May 26, 2024 Isaiah 6:1-8 Series B Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who loves you with his very life. Amen.
We are very blessed by God to live in a land that preserves natural wonders. Minnesota is just swarming with beautiful places to go and experience. Waterfalls, forests, plains, lakes, rivers, it’s all here. And our nation is blessed to have these beautiful places scattered throughout the National Parks. Places like the Badlands, Glacier, Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and so many others, this chance to see just the beauty of God’s creation.
And then come the signs. Like actual, signs with information on them. So you are there at a lookout, looking at something like a geyser, or a waterfall, or whatever and there right next to you is a sign telling you all about it. This geyser is on a geothermal hot spring. This waterfall comes from a river from a lake up in Canada somewhere. This canyon was made by a river. And suddenly you are pulled out of the moment of beauty, taken by the sign and you leave.
So it is with the Trinity. Today the church celebrates trinity Sunday, where we admire the mystery of our God, how our one God is three persons. And the image of this God is beautiful, but too often, we don’t want to look at it, we would rather look at the sign. Look at the words to describe and understand it. And no matter what words we come up with, they distract us from God and leave us unsatisfied. The trinity is like a clover, or an apple, or the sun, or whatever. And we find ourselves searching for words instead of admiring what God is showing us.
Today I want to put away the signs, put away all the bad analogies, the attempts to explain away the beauty, and I want to look at the image of God that we have here in Isaiah today, this beautiful picture of the temple in heaven. And just stand, sit, whatever, just be here and admire the Trinity and praise God for who he is, and what he does for us.
Our text today from Isaiah is one of those passages that causes us to pause. We see here that Isaiah is taken up into heaven, into God’s temple, into God’s throne room. That in and of itself is a frightening idea. And he’s there and the image is amazing.
Picture the colors, the bright perfect colors. Picture the sounds of the angels, the seraphim as they move around the temple, with their wings. And the music, of the music. Can you hear it? The perfect voices of the perfect choirs sining the praises to God. Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God of Sabaoth. Heaven and Earth are full of his glory. And gaze there at the beauty of God.
Elsewhere in Scripture we are treated to an image of what God looks like. He sits there and his eyes, they glow with a majestic flame. His clothing is white, shining brighter than the sun at full strength. His arms are powerful, his legs are like a burnished bronze. His throne is made of this rainbow of emeralds, and Lapis Luzul, and all the precious stones. And there is this rainbow that surrounds him, all the beauty of light, the beauty of creation, the beauty of beauty is there.
And into this throne room, this temple, this majesty and glory strolls Isaiah. Have you ever been in a place and felt underdressed? I have. One time, when Ashley and I were in St. Louis, newly wed and first experiencing life at the seminary, we went to a restaurant. Definitely underdressed. I was wearing typical midwest fashion, jeans and flannel. And everyone else was in suits.
Imagine that, but instead of suits, its literal angels adorned in God’s presence. And Isaiah notes something even more important, the words are wrong. Not the words on the sign, the words in his mouth. He hears the pureness of God’s glory and he knows that the stuff he says, well, it’s not that pure. How could a man of unclean lips someone who curses his neighbor, tells crass jokes, gossips, lies, slandars, and so many other things become the mouthpiece for God to his people? How could his impurity proclaim the purity of God’s awesome, beautiful holiness?
And that’s our state too. How could God use us? We, like the prophet, know what’s inside of us. We hear the words of the angels, “heaven and earth are full of your glory” and that sacres us. God is everywhere. We can’t hide form him, we can’t hide our imperfections, our sinfulness. Sure enough, we are good at hiding our problems. We can hide our sins from our friends, our spouses, our neighbors, our kids, our parents. But we cannot hide from God. We stand there looking at his temple and we know. We know that he sees through us. He sees into us and looks and it’s not the picturesque park, but rather, a wasteland.
But then God does something. In the text he sends an angel to go and get a coal from the altar and the angel touches it to Isaiah’s lips and he is made clean. For us, the pain of this offering is different, because for us, Jesus took the pain on the cross. It was his flesh that was pierced. His lips that grew thirsty. His lungs that breathed their last.
And there at that moment, on that cross is a sign. A sign that is helpful. A sign meant to explain the horror, but it shows us the beauty of the cross. This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Our king. The same king who sat on the throne room in Isaiah, surrounded by angels now hangs on the cross surrounded by sinners, in order to make you clean.
One of my favorite parks to go to is Itasca, just up 71 a ways. It’s the headwaters of the Mississippi. My family and I like to go there in early fall, as the leaves start to change. And there, at the headwaters, there aren’t any signs. Sure enough, you have to walk past the visitor center to get to it, which is full of signs. But you round the corner and there it is, the beauty of the lake, the river. And there is nothing there to take you out of that moment, to take your mind away from enjoying the wonder of God’s creation.
And so it is with God. There are certainly signs that he is coming soon, that we live in the last days. There have been signs for a long long time. But one day, we will round the corner and there he will be. THe majestic three in one, The Father, the Son, and the Holy SPirit. We will see God with our own eyes. And sin will be no more, the sign taken away, and nothing will prevent us from seing God, from looking on his beauty. Not with tourists, but with angels and archangels, with saints and martyrs, with all the company of heaven, and we will proclaim God’s praises. Holy Holy Holy is the LORD God of Sabatoth. HEaven and earth are full of his glory. Amen.
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