B, Post Pentecost 4 Proper 6 - 2 Corinthians 5:6–17 "A Godly Home"

2 Corinthians 5:6–10 (ESV)  So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord,  for we walk by faith, not by sight.  Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.  So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Paul writes to the Corinthians, as he does to all whom he writes, to call the congregation into faithfulness to Jesus Christ, who is the faithful King of Kings!

While he is with them, he is meek, but in his absence his letters are far from gentle.  In his letters to the Corinthians, he calls them to repentance; to turn away from the comforts of their pleasures to the comforts of Christ. He calls them to take good courage from his guidance even though what he says to them does cause them internal suffering and hurt.

He says, “For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it—though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while.  As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting.  For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.  For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”  (2 Corinthians 7:8–10 ESV)

Paul prepares the Corinthians for the resurrection of the dead.  He goes to great lengths to unpack this in his first letter to the Corinthians in chapter fifteen, as some in the congregation claim there is no resurrection, which left unchallenged by Paul would have pushed the Corinthians back into a worldly grief that produces eternal death.

Today in the reading from Second Corinthians chapter five,  Paul calls for courage to walk by faith and not sight, to please the Lord while we are in our bodily home, as we wait to be home with the Lord.

He sobers them, and you and me, with a reminder that on our way to being home with the Lord, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”  (2 Corinthians 5:10 ESV)

In saying this Paul affirms what Jesus himself says, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.  Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.”  (Matthew 25:31–33 ESV)

While Jesus dwelt amongst his apostles, he teaches them to preach this.  We hear Peter speak of Jesus’ judgement to the Gentiles, saying, “he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.”  (Acts 10:42 ESV)

Paul says to the Corinthians, and to you and me, after you leave your bodily home, you will receive your due for what you’ve practised, whether good or evil.  A little further on in the text he says something quite strange at its first hearing, “For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.”  (2 Corinthians 5:13 ESV)

Here Paul is using the same home language as he first used with the Corinthians, “Home in the Lord or at home in the body”.  When they are beside themselves Paul and other’s whose work is to teach, are at home with the Lord, and seek the hearer to have a Godly home too.  If Paul and other teachers are in their right minds, they suffer in the home of their bodies, to make homes for the hearers with the Lord.

Paul and those who are called to proclaim the truth of the resurrection of Christ and his judgement are led by the Holy Spirit, having been sent by Jesus Christ to guide all disciples of Christ, now that the old self is dead.

We hear, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died;  and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:14–15,17 ESV)

Now that you are a new creation, you’re called to examine yourself.  You are invited to look at what germinates within you, to see what kind of home you desire for yourself and what kind of home you proclaim to others, with your thoughts, with your words, and with your actions.

Psalm ninety-two also talks of seeds sprouting and trees growing.  In it the psalmist compares a stupid man as sprouting grass, here one moment, but doomed to destruction, versus the righteous person, like cedars and palms planted in the courts of the Lord, whose evergreen life still bears fruit in its old age.

The psalmist uses the picture of cedars and palms because of their longevity and their fruit, but he also uses them because the cedars are the biggest trees living on the highest mountains of the Middle East.  The palms are date palms, a tree that gives life in the desert, with a fruit that’s the sugar of the Middle East, a tree of life in a desolate place. 

But the psalmist uses the image of the cedar and the palm for the righteous, because those who came into God’s presence to sabbath in the temple, were surrounded by the cedars of Lebanon that built and lined the temple.  The walls of the temple were carved with palms, so that those who came into God’s house came into his sabbath rest on the seventh day.  A re-creation of the garden of Eden, with trees of life.  They came to make a Godly home with the God who seeks to dwell with his people.

As we are at home in our bodies, God seeks to cause Godly grief within you and me.  Those who don’t carry Godly grief put trust in their bodily home and fail to recognise the body is a temporary failing dwelling.  God seeks to sustain you through death to finally reveal the new creation, you’ve hopefully allowed God to work.

At the resurrection our seed of either good or evil will receive its reward.  What will the resurrection reveal about the type of seed that’s germinated within you?

We might be surprised that what we perceive as being good, might just be what God deems as evil.  Whereas the good God looks for, are the very deeds, we tend to overlook and avoid most of the time.

Here again God works for Godly grief that leads to repentance!   In fact, humility leading to repentance is one of the great goods that God seeks, glorifying God’s work of creation, Jesus’ work of redemption, and the Holy Spirit’s work of leading us to drown the human spirit, the old self, in daily repentance.   

