Fifth Sunday after Epiphany: Old Testament, Isaiah 6:1-8                     

Isaiah 6:1-8

I hesitate to write on this passage with any of my comments. The ink spilled on Isaiah’s heavenly vision would fill volumes. I’m quite sure of that. And just as the vision which opened before the prophet had  many perspectives from which he could view, any approach to comment could also take a myriad of approaches. I will speak from just one.

Isaiah sees the Holy, Holy, Holy God. The “sight” causes the cherubim to “take cover,” it shakes the very doorposts of the Temple and it nearly destroys the prophet. He cries in verse 5, “Woe is me, for I am undone!” It could be translated just as well, “disintegrated.” The wonderful Reformed theologian, R.C. Sproul commented in his teaching that that is actually what the prophet experienced in the truest sense of the word. He simply and horrifyingly fell apart.

This is our Lord before Isaiah. For all interactions between the Divine and humanity come through the Son. This is not unlike the response of the Apostle John to the sight of Jesus in the Revelation. But one difference: the Son in Isaiah’s day had not yet masked His glory in flesh. And so what Isaiah beholds here is truly beyond human comprehension.

Later, Isaiah will call his people to “Behold Your God” as he describes the vocation of those who bring the good news (Isaiah 40:9). Have we beheld Him? Do we now? Today?

Seek Him. Call out to Him. His name is Jesus. Holy, Holy, Holy!