Think back to your greatest memory…a time where you felt
that anything in the world was possible.
When your emotions ran amok unfettered, fueling your spirit to soar
amongst the silly dreams of childhood.
Like Peter Pan, you flitted from one joy to the next, to be an NFL
quarterback, or a to be the President of the United States…to finally marry
that one person that you couldn’t stop thinking about, or to travel to exotic
countries and have adventures amongst the ruins of past civilizations. Invariably, as the morning dawned and
your eyes began to open, gravity took hold and drew your feet back to that
familiar hard ground.
And
then you grew a bit older, and your eyes saw those around you. Your heart ached that so many felt
need, and your soul would fly to foreign countries to feed the hungry…or to
surrounding communities to protect the neglected and abused. You would be on Capitol Hill to fix the
selfishness in U.S. politics, or travel to distant lands and uncover the truth
about how our world works, or enter a classroom full of young minds to feed
them knowledge, and form them to grow into beautiful, strong adults. But then the veil was lifted, and you
saw the corruption and the brokenness…that people steal the food that we donate
and disregard the cries of people to feed the desires of a career-driven
heart. The reality of a broken
community, or a broken home weighed down your hopes, and brought you back to
the ground, where we only look at problems, but cannot fix them.
What is it that weighs us down…that anchors us to this ground
upon which we walk? What chains
us…what binds us, and keeps us from flying beyond that horizon where the sun
greets us and opens our eyes in the morning? We catch glimpses of beauty…of truth in our dreams, but then
we inevitably come crashing down to reality. Are we simply naïve dreamers?
Isaiah caught a glimpse of
something big. Bigger than
big. Bigger than the biggest dream
dreamt amongst his brothers and sisters.
You see, the dreams of the Israelites were kept within a building near
the center of the city of ancient Jerusalem. Inside the chamber room sat a throne, 15 feet
high…obviously, taller and wider than the biggest human on earth. And yet, this is not a seat, but a footstool. Isaiah sees only the hem of the Lord’s
robe grace the throne, whereas God’s head ascends into the heavens. The King, whose throne extends beyond
any ceiling or wall…beyond any border or boundary. He transgresses the rule of heaven by letting His feet grace
the earth…He stirs the pot and mixes up what is eternally separate. He muddies what is pure.
Or does He? By coming to earth, does God sully what
is holy by touching the profane? The
word “purity” derives from words that mean “unmixed”, generally referring to
bloodlines. The word “holy”
derives from words related to health and wholeness. Not transgressed…spotless…kept apart…are you as intimidated
by these notions as I am? The bar
is set so high…it floats around in unknown regions, way above our heads, too
lofty for us to imagine. Can you
imagine something untouched nowadays…something that derives all the way back
from the beginning of human culture?
Something that has been set aside, unchanged by the desires and mistakes
of human strivings? Does such a
thing exist…holiness?
This throne room was set apart by
four walls, and only the most dedicated and rigidly practiced priests were
allowed to serve in this space. To
enter the doorway of the throne room was a declaration to the world: “I am different. God is different. I don’t take this lightly, but I come
in with the fear that even a speck of sin could end my life.” Every movement…every piece of
clothing…every object carried within had a purpose and a plan. Anything out of place could upset the
delicate balance that lead into the heights.
Something bigger was here. Isaiah sees beings called seraphs
flying about, singing out the highest confession of God’s holiness. Can you imagine seeing this spectacle? Seraphs…the burning ones…were known as
burning winged serpents, probably because the poison of a serpent burned when
it entered a part of the body. The
seraphs…these beings so alive with life…so near to God’s glory that their
lifeblood sent out flares of heat…passion and intensity, that this one God of
the universe deserved such beings to reflect His glory. These beings flew about in that horizon
between heaven and earth, knowing how beautiful to look at the world from the
heights. Even these attestations
to God’s immensity had to shield their eyes from God’s beauty, and cover their
feet for fear of sullying His purity…dirtying His holy presence.
And the whole of God’s presence
shook the very foundations of the Temple, casting the giant blocks of stone to
and fro, loosening ancient dust to fall from the heights, and smoke to rise
from the depths. All of Isaiah’s
senses had to be overwhelmed at this point, stinging his eyes and blurring his
vision…shaking his balance and deafening his ears. Everything was bigger, louder, brighter, and thicker than
anything he had ever experienced before.
There was a clear risk here…Isaiah had entered the heavenly court. Such is an encounter with the living
God.
And in the midst of this great
clamor…Isaiah remembered who he was.
He remembered that he didn’t belong in such a holy place. He remember his brokenness…his
shortcomings…that the words he spoke belonged on the ground, amongst the many
around him. Who was he to enter
such a place? He lived in a world
that tread upon the holy…that had little regard for the idea of holiness. He lived in the midst of empires, such
as Babylon…a name that means “Gate of the gods”. The boundary of the gods stretched across many nations, and
adopted many different cultural identities and national gods in its borders.
The name Babylon also derives from a word similar to our word “babble”, which
denotes the confusion of language.