Follow Jesus alone!  He is the way, the truth, and the life!   The good, God seeks, are works of faith in him, and what he is doing.  Godly grief leads to a Godly home!  But bodily glory leads to worldly and bodily grief, and eternal death. 

Finally, the pictures of the mustard seed, and the man broadcasting seeds of grain, as parables of the kingdom of heaven, are pictures of God planting humanity and Jesus Christ.

The sickle will be put into God’s crop, and the good seed will be sieved from the bad.  Jesus became the smallest of seeds for humanity and was buried in the ground in death.  Our seed is made good only by this Mustard Seed.  In his resurrection this Mustard Seed has germinated and grown larger than the cedars of Lebanon, and his fruit is sweeter than the sweetest of dates.  In his resurrection, Jesus is the new glorious temple for our new creation in which to rest and tabernacle, with God our Father!

Don’t try to convince God of your goodness, using the tree of your knowledge of good and evil.  It didn’t work for Adam and Eve, and it won’t work for you either!

Those who wish to receive a Godly home on judgement day, will do well to allow the Holy Spirit to make their home in this Mustard Tree, to rest and remain in these branches of Jesus Christ, the Tree of Life!  Amen.

Heavenly Father, you have sent us Jesus Christ, who has constructed and gives us his way with the timbers of the tree of the cross, who is the Tree of Truth on that cross, and the Tree of Life, from whom the Holy Spirit descends to gather us into his branches and helps us bear our cross.  Heavenly Father, give us good courage to trust our home is in the shade of your eternal love.  Amen. 

B, Post Pentecost 3 Proper 5 - 1 Samuel 8:5b–7 "The Royal House of Jesus Christ"

You are priests in the royal house of Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Those who allow themselves to be moved by the Holy Spirit to do the will of God the Father, are brothers, sisters, and mother of the King.  Being family of the King makes us royalty!  We are in the Holy House of the royal family when we allow the Holy Spirit to bring us to our Father, through the Holy Royal Son, who had his coronation when he was crowned as King at cross of Calvary.

There has been no other leader like Jesus Christ, before him, or since!  Jesus stands head and shoulders above every other leader.  The political leaders we have today are a far cry from Jesus, or even the kings chosen by God to reign over Israel.

The political spectrum from conservative to progressive, in Australia and across the world, in political realms, social realms, in modern Israel, Islam, other faiths and even the Christian church, are a far cry from the former Kingdom of Israel.  This is because every rule today is political, driven by popularity and people, and not by God.

When Israel settled in Canaan, God raised up judges to lead and adjudicate the tribes of Israel.  The common predicament for Israel was that they “did evil in the eyes of the Lord”!  They followed the ways of those who lived in other kingdoms and defiled themselves with their gods.  Samuel is known as the seventh judge of Israel, despite there being more than seven judges before him.  He is seen as the completion of the judges of Israel.

So, it’s no wonder Samuel may have felt offended when the tribes of Israel came asking for a king to rule them like the other nations around them.  We hear the elders of Israel say, “Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”  But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the LORD.  And the LORD said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”  (1 Samuel 8:5b–7 ESV)

God allowed Israel to have its king.  The first was Saul, then David was chosen by God through Samuel when Saul was rejected.  When David was nearing the end of his life, he anointed Solomon his son as King, with Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet in attendance.  This occurred when another of his sons, Adonijah, took it upon himself to become king.

The kingship of Israel from this point on falls into various levels of corruption after Israel splits into two kingdoms.  Two common phrases are heard in the leadership of the kings.  “And he did what was right in the sight of God.  And he did what was evil in the sight of God”.  The Kings of the northern kingdom of Israel became corrupt and led the people in the sins of the nations around them.  The only exception was King Jehu who executed Jezebel, and King Ahab’s descendants.  However, he also didn’t walk in the laws of God and led Israel in their sin.

The kings of Judah were not much better, where still most did not follow God’s leadership.  The rejection of God first happened in the days of Samuel, and in getting their king Israel and Judah ended up following the sins of the nations around them who had kings.

