One of the looming giants of the human race is named Isaiah.  His life shaped the spiritual condition of an entire nation and has entered the Christian consciousness in a decisive way. We all know his name because he wrote one of the great books of Scripture. I think we need to be familiar with Isaiah and of how he lived so perhaps we can be nudged along into being that same sort of person ourselves.  Actually, we don’t have a lot of personal information about Isaiah, not even enough for a sketchy biography.  We have a vast treasure of sermons that he preached and maybe a couple incidents from his life.  The most comprehensive of the incidents is something that happened while he was at worship one day in Jerusalem.

Isaiah’s experience in worship that day (and this is covered in Isaiah 6) began with a vision: “I saw The Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up”. A throne and royal robes trailing through the temple and blazing angel-seraphim hovering over the throne.  And they began to sing back and forth to one another, saying, “Holy, holy, holy is The Lord of Hosts/The whole earth is full of His glory”

Holy is a word that sets something apart.  That which is holy is not derived from something we are or have.  It cannot be related to something we know.  It is ‘other than’.  It comes from outside.  God is not a projection of our imagination, not wish fulfillment, not a childish fantasy.  God is holy.

Isaiah’s initial response to this vision is ‘Woe is me! For I am lost.  For I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people with unclean lips;  For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts. In the presence of God Isaiah is conscious of his sin and he feels wretched.

I don’t think there is any question that many people stay away from a place of worship because they don’t want to be reminded of their sin.  It is possible to do that, but you need to pick your friends very carefully.  You can usually find someone who is worse than you, more wicked, more selfish.  In comparison with that person you don’t look too bad.

But if you are playing that kind of game, stay out of church, stay away from the sanctuary that is full of reminders of God.  Consciousness of sin, of inadequacy, of unworthiness is a regular part of worship.  We aren’t what we should be.  We fail miserably. In the words of one of the old confessions of the church “We are miserable offenders”. Isaiah felt the full impact of that.  He thought he was going to die.  But he was wrong.  Consciousness of sin is a regular part of worship.  Despair isn’t.  Isaiah anticipation of death was thwarted immediately. One of the angel-seraphim, using tongs, took a burning coal from the altar and touched Isaiah’s lips, saying, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin forgiven.”  Sin is matched and then wiped out by forgiveness, the assurance of pardon.  We don’t confess our sins so that we wallow in despair but so we can hear the joyful words of forgiveness.  Hear the good news of the gospel.  In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.