The United Methodist Church of Somers Point

This text can be confusing for two reasons.  First, the mysterious scene describing the Lord seated in majesty and the seraphs praising God.  The key here is to not get too caught up in details and realize that this is a description of the glory of God--"The whole earth is filled with the glory of the Lord!"

Having seen this magnificent scene, Isaiah shrinks before the holiness of the moment--“Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

The Seraphs solve the problem.  You fear that your lips are unclean--this coal touched to your lips has cleansed you.  “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”

This cleansing of Isaiah has prepared him to be able to do God's holy work.  Which is good because God is looking for someone to do holy work.  "Here I am, Send me!"  This is the text from which we get the hymn, "Here i am Lord, Is it I Lord..."

With great joy we sing the hymn putting ourselves in the position of positive response--"I have heard you calling in the night.  I will Go Lord--if you lead me.  I will hold your people in my heart."

But the task given to Isaiah is not a happy one.  "Go and say to this people: ‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.' Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.”

Isaiah's mission is to tell  the people to keep behaving in the way they are behaving.  Normally we would think this the easy message--a message that should not receive resistance.  But Isaiah knows the result of the message--the people will continue to live in a way that leads to their destruction.  "How long O Lord?" Isaiah groans.  "Until everything is destroyed" is God's response.

This text serves two purposes.  First it highlights the terrible result that comes from not living Godly lives.  But it also demonstrates how destruction is sometimes part of God's perfect and holy plan.  The people were so far gone that the best source of action was to allow them to be completely and utterly destroyed and driven out from their land.  While this seems to lack any hope and to be a terrible plan God has a way of bringing new life out of the ashes of destruction. 

When we feel as though the ashes of destruction surround us, we can be comforted and strengthened by the knowledge that sometimes destruction is part of God's plan for renewal.

This entry was posted on 04/01/10 and is filed under . You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.