Isaiah 6:1-8
1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne;
and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
8 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!”
God Cleanses Those He Calls
Have you ever heard of “seraphim”? If you haven’t, I wouldn’t be all that surprised), because that word “seraphim” only occurs twice in the entire Bible, and both are in the passage that we read earlier today from Isaiah 6.
Seraphim are pretty amazing creatures. They’re a classification of angel, i.e. a holy, heavenly being created by God to do his bidding. They have six wings.
With two they cover their faces, with two they cover their feet and with two they fly.[1]
Isaiah also tells us how they behave. He starts by saying that they are stationed in the throne room of God, and that they stand at the ready to do God’s will. Better than standing, actually, they’re flying above his throne, and if you’ve ever tried to get from here to Toronto, you know that it’s a lot faster to fly than to walk. These angels, the seraphim, are ready at a moment’s notice to do what God wants them to do quickly.
More than that, Isaiah also tells us that the seraphim are singers. While they’re flying above the throne waiting for God to give them orders, they call to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”[2]
Seraphim are pretty amazing creatures, and you have to imagine that if God wanted to get anything done, sending one of his seraphim would be a great place to start.
The thing is, God does want something to get done. He wants everyone who calls on the name of the Lord to be saved.[3] But, as Paul pointed out in Romans 10, the only way for someone to call on the name of the Lord is if they believe in him, and the only way they can believe in him is if they’ve heard about him, and the only way for them to hear about him is if someone tells them about him.[4]
Sounds like a job for the seraphim, doesn’t it? There’s a whole host of them on standby in the throne room of God. God could commission them with the snap of his fingers. With wings like theirs they could fly to every corner of the globe in the blink of an eye. They’re already very practiced at proclaiming the name of our God. And don’t you think that if a seraph appeared to you, you’d listen? I know I would!
But even with a room full of seraphim at his disposal, God still asks the question,
“Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”[5]
God has these amazing ministering spirits at his beck and call, who live to serve, and he calls you. Are you ready to do what not even the angels do?
Isaiah wasn’t. Not at first.
When Isaiah first saw God, he was terrified. “Woe to me!” he cried. “I am ruined!”[6]
Isaiah almost certainly knew about Moses’ experience about 700 years earlier. When Moses asked to see God’s glory, God replied,
“You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”[7]
It’s passages like this one that inspired that famous face-melting scene from Indiana Jones when the Nazis opened the ark of the covenant and they all died. God himself said that we are not worthy to see him in all his glory and that if we ever did, this side of heaven, we would die.
That’s scary! I can understand that kind of fear. Indiana Jones gave me nightmares as a kid.
But I’m not quite convinced that in that moment Isaiah would have been able to think of anything else, much less one line that God said to Moses 700 years earlier. I’m not convinced that Isaiah would have been able to think of anything but the raw holiness and glory of God sitting in front of him. And as much as I’m sure that that glory is incredibly beautiful, I’m also sure that it’s incredibly humbling.
In fact, that’s what “holy” means. It means that you’re set apart, head and shoulders above everyone and everything else. It means that you are untouched by the guilt and shame of sin. It means that you are pure and perfect in every way. And for Isaiah to stand in the raw glory and holiness of God, it only served to highlight how unlike God he was – how inglorious and unholy Isaiah was.
You’ve been in those situations, haven’t you? You feel pretty good about how well you ice skate, until you step foot in a rink with world-class athletes (or, as an American, you go skating at Rotary Park with a bunch of Canadians). Then you feel pretty silly. You feel well-informed about a topic, until you enter a conversation with people who know much more than you. Then you feel ignorant and silly.
Imagine those feelings, then multiply them by 1,000, and you might begin to approach how Isaiah felt standing before the raw glory and holiness of God. He was unworthy to stand there. He was unworthy even to look at God. The seraphim in all their glory and majesty were not worthy to show their faces or feet in God’s presence. Who was Isaiah even to stand before God? He was unworthy.