It was not meant to be this way!  Israel was meant to be a nation of priests, a blessing to all other nations.  When they camped at Sinai after leaving Egypt, God commanded Moses to tell the Israelites, “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine;  and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”  (Exodus 19:5–6 ESV)

Leadership today unfortunately, but not surprisingly, follows the same ugly pattern as Israel’s fallen kingship.  What begun through a theocracy, focused on God and trusting in God, lost God’s centrality when the kings became gods to themselves and the people.  Today political messiahs seek popularity as they preach prosperity so they can be voted into power.  It seems the same political problems that plagued the kingship of Israel and Judah, still pursue those who hold power over the populace today.  And it matters not whether they are of conservative or progressive ilk because our leaders reflect us who put them into power, rather than God from whom their authority exists.  We have professional politicians who care little for their constituents, and they care less for God or his gift of authority to lead.

God gives us the leaders we want.  When we want conservative leaders to conserve our sinfulness he gives them to us.  When we want progressive leaders to progress our sinfulness, them too he gives to us.  It is not the politicians or the public service that’s the problem.  It is you and me who put them there!

The problem also existed and continues to exist in kingdoms where leaders become tyrants.  Democracy continues to crumble as constitutions built on the Ten Commandments, are eroded and supplanted by our individualism and its great god of pleasure.  The great socialism experiments of last century continue in the wake of Hitler and Stalin, in regimes where people vanish if they speak out against the mob.

Unfortunately, we have not learnt from our failures through kingdoms, democracies, and socialisms, where today a “public-pleasure” socialism has arisen where the individual is god of the self, reflected in the mirror of electronic devices.

Inside the church this public pleasure socialism is at work too!  All the sins of the Israelites, the gentiles, and past generations of progressive and conservative Christianity are being repeated and built upon.  Like the Israelites, we in the royal family, seek to oppose Jesus Christ our King and stand in his place and in his power.

You and I are called to repentance whenever we remain silent and fail to stand up for those suffering for Jesus Christ and his gospel of repentance and forgiveness.  When others are accused for being out of their minds for proclaiming Christ and his word, to our shame, because of fear we don’t defend them, or the truth of God’s Word.

You and I are called to repentance when God’s love is watered down into a feel-good fellowship, to the exclusion of the Holy Spirit’s true unifying work, of bringing us in repentance to the cross.  You and I are called to repentance when we’re tempted to build our own kingdoms, rather than stand in the royal house of God, a house not made with hands.  We’re called to repentance, when we seek the transient over the eternal, and seek to put off light momentary affliction and the eternal weight of glory, in favour of pleasures that are wasting away with our bodies!

This is where we’re called back to Christ the King, and let him bind the strong man within us, whose spirit is turned against God’s royal order and the work of the Holy Spirit.  God calls you to confess your sin and trust he truly wants to forgive you. 

You are called to trust Jesus as the King of Kings.  He is the only man of the people, having died for the people.  No politician ever did that!  And definitely not without sin!

We are now God’s kingdom of priests, baptised into the priesthood of all  believers.  The Holy Spirit leads you to stand under the Word of God, so he can use you for the royal duties of forgiving as Christ has forgiven you. 

You and I are called to be conservative with the forgiveness of sin, shamelessly desiring this forgiveness that Christ freely spreads amongst those who believe in him and stand under him in forgiveness.

You and I are called to also be progressive with this forgiveness too, by submissively nurturing God’s word within!  Standing under it, so the Holy Spirit can continue changing your heart and those to whom you bear Jesus Christ and his word of forgiveness.

When we live under the forgiveness of sin before the world, we can be confident we do not sin against the Holy Spirit because we carry the same spirit of faith as that of Jesus Christ as to what has been written in God’s Word. 

So, like Saint Paul, “we also believe, and so we also speak,  knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.  For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.  So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”  (2 Corinthians 4:13–16 ESV)

Just as Jesus walked the way of the cross, led by the Holy Spirit, for his royal coronation, know that the Holy Spirit helps you carry your cross for your royal coronation into the kingdom of heaven.

Amen.

B, Post Pentecost 2 Proper 4 - 2 Corinthians 4:5-12 "Clay Jars that We Are"

Clay jars need rest!  But the power to rest in the right way does not come from the clay jar!  In its fragility the clay jar does not know how to rest, it needs a knowledge greater than the lack of knowledge it contains.  Clay jars can hold many things, but one thing they cannot hold is knowledge.

