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Isaiah 6: 1-8 (NIV)
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!”
The prophet Isaiah’s vision was at once amazing and terrifying! He would have been overwhelmed by what he saw, heard, smelt and felt. There is little wonder that he thought he was about to die.
My first thought is to empathise with his feeling of total unworthiness and of uncleanness in the presence of the holy Lord of all creation. Whether or not we experience a vision such as Isaiah experienced, we are nevertheless always naked, fully exposed, before the God who knows all. Our words, our deeds and especially our innermost unshared thoughts are laid bare in God’s sight.
But …
But despite Isaiah’s “unclean lips” (verse 5), despite his sense of foreboding (“Woe to me!”), his guilt was taken away and his sin atoned for.
This was achieved totally at the behest of God. Isaiah had not asked for it. Isaiah had certainly done nothing to earn it! Isaiah was given a sign: a heavenly being brought a live coal taken with tongs from the altar and with it touched Isaiah’s mouth.
You and I have also been given a sign. Our sign is the empty cross on which God the Son was crucified so that “(our) guilt is taken away and (our) sin atoned for” (verse7).
This passage is nominated to be read on Trinity Sunday. I look at verse 8 in wonder. The voice of the Lord said, “And who will go for us?” God did not ask who would go for him but “for us”. As with the use of plural pronouns in Genesis 1: 26 (“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, …’”), I marvel at the inspiration which the Holy Spirit gave to all those who contributed to the writing of the Scriptures we have available to us today. With such awe and amazement in my heart, am I willing to respond to my maker, “Here am I. Send me!”?