couple of other interesting moves. First, he includes himself in the list of those to whom the risen Christ appeared. From the account in Luke-Acts, we might gather that Paul's experience on the Damascus road was of a different order than the more physical encounters between Jesus and his followers in the days before his Ascension. Second, Paul describes Jesus' appearance to him as "last of all" (v. 8). In other words, his visionary apprehension of Christ counts as a legitimate resurrection appearance, but subsequent visionary experiences that others may claim to have do not. To his credit, however, he accepts the label "least" as well as "last" (v. 9).
Politics aside, the historical reality of these events form the basis for what Paul and the Corinthians call "good news." This is not only the good news that Paul proclaimed -- it is also the good news that the Corinthians received, the good news in which they stood, to which they held firmly, through which they were saved (vv. 1-2). This is important stuff.
Luke 5:1-11
Luke likes to demonstrate the proper response to significant events.
When he narrates the birth of Jesus, he actually offers us a choice of three such responses: the common people were "amazed" (2:18), Mary treasured what had happened and pondered it in her heart (2:19), and the shepherds praised God (2:10). We can almost hear Luke asking us, "What would you do?"
Again, at the crucifixion. Each of the other Gospels tell of something marvelous that occurs at the moment of Jesus' death: the curtain in the Temple rips, dead bodies come to life in the cemetery, water and blood gush forth from Jesus' side. Luke is content with describing how people responded. Some praised God (23:47); others beat their breasts in sorrow and repentance (23:48). Either response might be appropriate. What would you do?
Now to the text at hand. The climactic moment of Luke's story of the miraculous catch of fish comes in verse 8, when Simon Peter falls to his knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." We may compare this response to that which Luke elsewhere presents as ideal: "Be merciful to me, for I am a sinner" (18:13). Peter almost has it right. He just needs to convert the "go away" to "be merciful."
The proper response to God's glory revealed through Christ is not mere amazement, but consciousness of who we are: mortal, weak, sinful, unclean. Note that Jesus does not answer Peter by saying anything of ethical import. He does not talk about repentance, nor does Peter indicate that he can or will repent. Specific sinful behavior does not enter into this picture. It is as irrelevant as the specific character of Isaiah's uncleanness in the first lesson. Here, "I am a sinner" means "I am human."
Jesus replies, "From now on, you will be catching people." How is this a fit response to what Peter has just said? People rather than fish? Perhaps, but also people rather than gods or angels. Being a sinful human might be a problem if Jesus wanted him to minister to angels, but that's not the job description. For the task Jesus has in mind, Peter's self-proclaimed weakness is actually a strength. Jesus wants humans to minister to humans, sinners to minister to sinners.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Isaiah 6:1-8 (9-13)
We use the word "holy" a lot. We talk about the Holy Bible or the Holy Ghost, a holy place, or a holy person. Roman Catholics call their pope "His Holiness," which is the title of a book about John Paul II. And we sense that when some thing or some person is called "holy," there is a different aura about them. Somehow they seem set apart from our profane, everyday life, and we are tempted to speak in whispers about them.
We are not wrong in the way we treat holiness. The root meaning of the word "to be holy" is "to be set apart, to belong to the realm of the divine." A holy person or a holy place is one set apart for God's purpose. Holiness belongs to God.
So it is that the center of this account by Isaiah of his call to be a prophet in 746 B.C. is that song of the seraphim in verse 3: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts." In contrast to the intimate nature of God that we noted in the call of Jeremiah last Sunday, this prophetic call emphasizes God's holiness. That is, it emphasizes God's total otherness from the world of human beings, God's qualitative difference from the things of earth, God's unique divinity that belongs to him alone. The God of the Bible is no soul of nature, no spark within human beings, no familiar spirit available everywhere. No. The God of Old Testament and New is Other from everything in heaven and on earth, uniquely different, uniquely holy.
Isaiah says he saw the holy God sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up -- a fantastic statement. Isaiah, in the prophetic ecstasy given to the prophets, has entered the heavenly realm in this account, and is granted a vision of God enthroned in the heaven of heavens that is given to few others, according to the Bible (cf. Exodus 24:10; Exodus 23:33; Numbers 12:8).
We in our naive curiosity would immediately ask, "What did God look like?" But the appearance of God is never described in the Bible, just as the appearance of Jesus Christ is never described, for no one can see God and live (cf. Numbers 12:20; Deuteronomy 5:25-26). His glory and majesty are too overwhelming for sinful human beings to stand. So in every vision of God, the attention shifts, and only God's surroundings are described.
