“Back in ’82 – I used to be able to throw a pigskin a quarter mile…if couch would have put me in 4th quarter, we would have been state champions.” – Uncle Rico
Those of us who are “past our prime” (though we would be hard-pressed to realize, much less acknowledge it) struggle with these illusions (or are they delusions?) that we “still have it.” Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite was absolutely convinced that he was still amazing and could make it to the big time. He had these “memory remnants” of days gone by and spent his time trying to recapture it…but as you watch the movie, it is comically sad how blind he was to his reality.
And this is why our flag football team in Asheville, NC was called the Uncle Ricos (I’m #2)
We were all past our prime (though some of the guys were still pretty young and talented.) When we ran, it felt like we were flying down the field…until we watched each other run, and reality set in. We were slow, got winded easily, and had brittle bodies (I had 2 shoulder dislocations while playing in this league). Yet we pushed on in defiance to time and reality. We would also play in tournaments put on by the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte and actually do pretty well in the 35+ division. Until one day we faced off against a squad of ex-Arena-League players. It was utterly embarrassing how slow and inept we were compared to these other men.
This is where we find Isaiah in Isaiah 6. He was part of the extended royal family of King Uzziah (who had just died) and was an incredibly gifted communicator. Like all of us, he was created in God’s image and was a man of infinite value. And like all of us, he was broken. We, like Isaiah, have these memory-remnants of who we used to be. We intrinsically know that we are designed as valuable and powerful, yet we are also broken (like the Uncle Ricos). We are no longer who we were in the garden when we literally would walk in the cool of the day with one another, among creation, face to face with the Almighty God himself. When we rebelled and committed treason against the Lord, creation was shattered. Yet we are constantly unaware or in total denial of this truth…until we come face to face with True and Utter Greatness…much more than ex-arena-league players. I mean UTTER GREATNESS
Isaiah 6:1-5
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”
Look at Isaiah’s reality break into focus. Through in the world’s eyes (and his own) he was powerful and elite. But when he was put into contrast with The Almighty God in His Perfect Greatness….he was ruined. His actual depravity could no longer hide in the flood of light. To understand this better, let’s look at what the Seraphim (which literally mean “the burning ones”) sang: “holy holy holy” — this tripling of the world “holy” (called a “trisagion”) is extraordinary to say the least. When a Hebrew word is doubled (like we saw in Isaiah 1 with how “estranged-estranged” we are) it is essentially a super-superlative. To triple a word is inconceivable. And not just any word, or any attribute of God…it’s his Holiness. To boil it down, God’s holiness is his absolute “otherness” — it’s all of his other superlative attributes melted into one another. For God to be “holy holy holy” is for him to be superlatively love/love/love; superlatively power/power/power; superlatively just/just/just; superlatively mercy/mercy/mercy.
Now we can have the smallest understanding of how Isaiah felt being in God’s holy/holy/holy presence. He was fully aware of Exodus 33:20 where God said “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” — now Isaiah was looking at God face to face, saw His transcendent beauty and his own despicable filthiness…yet, instead of dying, God brought him the only thing that could save his life: atonement.
For Isaiah it was in the form of a live coal from the fire of purification. For us it’s the living Son of God that became 100% immanent, among us as The Immanuel, that came to be literally be “with us” to bring us atonement and into a face-to-face relationship with the Transcendent God. We know this because, instead of us dying like we should (like Isaiah should have), Jesus himself died in our place. And when he did:
Matthew 27:51
And behold, the curtain of the temple (remember Exodus 25) was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.
This is the very curtain that separated the presence of God in the “holy of holies” from the rest of the world, through which the High Priest, after a blood sacrifice, would go once a year in order to acquire atonement for God’s people….so Jesus became the High Priest, was himself our final blood sacrifice, and brought us atonement, which results in the here and now a perfect face-to-face relationship with the Transcendent God.
Go back to the Uncle Rico. Before Christ, we were stuck in our memory-remnants, only vaguely remembering who we were and living as if we could live on our own power. But now, in Christ, we are a New Creation! We have had a renewal and re-creation as Image-Bearers. We have the Holy Spirit who is literally IN us, and the train of his robe fills his new temple: US! We are no longer relegated to building up our own image and fighting for our value. We are His and glorious beyond measure because of Him in us.
And so we can join Isaiah after his atonement
Isaiah 6:8
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,“Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
Seeing our infinite need, God’s infinite beauty, and now our infinite rescue, we are sent out into our world (both near and far) with his infinite love and power to bring hope to the hopeless, light to the darkness, love to the lonely…like he did for us.