Saint Paul speaks of us as the clay jars holding the light that shines out of darkness.  A clay jar that has an absence of light contains only darkness.  Like creation we are clay jars without form and void.  Likewise, to creation, we need God to say, “Let light shine out of darkness,” “Let there be light”.  We need God the Holy Spirit to shine, “in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”  (2 Corinthians 4:6 ESV)

Clay jars need rest to be reformed and recast.  I’m not talking about pottery anymore, but the earthenware of our humanity, our flesh, our soul or being, both physical and spiritual.  We need the light of God that’s more powerful than the strongest laser light.  To cut with greater precision than a plasma cutter.  To open us and expose what’s hidden within.  And to burn out what’s rotting away inside of us!

Some clay jars believe that the darkness within is light, and therefore do not want to be reformed or recast.  At some point though, without rest, clay jars will return to the dust from which they’re made.  “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19 ESV)

All clay jars will crack and fall apart, explode in a shower of shards from pressure, or on Christ’s return God’s decree will be fulfilled in him.

From Psalm two we hear, “I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you.  Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.  You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’” (Psalm 2:7–9 ESV)

We, clay jars, need rest in God!  Why do we need this rest?  And what does this rest do?  How do we get this rest?  What does this rest look like? 

Returning to Second Corinthians four, we know that without God, there is nothing within shining the necessary light to recast and reform us in Jesus Christ.  Even Paul says, “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants (slaves) for Jesus’ sake.”  (2 Corinthians 4:5 ESV)

Even Paul needs rest as a servant slave of the Lord Jesus Christ, as do all who preach and teach for Jesus’ sake!

So, why do we need this rest?

The fragility of our being is evident in this world.  This world is one bound by death.  In fact, death is the great unifier of all people, all animals, all things, in all of creation.  Everything is dying!   You, me, the person next to you, your animals, everything ever built, everything ever created.  This is fact, this is the world in which we die.  It’s not life we’re living, but death we’re dying!

After God created the heavens and the earth, on the seventh day he rested.  God called Saturday the Sabbath, to repose from work.  After the fall into sin, where humanity’s being got its clay jar fragility, to sabbath, or to rest in God, requires more than just a physical sabbath, but our fallen nature also needs a spiritual sabbath.  After God chose the Israelites as his own, he called them through the law to faithfully rest with him in repentance and atonement through the sacrifice for sin, performed by God’s representatives in the temple.

After the Word became flesh, Jesus Christ fulfilled the Word of the old covenant.  The Word enfleshed, revealed the fragility and futility of our flesh, and finished what Israel could not finish in the weakness of its human flesh.  The sabbath, the day of rest, had become for the Jews, a day of rules, rather than a day of faith where one could rest with God after atonement was made for sin.  Jesus said to the Jews, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27 ESV)

What Jesus was saying is, the day of rest, God’s holy day, or holiday,  is made for us to faithfully rest with God.  It’s not a day for a self-justifying stoppage of work.  The Jews had turned the Sabbath into a work of righteousness, by their good works of not working.  The focus was on themselves doing, rather than being with whom they were called to be!  Their motivation was on what they did, rather than being with God!

What is your motivation in coming to church?  If it’s for a work of some kind, let the example of the Jews of Jesus’ day, stand as a warning to you!  If your primary reason for coming to church is for community, morale, making an appearance, to be seen, to be a leader, to do a certain job, to move others by one’s own motivation, or for good morals, then you’re coming for the wrong reason!

As honourable as the tasks performed might be, (I include myself as your pastor in this), if I or you come for reasons other than to rest in God, through the forgiveness of sins, atoned for by Jesus Christ, you and I have come for the wrong reason!  We’re not here to work for God, but to be arrested by him, to allow him to work for us, in us, so we can rest in him.  And in doing so we glorify the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in their honourable tasks of reposing, recasting, and reforming the clay jars that we are!  

In Paul’s leadership as a slave or servant of Jesus Christ, even he needed to rest in the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  So too with you and me, now that we have been recreated and recast in Jesus Christ, as Sons of God in his works of righteousness, having been reborn with water and the word, as kings in God’s creation.  We are returned to Psalm two where we’re reminded, “Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.  Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.  Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”  (Psalm 2:10–12 ESV)

Every one of us who remains and rests in God’s Son, glorifies God by acknowledging God’s righteous judgement.  As we have just heard,  “Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”  What does this rest do?  It blesses us or balances us in the truth of God’s Word.  Hence, we find ourselves fleeing to this rest for refuge. 

We might think God’s judgement is Jesus’ anger as Psalm two says!  But it says this for us and others when we focus on ourselves.  When we kiss ourselves, someone, or something other than the Son of God.  However, when we’re led to kiss the Son, we trust in him and what he’s done to balance us with forgiveness and blessed rest with God our Father.