Often that description is given in spatial terms. The greatness of God is portrayed by saying he fills everything (cf. Ephesians 1:23). Here in this passage, God's kingly robe fills the heavenly temple; the temple itself is filled with smoke (cf. Revelation 15:8); and God's glory fills the earth (cf. Exodus 40:34-35; Ezekiel 43:5). This God overwhelms everything in his greatness.
As a result, even the seraphim, those winged serpent-like creatures of fire that are God's messengers, cannot bear to look at the Lord. They are six-winged, and with two of those wings they must cover their faces, and with two they must shield their bodies from the light of God's glory. With two, however, they hover in flight, waiting to speed off immediately at the Lord's command.
God's otherness is contrasted with all things earthly in this vision. He is other than any earthly king, even when that human king has been as great as Judah's Uzziah. Uzziah had enlarged Judah's territory, expanded her army, and improved her agriculture. But when Uzziah died of leprosy, Isaiah saw the real King, the Lord of heaven and earth. "The King mine eyes have seen!" he cries out, in the order of the Hebrew, "the Lord of hosts!"
That King of the universe whom Isaiah sees is also totally other in his moral purity, and over-against that absolute righteousness, Isaiah sees his own sinfulness and that of his people. "Woe is me," he exclaims, "for I am lost!" That is, "I am going to die." Measured against the pure righteousness of God, none of us deserves to live. Peter has the same reaction in the gospel lesson. "Depart from me," he cries to Jesus, because Peter is sinful, and his sin and the sinless Lord cannot exist together. Is that not always the way we suddenly recognize how far short of the glory of God we have fallen, when we are given a glimpse of the pure goodness of God? And in reaction, do we not just try to be rid of God? Or do we fall in repentance at his feet, pleading his mercy?
Surely, the total otherness of God's mercy toward us is evident, too, in what happens to Isaiah. We would condemn a sinner and think he deserves only punishment -- excluding ourselves from the judgment, of course. But not this God of total mercy. His seraph messenger cleanses Isaiah's lips with the burning coal of love, and Isaiah is forgiven by his God and prepared for his prophetic mission. The God who is totally Other in his kingly glory over all the earth nevertheless is totally merciful, paying heed to his individual servant.
Only then, in the forgiveness of God, can the prophet hear God's voice, and that too is instructive for us. For when we enter into worship before this Holy God, the King of all life, the Lord of hosts, our first act when we realize God's presence in the midst of our congregation is to confess our sins. And only when God forgives our sins in the Assurance of Pardon can we then hear God speaking to us through the Holy Scripture and sermon. Cleansed, given a new beginning by the love and mercy of God, we can then hear plainly what it is that God desires of us.
Like all the prophets, and indeed, like us, Isaiah is given a task. He is sent to announce God's Word to his people. But the awful Word he has to deliver is one of judgment on Judah's sin. In fact, Isaiah hears that his preaching to Judah will simply make Judeans more stubborn in their rebellion against God, until they deserve even more the judgments that are coming upon them. Isaiah hears from the first that his mission will result in failure! And he cries out in agony, "How long, O Lord?" How long must he preach such a Word?
Would we undertake ministries for God if we were told from the beginning that they would be failures? Faith, it seems, is always up against opposition, and does not seem to make much difference in our world. After all, our Lord Jesus preached and healed and taught for many months, pouring himself out for God's purpose, and the only reward he seemed to get was an agonizing death on a cross. Christians who dedicate themselves to the service of God can often seem to meet the same fate, their work and words seemingly ineffectual in a world like ours full of wrong.
But was God's purpose defeated on the cross of Calvary? Was Christ's work a failure in the ongoing activity of God? The epistle lesson tells us otherwise. Christ was raised from the dead and appeared to hundreds. Our Holy God, our majestic King, our Lord of the hosts of heaven and earth, works in a silent, mysterious way toward the establishment of his kingdom on this earth. That which seems weak is shown to be ultimate strength, and that which is failure wins the victory. And so when we hear God saying to us, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" we can with confidence give Isaiah's reply, "Here am I, Lord. Send me."
