Isaiah 6

I grew up in the church. So I know the Sunday School definition for “holy”; it means “set apart.” But what does that mean? How does that affect my understanding of the Lord? Well, it lets me know that I can’t completely comprehend Him; He is “other.” He is something completely different than me. When I was younger, my understanding was that He was perfect. I was good, and He was perfectly good. I was truthful, and He was perfectly truthful. I was loving and He was perfectly loving. I thought He was the perfection of me. But that’s not true. He is “set apart”; He is completely different. So what happens when I encounter something completely “other”? Well, Isaiah gives us a good idea in chapter 6. Isaiah sees the Lord, seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe fills the temple. Isaiah’s response to seeing Holiness is fear and remorse. At that moment, He realizes the depth of His own sin. When we truly experience the Lord, we first understand our complete depravity. We realize the absolute poverty of our spiritual state. And this confession leads to a relationship. This recognition of our desperate need leads to our asking for help, which is the only path to the riches that await us. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”Understanding our sin leads to grieving over our sin. We don’t do that much in our culture. I read about it in my favorite book (other than the Bible, of course). In Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis focuses on grieving over our sins, or as he refers to it, compunction of heart. “It is a marvel how any man can be merry in this life if he considers well how far he is in exile out of his own country, and in how great peril his soul stands daily. But because of frivolity of heart and carelessness, we do not feel and we will not feel the sorrow of our own soul, and oftentimes we laugh when we ought rather to mourn.” Isaiah cries out, “Woe to me, for I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips!” A true experience with God’s holiness always leads to brokenness and repentance. But it is this grieving that leads to our comfort. “A broken and contrite heart He will not despise.” “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” God’s response to our confession and contrition is our cleansing. He is responsible for our perfection, not us. We cannot accomplish our salvation. God sends His angel to Isaiah with the coal to cleanse his lips. God is the owner and originator of our cleansing. Nor can we make ourselves useful. For it is only after Isaiah’s cleansing that He is available for use. Isaiah cries out, “Here am I. Send me!” A human encounter with holiness is devastating. It refuses to allow us to be impressed with the things of the world we’ve been chasing. It refuses to allow us to remain comfortable in our sin. It refuses to allow us to remain on the throne of our lives. And it leads us to a relationship with the only One who can perfectly love us, who can forgive all our sins, and who can make us into His likeness. Our encounter with His holiness is our devastation. And our devastation is our salvation.