So, how do we get this rest?  We get this rest or sabbath, firstly, through Jesus Christ who being the only one to rightly rest in God the Father, paradoxically died for us who through sin struggle to rest with God.  Ironically Jesus’ rest was so perfect, this “Holy Clay Jar” rested in God’s holy judgement on Holy Saturday,  “that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,  in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison.”  (1 Peter 3:18–19 ESV)

In the continuation of Jesus’ perfect work and rest, the Holy Spirit continues this work by bringing us in faith into God’s rest.  We kiss the Son because the Holy Spirit brings us to the Son through his holy word and holy sacraments. 

The Holy Spirit calls you and me through the holy work and holy rest of Jesus, in other words, the gospel.  The Holy Spirit enlightens you and me with God’s gifts, of forgiveness, to confess, and forgive as we have been forgiven.  This happens with the enlightenment of God’s holy word and faithful trust in Jesus’ holy communion for the forgiveness of sins, continuation of life in the midst of death, and salvation from eternal death.  The Holy Spirit also makes us holy; he covers us with the robes of Christ’s righteousness, so we have free access into God’s holiness to pray and confess.

So, what does this rest look like?  We are still clay jars, fragile and easily broken.  We are holy with “the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”   But the darkness of our original state still lingers.  However, the Holy Spirit now works within you and me, so we, “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy”, as we hear in the Third Commandment.

In his explanation, Martin Luther says in the Small Catechism, “We are to fear and love God so we do not neglect his Word or the preaching of it, but regard it as holy and gladly hear and learn it.”

The Holy Spirit leads us to church to hear the word, to stand under it in understanding, to unpack it in its truth and relevance for us, and to give us joy in gathering as forgiven people in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.  However, we, being clay jars, don’t always appreciate the knowledge of Jesus Christ.  Our fragility and futility, tends to lead us to see without eyes of faith, where we overlook the reality of what resting in God is all about.  Then we neglect his word and the preaching of it, regarding it as common, and turn against hearing and learning it. 

Every person struggles with this.  After all we are clay jars!  This is where we have the Holy Spirit to help us, to once again fear and love God, in a way where we no longer “have got to” read the bible.  Where we no longer “have got to” go to church.  And where we no longer “have got to” serve our neighbours as Christ serves us. 

Rather, we keep knocking on God’s door in prayer for the Holy Spirit to give us a hunger “to want to” read the bible, to give us a desire “to want to” go to church and rest in God, and to give us a longing “to want to” serve our neighbours as Christ serves us.

When you keep praying for the Holy Spirit to give you a love for God’s Word, he will lead you to Jesus Christ, deepening your knowledge of his grace and the depths of your sin in your self-justifying knowledge of good and evil.  You will get understanding as to why you might have struggled to find true joy in church, and why being daily in the Word is difficult. 

In God’s time you will find yourself looking forward to coming into rest in God.  To be forgiven and fed!  Rather than coming in cold to hear the Word of God on Sunday morning, your joy in the Word of God, will see you put off the world, so the Holy Spirit can prepare you, the clay jars, in the Word of God for rest with God in his word and sacraments.  Amen.

B, Trinity Sunday - Isaiah 6:3 & Romans 8:14-15 "Holy Abba"

Isaiah 6:3 (ESV) “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” 

Romans 8:14-15 (ESV) For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba!  Father!” 

Today is Trinity Sunday and we celebrate God in his thrice holy being.  We can do so only because of Jesus Christ who gives us access into the presence of one who is so almighty, if we dared to have an audience with God without Jesus’ atonement we would drop dead.  Such is the omnipotent glory of God in heaven and our human impotence.

If anything comes into the presence of a Holy God without his chosen covering of mercy, one of two truths has to occur.  God’s purity is diluted, and he is not really holy!  Or, any impurity, be it ever so slight, has to be consumed by the radiance of his holy glory.

Isaiah was very well aware of this.  He knew that to be in God’s presence demanded nothing but perfection.  Such is the holiness of God, it cannot tolerate any error, lest it be unholy.  Like Moses and Gideon before him, Isaiah knew, to see God, meant death.

Isaiah also knew that the king of Judah, Uzziah[1], sought under his own power to enter the temple of God in Jerusalem and burn incense, not “consecrated”, or “made holy” to do so.  Because he did the king lived the rest of his life in separation as a lepper, despite doing what was right in the eyes of God right up until this unauthorised entry into God’s holy presence.