There is a new commentary on Luke's Gospel coming out from Eerdmans. It is written by Joel Green and will be published in the New International Greek New Testament series. You may want to save a few pennies to buy this one. I checked my "sneak preview" advance copy on the Gospel lesson for this day (Luke 5:1-11) and noticed that Green helpfully compares it to our Old Testament reading from Isaiah 6. He describes a "type scene" that presents the stories in these two texts as parallel:
Isaiah 6:1-4
epiphany
Luke 5:4-7
Isaiah 6:5
reaction
Luke 5:8
Isaiah 6:7
reassurance
Luke 5:10b
Isaiah 6:8-10
commission
Luke 5:10b
It would almost make a good sermon outline. If only there were three parts instead of four!
Central to the first lesson and the Gospel is the awareness of human frailty (represented as "sin") that a genuine epiphany produces. Equating humanity with sinfulness is not a popular concept these days. When I was a college student, I attended a career development center and, after taking the standard tests, had a fairly routine interview with the psychologist who was up for that day. As far as I know, he had no relationship with the church or with Christianity. At some point, for some reason, I said, "I know that I'm a sinner ..." His eyes grew wide and he sat up straight. I thought, "Oops, now he's going to take that to mean that I have low self-esteem or something." So I went on: "I don't mean that I think I'm an especially bad person. I just mean that I'm a sinner like all people are sinners."
Now he almost exploded. "What?! All people are sinners? All people? How can you say that? You don't even know me! Do you think that I'm a sinner, when you don't even know anything about me?" At that point, my eyes drifted over to his desk, where I saw a tall stack of books with orange covers, about twelve of them, all titled I'm Okay, You're Okay. Then, I knew I was in over my head.
Isaiah 6:1-8 (9-13)
The prophet has a vision in which he sees the Lord in the temple, yet he describes only the throne, the robe, the angelic attendants ... everything but the Lord. Such reticence is typical of the respect biblical writers have for the majesty of God. One sees and yet one does not see. The author of John's gospel certainly knew this passage, yet he could confidently write, "No one has ever seen God" (John 1:18).
God's grandeur is so great that even the seraphs must cover their faces. Even they are unable to look directly upon the Lord. How much more wonderful, then, is the blessing reserved for the pure in heart (Matthew 5:8) or the promise from last week's lessons that we will "see face to face" (1 Corinthians 13:12), or from next week's that through Christ we may already behold God with "unveiled faces" (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Why do the seraphs cover their feet? It seems a bit odd. Most commentators connect this to a "hiding of nakedness" (cf. Genesis 3:7), since the Hebrew word "feet" is sometimes used as a euphemism for genitals. But why would seraphs, presumably unaffected by the fall of humanity, have to hide their nakedness?
We hear that not only the temple but the whole earth is full of God's glory (v. 3). And awareness of divine glory brings instantly an awareness of sin. Verse 5, then, provides the closest parallel to our Gospel text (Luke 5:8). Awareness of God inevitably brings awareness of us, and the results of the comparison are usually obvious. Preachers! If you want your parishioners to acknowledge that they are sinners, don't tell them how bad they are. Tell them how good God is. Reveal God's glory, and see whether they can't figure the rest out for themselves.
Notably (pop psychologists, take note!) Isaiah does not mean to identify himself as an especially bad person. Probably a priest, he had, if anything, reason to believe he was better than most. "I am a man of unclean lips," he says, "and I live among a people of unclean lips." Pretension, deception, all the disguises that religion offers fall away. And he is left to confess, "I'm just a sinner like everyone else."
Then Isaiah receives an unexpected (indeed, unre-quested!) gift of forgiveness. Pure grace. No penance, no sacrifice, no amendment of life, just a pure, unmotivated gift of divine grace. Then he responds, "Here am I; send me!"
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
The fifteenth chapter of Paul's letter to the Corinthians treats the theme of resurrection. Next week, we will learn why the subject is important to Paul -- Christ has been raised as the first fruits of those who have died. Faith in his resurrection is intimately connected to hope in the life to come.
The verses appointed for this Sunday introduce that discussion with an almost creedal summary of the gospel Paul preached. They are prized as the earliest testimony to these events in the life of Jesus. (Paul writes decades before the first Gospel was written.) He regards three things as of "first importance": the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
The significance of the first and the third may be obvious, but why is Christ's burial elevated to such a level? For one thing, the burial emphasizes the reality of the death and thus also of the resurrection. But the burial of Christ also took on symbolic import for Paul, signifying baptism (see Romans 6).
