Majesty Mystery Mercy

Trinity Sunday

May 30, 1999

Isaiah 6:1-9a

THE STORY

Isaiah was in the temple when it happened. That was not unusual: Isaiah was a prophet in good standing. He had stood before King Uzziah many times and proclaimed his vision for God's people. He was in the mainstream of the best in Israel's faithful.

Isaiah had come for the usual reasons: he needed renewal and refreshing. He always felt better when he had worshiped. (That's why we're here, isn't it?) But somehow this day the focus swung away from Isaiah's hopes and Isaiah's expectations. And all of a sudden Isaiah got a glimpse into the majesty and the mystery that is Almighty God! The most important thing in your life and mine is the nature of our God, and our relationship to Him.

GOD BEGAN TO REVEAL HIMSELF TO ISAIAH

THERE WAS MAJESTY - When God Almighty reveals Himself in any measure there is also a corresponding sense of awe or reverence. The temple in which the prophet was worshiping was beautiful. But God's Presence is a beauty and majesty of a different quality altogether. I love to worship- thank God for the many ways in which we express praise to God– but when God chooses to reveal Himself– whenever there is that unmistakable Presence- there is majesty.

THERE WAS MYSTERY - When God comes near it is more than a "good time." In Isaiah's vision there is an awesome, almost eerie sense of God the "other." There is a disturbing, almost frightening quality to awareness of the holiness of God coming near.

You could say that God has a problem in communicating with us: if He wants to come near he has "to be careful" on two important counts: (1) we are finite, and can't really grasp the dimensions of eternity; and (2) we are sinful, and don't begin to understand the utter power and sheer white-hot energy of pure holiness.

GOD ALSO BEGAN TO REVEAL ISAIAH TO HIMSELF

The most important thing in your life and mine is the nature of our God, and our relationship to Him.

When God comes near- when we begin to recognize how He loves us- we begin to get a glimpse of ourselves as we really are. God is majesty, and he is mystery, but that LIGHT shines where we are and we begin to see things about ourselves we had not seen before. (Like shafts of sunlight in a darkened room, we see tiny little swirling particles of dust . . .) Isaiah cried out with the self-revelation: WOE is me!

The painful thing to Isaiah was fact that he was a GOOD man, and yet as he had the opportunity to draw nearer to God instead of being affirmed and having his needs met, Isaiah began to see himself as sinful and needy.

Every time God draws near the focus is not on how good I feel, or how great "I" am, but on HOW GREAT THOU ART! Peter: "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man!" John: "I fell at his feet as dead!"

But that self-revelation as not the end of the vision:

THERE WAS MERCY!

GOD HAD EXACTLY WHAT ISAIAH NEEDED

With the revelation of his own need, and with his cry of "Woe is me!" Isaiah moved up to a new level in his walk with God. It came (in what always seemed to me a s boy hearing this message) in a strange way: with a live coal from off the altar of God.

This was NOT to torment Isaiah, however– it was not to sear his lips so he could not speak; quite the contrary it was cleansing, illuminating, purifying FIRE! Isaiah began to experience the greatest luxury, perhaps, that mortals can know: Isaiah was clean, in God's Presence (7)!! ISAIAH ENTERED INTO GOD'S FELLOWSHIP IN A WAY HE HAD NOT KNOW BEFORE.

CONCLUSION - UNIQUE and UNIVERSAL dimensions of Isaiah's vision:

WHO was Isaiah? He was NOT a casual worshiper. (Why "the year that King Uzziah died"? Removal of royal 'prop'?)

TO WHOM does God reveal Himself? Hebrews 11:6 TO SEEKERS! The most important thing in your life and mine is the nature of our God, and our relationship to Him.

Chances are no one will ever have another vision exactly like Isaiah's. But the promise is there: IF WE ARE SEEKERS AFTER GOD, GOD WILL REWARD US WITH HIMSELF!

There is a big difference in TALKING about seeking, and actually putting God at the center of our lives and SEEKING HIM. We are experts on doctrine; we can tick off the steps to discipleship– but not many of us are very well acquainted with this great GOD who is so GREAT he shakes temples, and so HOLY he makes us see our SIN and yet so TENDER AND KIND that he comes where we are with holy FIRE to touch our lips and our hearts.

TALKING about God is pretty "boring" and "tame" compared to, say, a trip to Disney World, or even a gospel concert . . . UNTIL ONE DAY AS WE EARNESTLY SEEK GOD COMES!

I was 18 years old before I ever saw the ocean. I had read about it. Intellectually I understood that it was vast. But since I first got a glimpse of it– here at the end of this street– and then out at Nantasket Beach– then flying over it a number of times - - then watching it in hurricane-force waves– I began to realize that I could never know the ocean just by reading about it. As a matter of fact, I know there is a sense in which I don't know the ocean very much at all!

We could say the same for all the great wonders of God's creation– and they are just handiwork that point to the great God beyond, a God we can KNOW, and whom we can never FATHOM. David said: "When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what are WE that you are mindful of US, or our children that you visit us?"

Today we think of the TRINITY– the God who is OVER us, and who is WITH us, and who is IN us. The doctrine of the Trinity is not a fascinating puzzle for our holy amusement, but in some wonderful way it is God's own revelation to us of His love. Our God is so great as to be unspeakable in his glory, and yet so condescending that he has taken our nature, and speaks in our language to show us how we may live– and a God so very near that he is with us HERE as we worship.

Prayer

Hymn