So, when the vision of the Lord was revealed to Isaiah, of God’s presence shaking the temple and filling it with smoke, with the seraphim singing, “Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of hosts”  Isaiah cried out, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”  (Isaiah 6:5 ESV)  Like the King who died in that year, Isaiah lamented he too was lost to death!

But rather than leprosy appearing on his forehead as it did with King Uzziah, he didn’t die.  Being completely right in saying he was unclean and deserving of death for just seeing a vision of the Lord in the temple, the seraph took a burning coal from the altar and touched his mouth saying, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” (Isaiah 6:7 ESV)

The holiness of God took away Isaiah’s guilt and atoned for his sins.  God now gave him the lips with which to proclaim his word to his people who did not recognise their uncleanliness before a Holy God.  And it wasn’t a pleasant message God sent Isaiah to say…

The Lord said, “Go, and say to this people: “ ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’  Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”  Then I (Isaiah) said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste,  and the LORD removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.  And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.” The holy seed is its stump.  (Isaiah 6:9–13 ESV)

Immediately we will recognise a couple of things.  God was disciplining his chosen people with the harshest of judgements, to turn away from the Lord so that the Lord will remove the people far away and the tenth who remain would be burnt to a stump. 

We also recognise the burnt stump that appeared to not have any life within it, is in fact, the holy seed, the stump of Jesse, the promised Son of David, Jesus Christ.

The prophet Isaiah proclaims the fullness of God’s Law and Gospel.  The holiness of God the Father, the holiness of God the Son, and the holiness of God the Holy Spirit.  The full supreme holiness of the triune God in his perfect justice and jealous love, pours out his word of on his chosen people. 

In human eyes and understanding it appears we, like Isaiah, and the Israelites, are dead men!  And rightly so before a God whose holiness cannot partake of anything short of perfection, lest he has made himself out to be a liar.

But God is no liar, he is our God of truth, exposing what needs to be exposed, so he can fix what needs to be fixed.  God’s word is holy and with it he works to make us holy.

Against this picture of God’s almighty threefold holiness, shaking and filling the temple of Isaiah’s vision with smoke, is the picture Paul paints for the Romans and us.  Worked by the Holy Spirit and not a human spirit of slavery this is a most beautiful and gracious picture.

It’s a picture of Fatherly love, a picture of nurturing, a picture of adoption, a safe picture of submission and stability, a picture of inheritance together with our Lord Jesus Christ.  This is a picture of the stump with the Tree or Life growing out of it.  This is our Stump of hope.  It’s our connection with the holiness of God, it’s a picture of Jesus our brother putting us in our Father’s arms.

Because of the truth of this picture, you’re called to believe and receive you’re being gathered with God the Father and his Son by the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit enables you and me to put to death the deeds of our flesh, through repentance, the uncleanness that Jesus Christ has covered with his robes of holiness.

The Holy Spirit now touches our mouths with his holy fire of faith, so rather than crying out, “woe is me in unbelief.”  We can joyfully sing to each other before our Loving Father, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3 ESV)  This God who is so huge and almighty, who fills heaven and earth with the hem of his holy, holy, holy glory, intimately takes us in his arms, and as his children wills us to call him “Abba”, “dadda”, “daddy”, “Father”.  

A couple of weeks back there was much excitement over the auroras present at both poles of our planet.  It was the strongest it’s been for a couple of decades.  I was fortunate to see it and photograph it. 

I wonder if the sense of smallness I had was similar to that of Isaiah when he saw his vision.  But not only Isaiah’s vision but that of John’s revelation of the throne of heaven where he saw, “one seated on the throne.  And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald.”  (Revelation 4:2–3 ESV)

Picture that display of holiness!

As I remember marvelling, in my smallness, at this spectacle of nature in the colours of the aurora, it makes me look forward to the reality of finally being face to face in the Father’s holiness, through the holy atonement of Jesus Christ, in the holy fulfilment of the Holy Spirit.  Where around the throne of God all the holy will join the angels, the archangels, and the whole company of heaven, praising God, saying, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” (Revelation 4:8 ESV)

Picture this reality in your adoption as sons of God.  Amen.

Let us pray.  Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.  (Revelation 4:11 ESV) For the kingdom, and the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever, Amen.

 

 

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[1] 2 Chronicles 26:1-23 (Uzziah was known as Azariah in 2 Kings 15:1-7)