Isaiah admitted it,
“I am a man of unclean lips.”[8]
Hearing the perfect praise of those awesome angels about our holy God, only made Isaiah think about all the ways he had used his lips for something less holy. Maybe it was gossip or lies about his neighbour. Maybe it was an angry outburst at a family member, or a faltering, bumbling attempt at talking about God with a friend. Whatever it was, we’re not told, but it made Isaiah feel (and know that he was) unworthy even to stand in God’s presence.
So what did God do? He met Isaiah where Isaiah felt weakest. God sent one of those seraphim to cleanse him in precisely the place where Isaiah felt the most guilt and shame. He took a coal from the altar of God and touched Isaiah’s unclean lips and said,
“Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”[9]
God applied the soothing salve of his saving Gospel to the part of Isaiah’s life where he felt most sinful. God cleansed Isaiah of his sin and then sent him – not any of the seraphim – God sent the forgiven sinner to go and proclaim forgiveness to sinners.
God does the same for you.
If you were to stand before the throne of our holy, holy, holy God what part of your life would feel most sinful? What unholiness of yours would stand out like a sore thumb next to the raw glory and holiness of God?
Would it be your lips? Would you suddenly remember the hasty and uncharitable words you spoke out of anger to a family member or friend? Would it be your eyes, as you think back on the unholy images you allowed your eyes to linger on or search for? Would it be your hands, as you think about the work you left undone, or the way you used them solely for your own benefit with no regard for service to God or the benefit of your neighbour?
When you think about standing before the throne of our holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, are you plagued with guilt and regret for the sins of your past? Do you feel unworthy? Well, join the club.
We’re all worthy. None of us are holy. We’re all sinners. But God has come to you in his Word and called you, and, as he shows us here with Isaiah, God cleanses those he calls.
You are not worthy to stand before God, but that’s why God sent his Son to come to you – as a man, born of a woman, doomed to die on a cross 2,000 years ago, but again and now through the Word that you hear in worship today, through his sacraments that you can receive personally and intimately, thankfully and often. You are not worthy to stand before God, but that’s why God sent his Son to come to you.
God may not send a seraph to take a coal from the altar of God and touch you where you feel most sinful, but God does still apply the soothing salve of his saving Gospel in ways that are just as intimate and just as personal. He poured water over your head when you were baptized and promised that he has washed your sins away, through the perfect, innocent death, and glorious resurrection of his Son. He invites you to take and eat, to take and drink his own body and blood which Jesus has given and poured out for you on the cross for the forgiveness of all your sins.
You are not worthy to stand before him. You were certainly not qualified to be his spokesperson on earth, but that’s why he cleansed you through his Gospel, and through that cleansing, that’s also why he commissions you to go for him.
Think about that. That’s something that not even the seraphim, the holy host of heaven, are qualified to do. Because of what God has done for you in Christ, you are more qualified than the angels to take the good news of salvation to the world. Who better to announce forgiveness to sinners than sinners whose guilt has been taken away and whose sin has been atoned for? You are perfectly qualified to represent God, not because of who you are or what you can do, but because God has called you by his Gospel and cleansed you through the saving work of Christ his Son.
God had all those six-winged, singing seraphim to send, but he called Isaiah to go. God still has countless legions of angels, but he calls you today. Will you answer as Isaiah did? He didn’t know what God had in store for him. He had no earthly idea how difficult the challenge would be. But that didn’t cause him to pause for a second. Whatever God called him to do, wherever God would send him, Isaiah was ready to serve his Lord. “Here am I.” Don’t send your seraphim. Don’t send anyone else. “Send me!”
You are unworthy. You were unqualified. But God sent his Son to you and for you. He cleansed you from your sin through his death on a cross. He calls you to serve him by going with his Gospel to the world. Whom else shall he send? Who else will go for him? God give you the strength to say, “Here am I. Send me!” Amen.
[1] Isaiah 6:2
[2] Isaiah 6:3
[3] Romans 10:13
[4] Romans 10:14
[5] Isaiah 6:8
[6] Isaiah 6:5
[7] Exodus 33:20
[8] Ibid
[9] Isaiah 6:7