Text: Isaiah 6:1-8
Date: The Holy Trinity + 6/3/12
This day, the octave of (or first Sunday after) the Day of Pentecost, is the only day of the year named and dedicated to a Biblical doctrine, namely, the Holy Trinity, the triune nature of God. There is no “seat” (sedes) of this doctrine in one scripture passage. It is a mystery that takes three long paragraphs to describe in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds, and even longer in the Athanasian Creed. The three scripture readings appointed in the lectionary to be read today themselves only point to this mystery but do not attempt to explain it. In today’s Gospel Jesus speaks of God as having sent Him (the Son) into the world and that salvation comes to a person by being born from above by water and the Spirit. In Acts 2 we heard the continuation of Peter’s Pentecost sermon where, in explanation of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, he speaks of “God,” and of Jesus as the patriarch David’s Lord. First, however, in one of my favorite passages, the call of Isaiah in Isaiah 6, where it seems the Trinity is strongly hinted at in the song of the angels and at the end; “hinted at” but not “explained.”
God sent His Son into our flesh so that in Jesus we and the whole world might be able to see and understand God to the extent we need to and can perceive that mystery. Jesus is always to be the focus. But while the doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery and not within our ability to completely understand or explain, it is important for us to believe and to know that the God who created us and more wonderfully redeemed us is the One Being before whom every knee and the whole earth must bend in the obedience of praise of His glorious holiness. God—this one, true God—this “One is Holy, Holy, Holy.”
Listen to what Isaiah saw. He was given a vision of the heavenly temple of God. “I saw the Lord” he says, “sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.” There we are introduced to angels of the rank called seraphim flying, as it were, above the throne on each side. Then the prophet heard the antiphonal song, one at a time, calling to one another in a sort of round: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts the whole earth is full of his glory!”
This is one of two (now three) angelic songs enshrined in the Christian liturgy—the Gloria in Excelsis sung at the Savior’s human birth, and at the beginning of the liturgy, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to His people on earth;” and this, the Sanctus, sung as the Lord becomes sacramentally present in the Holy Communion, “Holy, holy, holy God of power and might.” Only here the Holy Church on earth added a word. The angels sang “the whole earth is full of his glory,” and we sing “heaven and earth are full of Your glory.” And lately we have included the angelic song from Revelation, the Dignus Est, “Worthy is Christ the Lamb who was slain, whose blood sets us free to be people of God.” In all of these ways the Church on earth and in time joins the eternal angelic songs of heaven.
That the angels sing the word “holy” three times is not in itself “proof” of the Trinity but does, nevertheless, reflect a consciousness of the seraphim to the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is “the Holy One of Israel,” a favorite name used by Isaiah—holy, set apart, beyond and above all creation, spotless purity, the perfect One.
When the angels say that the whole earth is full of God’s glory, the glory of God of which they speak is both His love and His wrath; it is His work of creation and of the salvation of souls. How many people instinctively perceive the glory of God in the majesty of mountain ranges covered with snow, divided by deep valleys, and the oceans churning and rolling in huge waves? The psalmist said, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens…. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place…O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Ps 8:1, 3, 9). But St. Paul put it most clearly when he, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote,
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. [What truth?] For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. (Rom 1:18-20).
“Holy, holy, holy.” When we sing this hymn in the liturgy it is the tradition to kneel or at least bow profoundly in imitation of Isaiah who cringed at the farthest possible distance in fear. The temple building itself trembled in reverential awe and smoke filled the place. The smoke came from the altar of incense revealing the fiery look of God’s love that purges away all sin. And that’s what happened quite literally to Isaiah.
First was the prophet’s cringing confession of sin, “Woe is me!” He knew he deserved to die right there on the spot because, as he said, “I am a man of unclean lips,” and “my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” who said, “for man shall not see me and live” (Ex 33:20). The holiness of God is to the sinner a consuming fire (Is 32:14). Now honestly, have you ever felt and faced up to your uncleanness in the presence of the living God? So important is our constant and repeated confession of sins in the Divine Service and every morning and every moment! For the sinful nature still hangs on as long as we are in this world. Our prayer is that the forgiveness of God will still hang on for us and to us.
So we make our confession. “Oh God, I am a man (or woman) of unclean lips and life as is everyone around me! And here I come humbly before You begging Your mercy, grace and forgiveness.” We beg even though we know the promise, for it is certain we know we can fall away! May his mercy and grace and forgiveness hold on to us according to His promise that we may never fall away!
Then the sacramental action: Immediately upon Isaiah’s confession of sin, one of the seraphim took a burning coal from the altar of incense and touched his mouth and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” The holy absolution was applied directly to the unclean lips of his confession. The seraph here lived up to the meaning of his name as the sin was burned away. Here is the “fire of love” we will sing about in the Hymn of the Day:
To You, the Counselor, we cry,
To You, the gift of God Most High;
The fount of life, the fire of love,
The soul’s anointing from above. (LSB 498/499:2)
This fire is not God’s wrath, however, but His love. And we do not just have to imagine Isaiah’s sacrament for today, like Isaiah, God forgives your sins, burns them up in His fire of love. And, as with Isaiah, He touches your lips, though not with a burning coal but with the elements our Lord declares are His body and His blood given for us Christians to eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins. For it is His body and His blood that is the eternal sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.
Such forgiveness ought not be the motivation only for thanksgiving and praise of God but also, as for Isaiah, the motivation for the whole purpose of that heavenly scene, namely, his confirmation and sending as a prophet, and one of the most important prophets we might add, of God’s Word and glory. Now, of course, we all are not prophets or apostles, pastors or teachers. But as that old hymn says,
If you cannot be a watchman,
Standing high on Zion’s wall,
Pointing out the path to heaven,
Off’ring life and peace to all,
With your prayers and with your bounties
You can do what God commands;
You can be like faithful Aaron,
Holding up the prophet’s hands. (LSB 826:3)
God asks, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And here we might add is not a conversation within the Holy Trinity but in council with the seraphim. Isaiah answered as immediately as the love of God had forgiven him. So with us. “Answer quickly when He calleth, ‘Here am I, send me, send me!’” (LSB 826:4).