Sermon of the Month - October 2009
Good News in Isaiah
Introduction
Have you heard of the gnostic gospels? Bogus texts mostly written 100 years or more after the death of Jesus, made famous more recently by assocuiation with Daniel Brown’s The Da Vinci Code novel. They have titles like The Gospel of Peter, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and the only one really worth a proper look, The Gospel of Thomas. (And even that document looks as if it was written 100 years after the biblical gospels, according to Nicholas Perrin’s great research – in Thomas, the Other Gospel.)
Years ago I was intrigued to see a book in a Christian bookshop with the title The Gospel of Isaiah. Was this another of these accounts of Bible tales written later under a nom de plume? Well no. Actually it was a newish translation of the book of Isaiah. I say new – the New American Standard Version or Revised Standard Version were what counted as bang up to date in the mid 1960s. But the title grabbed my attention: the Gospel of Isaiah? Is anything in the Old Testament Gospel – really good news? And the answer is Yes!
If for you it’s not really gospel unless Jesus is at the heart of it – well most of the prophecies that we read every Adevnt and Christmas come from Isaiah. And if you are looking for gospel in a broader sense – good news of God at work bringing hope in place of despair, and an opportunity for forgiveness, renewal, reconciliation, a second chance for people who don’t deserve a second chance, good news when we fear the worst, then Isaiah is absolutely full of gospel.
This is certainly true on the day Isaiah saw God, heard God, felt the power of God, knew the call of God, and responded.
1. Holiness
Isaiah got so close to God it hurt. That day, in the year that King Uzziah died, the end of a long stable reign, Isaiah the son of Amoz, saw a vision of God, and it hurt. Isaiah was a young man no doubt, who lived in Jerusalem, a man used to being in the Temple; he was a prophet – and it seems he had prophesied already: Isaiah 1 verse 1 talks of The vision concerning Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amoz saw during the reign of Uzziah as well as the kings that followed. Before the year that King Uzziah died, he already saw visions, and spoke the word of God. But this day in the Temple was completely different. Sometimes even a holy man – holy by the standards of you or me – a holy person used to hearing God, and seeing visions given by God, sometimes even such a person can hear or see something so awesome, so full of God in all his holiness, majesty and majestic purity, that it hurts. Indeed it is far more daunting than that: it is so overwhelming, that our natural humanity just cannot cope with that intensity of closeness to God. Ezekiel knew this experience, when he declared, This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell face down... The apostle Paul knew it. Let’s not forget that he had been blinded, and heard the voice of the risen Lord Jesus challenging and calling him, there on the Damascus Road. But it is another, later experience he tells of in 2 Corinthians, where he speaks of himself in the third person, telling of the time 14 years previously, when he was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows. And I know that this man...was caught up in Paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell. And then he says that in the midst of this awesome experience, which he cannot tell if it was a vision or an out of the body experience, in the midst of that surpassing experience, there was given me a thorn in my flesh. What was it? As far as I am concerned, almost certainly a physical experience of pain of some kind. He was so close to God, but it hurt, literally. With it came God’s message to him: My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. And he comments, That is why for Christ’s sake I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Paul knew the holiness of God at that devastatingly close power that hurt.
And Isaiah experienced God that way, that day. He was on earth, and suddenly he was also in heaven. He was used to declaring the word of heaven. He was a prophet after all, but he was not used to being in heaven! How could he be. He knew the teaching of the Law: no one can see [God] and live (Exodus 33:20). He knew why: God is awesome and all-powerful. He is absolute purity; he is absolute holiness; and in his absolute power he must consume everything impure and unholy. We must be at a distance from God, for if we entered the pure presence of God, as we are impure, unholy, sinful men and women we must be consumed by the holy fire.
Isaiah is utterly dismayed: how can he stand in the presence of such awesome, absolute all-consuming holy fire and power. 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.
It is difficult for us to feel what Isaiah felt. Unless and until we experience something of the awesome holiness of God, we cannot begin to imagine it. But he was a prophet. He knew what holiness was, and how it was the call of God for us to live holy lives. But he knew that even the best of us would never attain to absolute sinlessness. None of us could abide the absolute, unrelenting holy presence of God. We might be able to swim, but we could not survive suddenly being placed at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. We might tend fires or look at volcanos. But we could not survive being in the middle of them. And our God, the God who made the seas, the God of volcano, wind and fire is the God of absolute holiness, and Isaiah is suddenly in the midst of this holy fire. He sees the Lord outright, seated on a throne, high and exalted, and train of his robe filled the temple. He is in heaven. He sees the heavenly attendants, seraphs, each with six wings...calling “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.
