only Thou art holy, there is none beside Thee,

perfect in pow'r, in love, and purity

A sermon on that time church came to Isaiah:

No matter what, you heard today’s passage amidst uncertainty and unrest. I know we all like to come here put together. But you don’t have to listen to the radio for long to realize it’s all a bunch of whistling in the dark. The breaking news only seems to increase. And sure, the election may be over, but we just appear to get more and more unsure about our future.

If you’re anything like me, and I bet you are, it’s all a little unnerving. I like stability. I prefer predictability. And all this ambiguity is more than a little disconcerting! And I bet you agree. Don’t you?

What if, though, what if everything that has you unsettled is actually a fine foundation for faith? That’s right, faith. Now, I know that’s an odd thing to say. And truthfully, I’m a bit uncomfortable with it. However, I can’t deny that it formed the foundation of Isaiah’s call to be a prophet!

…When we hear the word “prophet,” we tend to imagine the likes of John the Baptist, living out there, unkept, in the wilderness. Don’t we? Isaiah, though, was probably much more ordinary. More than likely, he came from a good churchgoing family. He had kin on the synagogue charter. And chances are his folks served on the council and Shabbat school a time or two, too. 

Isaiah was the type to have good attendance in bar mitzvah class. He hung around after church services, too. He was a regular. And that’s why, in due time, he was asked to help lead services.

Isaiah wasn’t someone who was out of place in the temple. Especially that year. You know, the year King Uzziah died. Now, that was a year of uncertainty. No one knew who would rule next or what kind of a ruler they would be. 

That year, Isaiah undoubtedly looked forward to sitting in his regular pew. He cherished saying “good evening” to the usuals. He even liked the dull sermons, when he could let his mind wander. Most of all, though, he loved singing that old familiar liturgy. 

One evening, though, on a Saturday night like any other, nothing was familiar. Instead of seeing the regulars, Isaiah saw the temple filled with smoke! And it wasn’t the paraments that bedecked the sanctuary walls, either. No, the mere trimmings of a robe filled the massive temple! And circling high above it all were seraphs, these frightening, fiery serpent-angels!

Oh sure, the seraphs sang the tried and true service from the LBW. But the effect was altogether alarming. They didn’t softly sing the “holy, holy, holy.” No, they belted it out! They shrieked the Sanctus. Their voices were so loud it shook the temple down to its very foundation! 

The temple wasn’t all that was shaken, either. It rattled Isaiah, too. As the congregation sang about God’s holiness, Isaiah found himself face-to-face with it! In a moment, Isaiah understood what he said to pass confirmation, ‘no one can look upon the glory of God and live’ was no mere metaphor. Just like that, Isaiah got a glimpse of what really happens in worship. 

That night, Isaiah saw church. But he didn’t see it from his expectations. No, he saw it from God’s. He came to synagogue looking for a little normalcy. Instead, he got the exact opposite. However, hidden among it all was everything he had always been searching for: God’s very holiness! God’s very holiness.

…Deep down, that’s what you want. Isn’t it? I know you do. We all do. I do! 

You don’t want to go through the motions. No, you want the mystery of God to go through you! You want the fire that lit the cosmos! You want the intolerable shirt of flame, as T.S. Eliot called it in the book of his conversion, the Four Quartets. 

Well, you do, and you don’t. Don’t you? On the one hand, all the hemming and hawing wear thin. But on the other hand, as the author of Hebrews said, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Will Willimon, the chaplain at Duke, said most of us want just enough of God to be inoculated against God. And I think that’s about right. We want God. And we’re afraid of God, too. Aren’t we?

I know we’re not supposed to admit that. But you know what? We’re not more faithful than our ancestors. Except for Mary, everyone has either been mystified or just downright terrified when God first showed up. 

My larger point, though, is that you can relate to Isaiah right now. It’s not hard to imagine shaking in your boots like Isaiah at the presence of the Lord God Almighty. It is? And you know what else? That’s just the beginning of the similarities, too!

Like Isaiah, you know what it’s like to worship amidst turmoil, too. Why, you’ve even lived through a global pandemic that took all your churchgoing habits and threw them out the window. Didn’t you? We’re all still trying just to get back to what passed for normal!

Trust me, I know how upsetting that is. However, here’s the thing: everything that’s got you off balance is nothing more than all that God is using to set you straight! Yes, that’s destabilizing. But it’s also true. It just is.

We like to tell ourselves we’ll get right with God once we’ve got our lives in order. What Isaiah’s call reveals, though, is that it’s precisely the other way ‘round! The Holy Spirit happens when your world is upside-down! Worship occurs when it doesn’t go the way you expect! When nothing went the way Isaiah planned, it all brought him into the presence of the Lord. Didn’t it? And it’s no different for you, either! Yes, you.

