Abstract
What an enormous contrast within only four verses in our text for today! What a transformation from “Woe to me! I am ruined!” to “Here am I. Send me!” How does this change come about? Was there a long-standing development at work? Was there a strong desire to seek new direction in life and sophisticated methods to achieve this goal? Not at all! In a single moment the deepest despair gives way to wholehearted confidence. This is astonishing. Yet more astonishing is the fact that this change endures---it is not a temporary high in a time of emotional fluctuations but the splendid beginning of what is a lasting reorientation.
Isaiah 6 begins with the words “In the year that King Uzziah died”, after which a grand vision is depicted. Although this vision of God is not about an event in time and space, it still takes place in a specific era and area, under specific political circumstances. This is the year 740 B.C. and the king, who ruled the country for over fifty years, has died, leaving an uncertain and murky political situation: Who is going to rule the country now? Will the militaries of the neighbouring countries try to take advantage of the power vacuum? Will the new sovereign be equal to the manifold challenges before him?
In this situation full of doubts, Isaiah has a vision that reveals the illusory nature of the power vacuum and uncertainty. However vulnerable the situation of the regime in Judah may be, the true king’s throne will not rock. Whoever leads Judah’s lot and however he pulls the strings, in truth the strings are in someone else’s hands anyway.
Instead of instilling confidence, this insight has the opposite effect on Isaiah: “Woe to me! I am ruined!” He recognizes the abysmal contrast between God’s holiness and his own imperfection: “I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips”.
Just as Isaiah is becoming frightened and giving in to self-recrimination and the fear of death is grabbing hold of him, one of the mysterious heavenly beings comes to him: “Then one of the seraphim 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”. The live coal symbolises divine judgement. The seraphim comes with a live coal, touches Isaiah’s mouth and thus affirms the uncleanness of his lips on which judgement now is given. We may expect Isaiah’s horror to escalate but the seraphim’s voice speaks out: “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” The live coal is not for punishment but for purification; it does not annihilate the sinner but sin. What a beneficial vision of divine judgement! And this is not the end: Not only is the judged person not annihilated but hears God’s order and stands by. Passing through the judgement the one who cried in fear and self-doubt “Woe to me! I am ruined!” now responds: “Here am I. Send me!”
“In the year that King Uzziah died”: Like Isaiah and his people we find ourselves in a time characterized by change, and, some might argue, a power vacuum. The church has lost its strong influence on society and it is unclear what public role it will play in the future. This gives rise to many questions, not the least of which is how to cope best with the social trend of religious individualism and the attendant phenomena of alienation from church, declining membership, and the loss of significance of religious traditions and institutions.
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw …” In this situation of uncertainty, Isaiah has a vision. What about us? “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.” Whatever we apprehend and experience of God, is, at best, the train of his robe. God’s presence and action is neither contained within a special building nor limited to a certain denomination, nor to the Sunday service, nor to the historically-grown institutions and customs we are used to associating with the notions of “Christianity” and “church”. These may all be filled with God’s presence yet still all of it would be no more than the train of his robe with which they are filled.
The times seem uncertain but God is simply rearranging the plaits of his robe. This insight may turn some into fatalists, others into libertines. Isaiah’s reaction has nothing in common with either . “Woe to me! 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.” The sight of God does not lead to abstract knowledge of God but to an unsparing self-knowledge vis-à-vis God. Indeed, we do not “fit” with God. We have nothing to offer the holy God. We have nothing that makes us stand out to be noticed, accepted, or engaged by God.
“Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand … and said, ‘See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.’” And now, only now, Isaiah hears the voice of God: “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And he answers, “Here am I. Send me!” Are we aware how startling his answer is? Not only in its contrast to Isaiah’s recent cry of “Woe to me! I am ruined!” but as an answer to God’s question “Who will go for us?”? Isaiah answers as one of “us”, as someone who belongs to God. He, who had just been weighed down by his inadequacy to be before God is now answering at eye level: “Here am I. Send me!”
Are we ready—in our personal lives and as God’s church—to be sent on a way where we have not set the goal ourselves and may not even know where we are going? The appearance of tomorrow’s church may have little in common with the church of today. But the true church of all times lives and acts based on the divine promise:
“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Is 55:10—11)