Sermon for February
8, 2004
5th Sunday after the Epiphany
“Have You Seen God?”
Isaiah 6:1-8
It takes
quite a musician to honor the composer more than the performer. A
true musician always credits the source of the music more than its
performance. David Wiley, the director of the Roanoke Symphony
Orchestra, presented a program for our Adult Fellowship Group some weeks
ago. This was my first opportunity to meet him. As he was
describing for us the upcoming symphony programs, he announced a
particular piece and then said, “Well, let me give you a sample.”
He then proceeded to play the entire first movement of the piece at the
piano by memory! Cheryl and I recently attended a
symphony performance. What impresses me about him is the sincerity
with which he seeks to honor the source of the music that its meaning and
message might be revealed through his performance.
This
reminds me of a story told about Arturo Toscanini, the legendary late-19th/early
20th century Italian conductor. Unlike David Wiley,
Toscanini was so exacting in his attention to detail that he was known for
his unreasonable temper. At the conclusion of a particularly fine
performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Toscanini, with his arms
still after the final sounds resounded around the hall, held the orchestra
and the audience in awed silence. He then spontaneously addressed
the orchestra,
You are
nothing! I am nothing! Beethoven is everything!
Everything!
The
experience of the orchestra and audience that day, I believe, begins to
address the reality before us in the Scripture this morning. What
happens when you see God? What happens when you find yourself face
to face with God? What happens when the full majesty, power, and
glory of God is made known, revealed, and you see it? What happens
when you see God?
Few human
beings can claim to have been so fully in the presence of God. This
is where the Bible is so very helpful to us, particularly our Old
Testament Lesson for today.
Isaiah saw
God in the temple. It was an experience that changed his life
forever. As a priest of the temple in Jerusalem he was sharing in an
annual religious festival called the Enthronement Celebration. The
Enthronement Celebration was the annual religious drama which acted out
the return of the Divine King to his temple as victor over the forces of
evil to be crowned King, Creator, and Judge of his people. This was
a very important festival and drama for they believed a King would come
one day to unite all God’s people by a great victory over evil and reign
over all the land forever. So they shared the Enthronement
Celebration each year confident in the promise of God.
It was
then Isaiah saw God. But did you notice which year this was as you
heard the text read this morning? It was the year King Uzziah
died—that’s the first thing the text says about it. King Uzziah
was dead. By 740 BC he had reigned in Judah 52 years and brought
much peace and prosperity. But he was gone—the people not only
mourned his death but worried about the effectiveness of his son, Jotham,
who succeeded him. Isaiah had good reason to worry, as a man of
noble birth and of much culture and learning he had a thorough knowledge
of national and international affairs. He knew of looming danger on
the horizon with the westward expansion of the kingdom of Assyria.
Unless the people and their king remained faithful and steadfastly trusted
God they would not make it through that period of tension and peril.
That’s
when Isaiah saw God. It was a time of national and very personal
vulnerability. The person of the king and the security of the nation
were very much on the minds and hearts of the people at this celebration
of the Enthronement Festival.
It is here
just now that Isaiah the priest, the man of noble birth, sees God.
His vision is breathtakingly awesome and dangerous. All the earthly
objects and symbols are taken up in a heavenly vision. Isaiah sees
God but he makes no attempt to describe the King on the throne—as with
all human accounts of God the picture is inadequate, reduced to the
description of the attendant beings and objects and sounds. So
Isaiah describes angels who cover their faces and bodies with their wings
for they cannot look upon God nor be totally exposed to God’s majesty
and glory. He describes a great earthquake shakes the very
foundation of creation and the temple fills with smoke. He describes
a continuing song of praise, “Holy, holy, holy…”—that’s the best
Isaiah can do to describe the song—that’s how his native Hebrew
language expresses the superlative—repeating a words three times.
Human language can express it so inadequately.
In the
face of this magnificent vision of God Isaiah can say nothing but, “Woe
is me, for I am lost.” Isaiah confesses ultimate human inadequacy
and unworthiness in the full presence of God. He felt this so much
more acutely and personally because the king was dead. Isaiah knew
only God reigns and no period of peace and prosperity is totally the
result of human leadership. God is the only one who is really in
control.