Paul also provides the Bible's most detailed list of eyewitnesses to Christ's resurrection. The list is impressive but not comprehensive. Notably, he omits the women. According to the Synoptic Gospels, women were the only Christian witnesses to Christ's death and burial and the first witnesses to his resurrection. Luke 24:11 may provide a clue as to why Paul excludes them. Their gender marked them for many as unreliable sources.
Paul makes a couple of other interesting moves. First, he includes himself in the list of those to whom the risen Christ appeared. From the account in Luke-Acts, we might gather that Paul's experience on the Damascus road was of a different order than the more physical encounters between Jesus and his followers in the days before his Ascension. Second, Paul describes Jesus' appearance to him as "last of all" (v. 8). In other words, his visionary apprehension of Christ counts as a legitimate resurrection appearance, but subsequent visionary experiences that others may claim to have do not. To his credit, however, he accepts the label "least" as well as "last" (v. 9).
Politics aside, the historical reality of these events form the basis for what Paul and the Corinthians call "good news." This is not only the good news that Paul proclaimed -- it is also the good news that the Corinthians received, the good news in which they stood, to which they held firmly, through which they were saved (vv. 1-2). This is important stuff.
Luke 5:1-11
Luke likes to demonstrate the proper response to significant events.
When he narrates the birth of Jesus, he actually offers us a choice of three such responses: the common people were "amazed" (2:18), Mary treasured what had happened and pondered it in her heart (2:19), and the shepherds praised God (2:10). We can almost hear Luke asking us, "What would you do?"
Again, at the crucifixion. Each of the other Gospels tell of something marvelous that occurs at the moment of Jesus' death: the curtain in the Temple rips, dead bodies come to life in the cemetery, water and blood gush forth from Jesus' side. Luke is content with describing how people responded. Some praised God (23:47); others beat their breasts in sorrow and repentance (23:48). Either response might be appropriate. What would you do?
Now to the text at hand. The climactic moment of Luke's story of the miraculous catch of fish comes in verse 8, when Simon Peter falls to his knees, saying, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." We may compare this response to that which Luke elsewhere presents as ideal: "Be merciful to me, for I am a sinner" (18:13). Peter almost has it right. He just needs to convert the "go away" to "be merciful."
The proper response to God's glory revealed through Christ is not mere amazement, but consciousness of who we are: mortal, weak, sinful, unclean. Note that Jesus does not answer Peter by saying anything of ethical import. He does not talk about repentance, nor does Peter indicate that he can or will repent. Specific sinful behavior does not enter into this picture. It is as irrelevant as the specific character of Isaiah's uncleanness in the first lesson. Here, "I am a sinner" means "I am human."
Jesus replies, "From now on, you will be catching people." How is this a fit response to what Peter has just said? People rather than fish? Perhaps, but also people rather than gods or angels. Being a sinful human might be a problem if Jesus wanted him to minister to angels, but that's not the job description. For the task Jesus has in mind, Peter's self-proclaimed weakness is actually a strength. Jesus wants humans to minister to humans, sinners to minister to sinners.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Isaiah 6:1-8 (9-13)
We use the word "holy" a lot. We talk about the Holy Bible or the Holy Ghost, a holy place, or a holy person. Roman Catholics call their pope "His Holiness," which is the title of a book about John Paul II. And we sense that when some thing or some person is called "holy," there is a different aura about them. Somehow they seem set apart from our profane, everyday life, and we are tempted to speak in whispers about them.
We are not wrong in the way we treat holiness. The root meaning of the word "to be holy" is "to be set apart, to belong to the realm of the divine." A holy person or a holy place is one set apart for God's purpose. Holiness belongs to God.
So it is that the center of this account by Isaiah of his call to be a prophet in 746 B.C. is that song of the seraphim in verse 3: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts." In contrast to the intimate nature of God that we noted in the call of Jeremiah last Sunday, this prophetic call emphasizes God's holiness. That is, it emphasizes God's total otherness from the world of human beings, God's qualitative difference from the things of earth, God's unique divinity that belongs to him alone. The God of the Bible is no soul of nature, no spark within human beings, no familiar spirit available everywhere. No. The God of Old Testament and New is Other from everything in heaven and on earth, uniquely different, uniquely holy.
Isaiah says he saw the holy God sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up -- a fantastic statement. Isaiah, in the prophetic ecstasy given to the prophets, has entered the heavenly realm in this account, and is granted a vision of God enthroned in the heaven of heavens that is given to few others, according to the Bible (cf. Exodus 24:10; Exodus 23:33; Numbers 12:8).