Many different languages mixed together as the Babylonian empire washed
across the ancient near east.
Babylonian temples, known as ziggurats, soared about 100 feet into the
air, piercing the heavens with a temple at their zenith. Man had built a bridge that extended to
the realm of the gods. The gods
were reflected a great deal in different characteristics of the surrounding
world, from weather, to trees, crops, and fertility. People lived by a law that reflected nature: in general, every action has an equal
and opposite reaction. The Babylonians,
and similar cultures, saw the heavens reflected in the earth, and an earth that
represented the heavens. Service
to the gods ensured crops, wealth, and peace with or victory over other
people. The gods were a means to
an end of fulfilling human desire and living the “good” life. Keep the status quo…don’t anger the
gods, and live happily with all around you.
Isaiah saw this transgression...that
holiness didn’t exist in the vocabulary of his world. He screams, “Woe is me! I am finished!”
Here, the Hebrew hides a double entendre, where “I am finished” can also
mean “I am silenced”. There are no
words…no words left to describe the holy space which he had entered into. Words are signs that connect our inside
with our outside, reflecting that inner space that others cannot see within our
hearts. At that moment, Isaiah
knew that his inner space was not enough…was nothing in comparison with this
great glory surrounding him. His
world had muddied the holy space within his soul. Do we too not understand Isaiah’s pain? Do we not live in a world that
constantly steps all over our holy space?
As Beth Moore puts it, each and every one of us are violated by images,
ideas, arguments, and unwanted desires.
We are forced to look, driven to fight, and coaxed to want everything
that God is not. We are taught to
look at one another as just another lump of clay on a big rock, devoid of breath
and hanging suspended in a giant vacuum.
Live it up…find happiness where you can…what you see is what you get, so
get it while you can.
And yet, at the center of the
overbearing weight of God’s glory, God reaches out and touches Isaiah. He breaks His own boundary. Isaiah is touched…burned…by the altar
of God, carried to him by one of these creatures that flies around ablaze in
the space between heaven and earth.
Isaiah realizes that his situation is hopeless, but with God, all things
are possible.
When
we think of holiness and purity, we think of don’ts. Don’t drink this…don’t do that. Don’t go there…don’t say those things. Holiness seems to be a list of
boundaries meant to keep us from having fun and enjoying ourselves in this
life. That, and a list of things
absolutely impossible for anyone to achieve. We are bound…we are limited. We are kept from moving towards our desires. Doesn’t God want us to be happy?
The irony in Isaiah’s encounter
with God is that holiness is the exact opposite of limiting. Holiness is not some puritanical set of
rules intended to show off how much more disciplined our lives can be than
anyone around us. Holiness frees
us to move towards God. The moment
that Isaiah’s lips touch the coal from the altar, his inner sanctuary is
unlocked…freed to unleash a flood of the mysteries hidden within God’s holy
space. Isaiah was bound by his
world. He was limited by his
culture that forced him to see the world as a food to consume, or people to
conquer…the menial tasks and desires that chain us to the earth. The gravity of surrounding empires
dragged Isaiah down, shutting off any possibility of proximity to God.
Martin Buber points out that God’s
people were not called to be a “good” people, but a “holy” people…to “be holy
as [God] is holy.” A people called
not simply to be ethical…that is, to be “good” in their own eyes…but a people
called beyond themselves. We see
this call in Isaiah’s life. It was
only in purity that Isaiah was able to move beyond himself and towards
God. It was only after he was
cleansed that his inner world was unlocked, and God’s glory could come spilling
out into the earth.
The world had silenced that ancient
tune that sang within Isaiah’s heart of how God once walked among his
creation. Yet, when God removed
the muzzle from Isaiah’s heart, Isaiah was free to sing this song to the
world…even a world unable to hear each beautiful note. This song stirs within each one of us
from time to time. The child
within us whispers in our ear all those romantic notions we had in our
youth…that the world might be as innocent as we once thought. That we might see an end to one of
these problems that weighs on our hearts, whether it be injustice or
brokenness. That we might actually
see a day where we act as we should…where we can forgive that person that eats
at us, or where we finally put an end to that nasty habit that lays waste to
our integrity, and fills us with shame.
Is it so silly to think like a child? Is it only a child that can believe in something so big as
God? That God hears and cares
about people who hurt…that God knows the very thoughts that echo through the
depths of our mind?
It is time for us to seek
holiness…not just to settle with living the good life and satisfying the
expectations of those around us…but to seek that which has been handed to
us. It is God who offers us
holiness. He has hammered out the
path before us: to pray, to fast,
to study, to sacrifice, to gather with Him and with each other…and in each of
these things, it is He who purifies us.
He set our hearts to the flames…as we offer our lips to be unlocked by
that blazing kiss of God’s pure fire, He unfastens our mouth to sing His
beautiful song to the world. A
song that has been hiding deep within us, even as children, waiting to be sung
to a world so in need of music.
Let us consider holiness, let us dare to ascend the heights, for He is
near to us, even now.