You see,
there was a growing complacency among the people. During those good
times they began to settle into a sense of self-sufficiency and arrogance.
Taking pride in their achievements as their own creation, they had begun
to misplace their confidence and loyalty. They began to indulge in
the pleasures and finery of a growing affluence and were becoming far too
obsessed with money to pay any attention to the needs of the poor and the
oppressed among them. This self-sufficiency would plant the seeds of
their future downfall as a nation. Isaiah knew you don’t ever
really do or accomplish anything all by yourself.
You
remember the story of the organ master who performed magnificently one
day. His masterful performance was played on the exquisite pump
organ that required an attendant to handle the pump which provided the air
for its sounding. At the beginning of each piece the organ master
would announce, “Now I’m going to play…” as he introduced the
music. As he did so again this time as he began to play, there was
no sound. There was a gasp in the audience and a look of disgust on
his face. As he glared at the 12-year-old who was in charge of
attending to the pump that day, the young boy looked at the organ master
across the way and said, “Say we, Mister!”
A 12 year
old but the master in his place. The pump attendant knew the organ
master wasn’t doing that all by himself. He was not
self-sufficient. Isaiah saw God and in the experience of that vision
he is reduced to muttering something which is a desperate confession of
the emptiness and futility of all human effort apart from God.
Isaiah cries, “I am nothing; we are nothing; we cannot say or do a thing
this is pure and good.”
That’s
what happens when you see God. And what God does then is truly
amazing. God sends an angel to take a live coal from the burning
altar and touch Isaiah’s lips saying,
your guilt has
departed and your sin is blotted out.
In the presence of God Isaiah declared his own total inadequacy
and God blesses him. In the face of the almighty God Isaiah counted
all human achievement and effort as nothing and God made something of it.
In the full view of the purity of God Isaiah confessed the utter futility
of his own human virtue and God made him pure. Do you see what
happens here, when Isaiah sees God? Isaiah is so shattered by his
vision of the full presence of God that he literally can claim nothing for
himself and cannot even ask for anything. Isaiah saw God and really
all he can say is, “I am nothing…without you.”
That’s
what happens when you see God. That’s when life begins.
That’s when your relationship with God begins. That’s where the
fulfillment of your family begins. That’s where the mission of
South Roanoke Church begins. That’s where all creation begins
again. It all begins in the presence of God where all you can really
say is, “I am nothing….without you.” That’s all you have to
say to begin. That’s all you have to acknowledge to get back on
track again. It is in that moment again and again in your life that
God reaches out to you, freely blessing, making something of you,
purifying you, even before you can even ask for it.
From then
on life is no longer measured in personal achievement or self-sufficient
accomplishment or pride in your own creation. From then on life is a
gift. From then on life is something you do not have to control all
by yourself anymore. From then on it is no longer a matter of taking
hold with both hands and hanging on for dear life—it is a relationship
of grace received on the one hand and entrusted on the other. From
then on life is a gift you freely share even as it is fully shared with
you.
The former
Dean of Duke Divinity School, Dennis Campbell, gave an address for a
particular occasion I attended. On that occasion he related an event
he had witnessed while traveling in Europe. The funeral for the
96-year-old Princess of Austria was being broadcast live across Europe.
Princess Zita, who had been exiled to Switzerland during WWI, was the last
of the Hapsburg dynasty. For the funeral the Vienna Boys Choir sang
and 40,000 people lined the 4-block processional to the cathedral where
the Hapsburgs are buried. In the tradition of the church the priest
who led the processional upon arrival at the cathedral knocked on the
door. The warden of the cathedral asked, “Who seeks entry?”
The priest responded, “Princess Zita (followed by a long list of royal
titles)” to which the warden responded, “I know no such person.”
The priest knocked on the door a second time with the same results.
When priest knocked on the door a third time and was inquired as to whom
sought entry, he replied, “Zita, our sister, a sinner.”
Immediately the huge double doors of the cathedral opened wide and a
sinner entered into the presence of God forever.
What
happens when you see God? First you know without a doubt and
acknowledge with all your being, “I am nothing…without you.”
Then God can graciously bless your life and truly make something of it so
that when God asks, “Whom shall I send?” you can rise confidently and
say with Isaiah, “Here I am, send me.”
That’s
what happens when you see God. Have you seen God?