We in our naive curiosity would immediately ask, "What did God look like?" But the appearance of God is never described in the Bible, just as the appearance of Jesus Christ is never described, for no one can see God and live (cf. Numbers 12:20; Deuteronomy 5:25-26). His glory and majesty are too overwhelming for sinful human beings to stand. So in every vision of God, the attention shifts, and only God's surroundings are described.
Often that description is given in spatial terms. The greatness of God is portrayed by saying he fills everything (cf. Ephesians 1:23). Here in this passage, God's kingly robe fills the heavenly temple; the temple itself is filled with smoke (cf. Revelation 15:8); and God's glory fills the earth (cf. Exodus 40:34-35; Ezekiel 43:5). This God overwhelms everything in his greatness.
As a result, even the seraphim, those winged serpent-like creatures of fire that are God's messengers, cannot bear to look at the Lord. They are six-winged, and with two of those wings they must cover their faces, and with two they must shield their bodies from the light of God's glory. With two, however, they hover in flight, waiting to speed off immediately at the Lord's command.
God's otherness is contrasted with all things earthly in this vision. He is other than any earthly king, even when that human king has been as great as Judah's Uzziah. Uzziah had enlarged Judah's territory, expanded her army, and improved her agriculture. But when Uzziah died of leprosy, Isaiah saw the real King, the Lord of heaven and earth. "The King mine eyes have seen!" he cries out, in the order of the Hebrew, "the Lord of hosts!"
That King of the universe whom Isaiah sees is also totally other in his moral purity, and over-against that absolute righteousness, Isaiah sees his own sinfulness and that of his people. "Woe is me," he exclaims, "for I am lost!" That is, "I am going to die." Measured against the pure righteousness of God, none of us deserves to live. Peter has the same reaction in the gospel lesson. "Depart from me," he cries to Jesus, because Peter is sinful, and his sin and the sinless Lord cannot exist together. Is that not always the way we suddenly recognize how far short of the glory of God we have fallen, when we are given a glimpse of the pure goodness of God? And in reaction, do we not just try to be rid of God? Or do we fall in repentance at his feet, pleading his mercy?
Surely, the total otherness of God's mercy toward us is evident, too, in what happens to Isaiah. We would condemn a sinner and think he deserves only punishment -- excluding ourselves from the judgment, of course. But not this God of total mercy. His seraph messenger cleanses Isaiah's lips with the burning coal of love, and Isaiah is forgiven by his God and prepared for his prophetic mission. The God who is totally Other in his kingly glory over all the earth nevertheless is totally merciful, paying heed to his individual servant.
Only then, in the forgiveness of God, can the prophet hear God's voice, and that too is instructive for us. For when we enter into worship before this Holy God, the King of all life, the Lord of hosts, our first act when we realize God's presence in the midst of our congregation is to confess our sins. And only when God forgives our sins in the Assurance of Pardon can we then hear God speaking to us through the Holy Scripture and sermon. Cleansed, given a new beginning by the love and mercy of God, we can then hear plainly what it is that God desires of us.
Like all the prophets, and indeed, like us, Isaiah is given a task. He is sent to announce God's Word to his people. But the awful Word he has to deliver is one of judgment on Judah's sin. In fact, Isaiah hears that his preaching to Judah will simply make Judeans more stubborn in their rebellion against God, until they deserve even more the judgments that are coming upon them. Isaiah hears from the first that his mission will result in failure! And he cries out in agony, "How long, O Lord?" How long must he preach such a Word?
Would we undertake ministries for God if we were told from the beginning that they would be failures? Faith, it seems, is always up against opposition, and does not seem to make much difference in our world. After all, our Lord Jesus preached and healed and taught for many months, pouring himself out for God's purpose, and the only reward he seemed to get was an agonizing death on a cross. Christians who dedicate themselves to the service of God can often seem to meet the same fate, their work and words seemingly ineffectual in a world like ours full of wrong.
But was God's purpose defeated on the cross of Calvary? Was Christ's work a failure in the ongoing activity of God? The epistle lesson tells us otherwise. Christ was raised from the dead and appeared to hundreds. Our Holy God, our majestic King, our Lord of the hosts of heaven and earth, works in a silent, mysterious way toward the establishment of his kingdom on this earth. That which seems weak is shown to be ultimate strength, and that which is failure wins the victory. And so when we hear God saying to us, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" we can with confidence give Isaiah's reply, "Here am I, Lord. Send me."