I don’t care who you are; you have some place in life that’s got you all bent out of shape. We all do. And it might even be this worship! Maybe we sang that hymn you can’t stand. Or maybe we sang that one that always makes you cry. Either way, like Isaiah, you’ve suddenly found yourself in the presence of the Lord God Almighty! What’s more, it happened when and where you were most powerless, or weakest.

…I know what you’re thinking, though. You’re thinking, “Hey, look around, Pastor Ryan. We’re still the same ol’ church. Nothing has changed.” And if that’s what you’re thinking, all I have to say is, “Think again.” Think again.

I can say this, too. I can say this because some of you couldn’t believe anyone else saw it. Could you? Some of you have had the legs kicked out from under you this week. And for those of you, nothing looks quite the same anymore. Does it? 

Well, let me tell you, you’re finally seeing things a’right! In fact, if you squint, you’ll see more than the hem of God’s robe filling everything! If you’ll dare to sing without worrying about doing it wrong, you’ll even hear the angels themselves singing along with you, too! And that’s just the start.

However. However, we don’t like being out of sorts like this. Do we? No, we fight it tooth and nail. But, as we like to say, when you’re down to nothing, GOD is up to something! Or, God’s office is at the end of your rope.

By themselves, those are just cliches. But when you’re really up against it, they’re nothing less than watchwords. Those little sayings have the power to help you grasp your situation when everything is out of hand. It’s what Luther called the theology of the cross. And it’s what St. John of the Cross, before Luther, called it the dark night of the soul. No matter what you call it, though, it’s the same thing: God’s holiness. God’s holiness hidden underneath its opposite.

If you don’t listen to anything else, hear this: God’s holiness doesn’t always feel warm and fuzzy. No, often it feels frightening! But then again, life can be frightening. Can’t it? And you don’t need some god who’s too saccharine to get mixed up in this rough and tumble ol’ world. Do you? 

No, we need a God who’s worshipped by angels who are a whole heck of a lot scarier than our fears. And we need a God whose holiness can rattle our topsy-turvy lives, too. Don’t we? In other words, we need a God who really is God.

…Well, dear worshippers of the living God, this is what it means to experience God’s holiness! God’s holiness consists of nothing more than experiencing the presence of God in the last place you expected! It happens when you come here expecting nothing but the same old same old, and you really hear that hymn as if for the first time in your entire life! It happens when all your best-laid plans come to nothing, and finally, God becomes your everything!

Let me tell you another thing, too: that uneasiness you’re experiencing, it’s the very same thing Isaiah experienced. And remember, he didn’t say, “Yippee,” either. Did he? No, he cried out, “Woe is me!” 

Woe is me. “Woe,” that cry of despair. And yes, we hate to cry it. But, as Luther learned, it’s nothing less than the very beginning of saving faith itself! 

In Thesis 18 of his Heidelberg Disputation, Martin Luther wrote: “It is certain that we must completely despair of ourselves in order to become fit to obtain the grace of Christ.” Let me repeat that: “It is certain that we must completely despair of ourselves in order to become fit to obtain the grace of Christ.”

That cry of woe, it’s not the end—not be a long shot! No, it’s just the beginning! It’s the beginning of life after death. That’s what it was for Isaiah, a little death and life experience, in that order. And in your baptism, you’ve had one, too! 

In your baptism, you died. It is no longer you who lives. No, it is Christ who lives in you! And the life you now live in the flesh is lived by faith in the Son of God who loved you and gave himself for you.

Everything that has your nose out of joint is really just the ingredients of holiness! This painful process of being ground down to dust is really the experience of God breathing new life into you! But not life lived on your own steam. No, life lived by that fire of God, the Holy Spirit!

…This may not be what you expected or even wanted. One day, though, it’ll leave you, like it did Isaiah, singing, “holy, holy, holy,” and shouting, “Here I am, Lord!” But I might as well tell you: that day is now! Today is that great day of the Lord!

Soon, you will sing the “holy, holy, holy.” In no time, you will be called to the holy table. Then, something will be put to your lips. And it will be living, too. It will even burn with the holy fire of God. 

I’m talking about, of course, the Eucharist. The bread and the wine. The body of the blood of Jesus Christ himself. Jesus Christ, the full revelation of God’s holiness. The full revelation of God’s holiness touching your lips. Communion. Union with God in the fullest sense.

Once that living fire touches you, your guilt will depart. Your sin will be blotted out. You, too, will be face-to-face with the Lord. And this moment won’t consume you. In fact, you will consume it. Either way, when it’s all over, you will burn with the fire of God. 

As such, let us join the seraphs’ song! Our Hymn of the Day is hymn number 413, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty! Hymn number 413, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty! Let’s sing!