In history, many Christians have caught a glimpse of this holy God. The eighteenth century Puritan, at the heart of that first great Revival, the Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards, talked controversially enough of “sinners in the hands of an angry God” – a holy God, in whose presence sinners cannot continue. And we have tried to domesticate God, turn him into a sweet, charming little god with no wrath, no holiness, no awe, no presence. It is a non-gospel in which, as Richard Niebuhr put it, “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom with judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” (The Kingdom of God in America, p.193).
Yet Isaiah’s experience for all its devastating power is fundamentally gospel; it is good news.
2. Forgiveness for the ruined
Isaiah is a dead man walking in that temple. Even Moses only saw the back of God, not his face. Even Elijah only experienced the presence of God, not in the wind, earthquake and fire, but in the gentle whisper. He did not see God face to face. But now Isaiah – who is he compared to Moses and Elijah? – Isaiah sees God! Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
The dead man lives; the sinner is forgiven. This is a resurrection for Isaiah himself. But he is a prophet. Don’t overlook the double confession, not only personal I am a man of unclean lips, but also for the people: I live among a people of unclean lips. He is called to speak God’s word to his people. Both he and they are unfit for heaven, just as we are unfit for heaven. Yet he is now given the experience of pure grace, pure forgiveness. He has no right to stand in the presence of God, no right to survive. But he is given that right by God himself. The dead man lives. And this is a call for the people: the dead people could live. He is a prophet; he speaks to the people, he brings God’s word and work to the people. This resurrection, this forgiveness, this hope is for the nation.
So there is good news for every one of us who feels we have messed up. Do you sometimes wonder how God feels about you? After all, we have fallen short even of our own standards, let alone God’s. How can we be good enough to be acceptable to him? And the answer is, We are not good enough – but God forgives us anyway: through Jesus’ death on the cross for our sins, God draws us back into fellowship with him. You feel bad? Then act like Isaiah: be honest before God: I am a man of unclean lips – that’s his language – we can say, I am a person who has messed up, who has fallen short of what I wanted, well short of what God wanted. And receive his forgiveness just as Isaiah received his from the fire of the altar, burning those sins away without consuming him.
3. Guidance for the lost
Good news for people who have messed it all up. There’s also good news for the lost, the confused. Isaiah receives this forgiveness. But he is a prophet. What will this mean for the people? Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? And he understands. So he responds in simple obedience: Here am I Send me! And God hears the call. The people are lost, they are far from God, and in a mess, a far bigger mess than they think. Their instincts if followed unchecked will lead to disaster. They are dead men walking – they just don’t know it yet. Great powers, rising super-powers, are on the move. Small nations will shortly threaten disaster. How could they survive the assault of the new great power, Assyria? If they rely on military might and political power alone they will be destroyed. They need to turn to God for his help, and to receive it, they need to turn to him.
And the good news is that this undeserving, selfish, largely godless people and its leaders are going to get the second chance they don’t deserve. They are going to get the guidance they are not seeking, but which they desparately need. And Isaiah the prophet has heard the call, and he will deliver God’s message and help. But there is a snag. Just like today, the people don’t want to receive God’s help. They are quite satisfied with life as it is. They don’t want any new challenges. And Isaiah is commissioned to prepare for the long haul, the very long haul. He must spend his whole life, faithfully giving the message of God, carrying on even though it will be rejected day after day, year after year, decade after decade. It will be 30 years later before there is finally the response needed, the trust in God that Isaiah had proclaimed for a lifetime, finally the King and the people dared to trust in God – and he saved them from the full might of Assyria.
Good news of salvation, being saved from total destruction. And we are in an age where most people think that they don’t need God’s help. Life’s OK. You have your God, I’ll just have what I want. But today, just as in Isaiah’s time, a reluctant people still needs the Saviour. We are in a time like Isaiah’s, where we are called to hear God’s compassion and grace, his undeserved love for the people which spurn him. And he calls us to respond and say: “Here I am Lord. I have heard you calling me. I will go. I will speak and act as your follower. I will share your love, your gospel, your hope for the people who need it, and keep doing so until they recognise your love and receive it gladly.”