“In the year that King
Uzziah died, I saw the LORD sitting upon a throne,
high and lifted up, and
his train filled the temple.” Isaiah 6:1
Erik Mebust and I had coffee
together last weekend, and we talked about all his exciting plans for the next
several months. Erik will be studying
literature for a term at Kings’ College in London, and I was able to give him
some advice about museums, historical sites and churches. He also has two or three weeks after his term
finishes to do some travelling around the rest of Europe, and a big list of
places he’s dying to see. There’s Paris,
of course, and the Rhine Valley in Germany, and wouldn’t it be wonderful to see
the Alps, and he has a friend spending a term in Montpelier, down on the
Mediterranean Coast. And I was trying to
slow him down a bit. You don’t want to
spend half of your time on trains, after all, and you might well be able to go
back again later in life and try some of what you will need to miss this
time.
But of course, by American standards, all these
places are really quite close. This is
part of the wonder of Europe to an American.
In a few hours you can travel between places whose languages, histories,
foods, music, and architecture are completely different. New York State really isn’t all that
different from Minnesota. But Spain and
Poland are a world apart, and the distance is really about the same.
Of course, the fascination works the other way
when Europeans come to America. New
Testament scholar N. T. Wright, who is British, taught for a time at McGill in
Montreal.[1] When his English friends came to visit him
for a vacation, they would propose completely unrealistic itineraries, because
they are used to everything being so close together. Let’s drive down to New York for the day,
they might say, and then maybe we’ll go on to Disneyworld, swing by the Grand
Canyon and end up in Seattle. He
eventually found a map of North America for his guest bedroom with a tiny inset
in the corner that showed Britain on the same scale—that as, as about the size
of Alabama. Oh I see, the guests would
say, that puts matters in a clearer perspective.
But what would it be like, Wright wondered to
have a map that worked the other way, one that showed North America on the
scale of Britain? Well, you just keep
unfolding and unfolding a map like that—it would fill the whole room. It’s almost impossible to get your head
around that much space.
Isaiah walked into the temple at a troubling
time in Israel’s life. King Uzziah had
died. He was, by the standard of
Israel’s rulers, a good king. His reign
had been an era of stability, when the nation had prospered and remained united
in peace. And it wasn’t certain what
would happen next. His son, the new king
Jotham, was still largely untested.
Reading between the lines in Isaiah’s prophetic message, there were
mounting social and political problems.
Some were advocating that Israel develop different diplomatic alliances,
the wealthy may have been taking advantage of weak oversight to oppress the
poor. It was an uneasy time, when the
future was far from certain, and Isaiah probably wasn’t the only person who
went to the temple that day hoping to turn over some of his troubles to
God.
And what a vision he received! Isaiah sees the Lord, seated on His throne of glory. He is high and lifted up and the edge of His
robe seems to fill the whole temple, which was almost certainly the largest
space Isaiah had ever seen. The seraphim,
the sacred guardian angels that surround him fly about proclaiming that God is
holy—thrice holy, set above all things as ruler and judge. Isaiah falls to his knees, undone by this
sight, and confesses his sin, his unworthiness to behold such a sight. The anxieties of Israelite politics are far
behind him now. He is entirely fixed on
this vision. And God’s voice sounds out
from the majestic throne, commissioning Isaiah as a prophet, a bearer of His
word to the people. It would be a hard
word which would be rejected often, but a sure word, for his eyes had seen the
Lord.
Surely, it was a moment that Isaiah remembered
countless times in what would be a long ministry full of frustration and
uncertainty. When he was discouraged,
when the message seemed too difficult to bear, He turned back to the Lord, seeking
Him in the temple. Isaiah’s perspective
was widened that day. From that moment
on, Isaiah knew that God would be with him, this thrice-holy God, the King
enthroned over all. His eyes were opened
to a whole other dimension surrounding earthly life, and once he had glimpsed
it, the truth of that vision remained with him forever.
This Sunday, Trinity Sunday, exists for the sake
of our common worship. The doctrine of
the Holy Trinity is not a meaningless theological abstraction, and we do not
teach and celebrate it today just to endorse the conclusions of a church
council from 1600 years ago. The
doctrine of the Holy Trinity defines the One whom we worship, and to confess
the Trinity is to witness to God’s saving work that has brought us into
fellowship with Him.
Our God
is the thrice-holy God whom Isaiah saw in the temple, who created all things
and rules eternally. And He has sent His
only Son into the world to become one of us, a true man, in Jesus of
Nazareth. The Son is not the Father, yet
He exists eternally with Him, of the same substance, sharing together in the same
work. And the Holy Spirit, proceeds
eternally from the Father and the Son.
He is the One who lives within us and pours out His gifts upon us. The Spirit is not some lesser part of God,
but equal in dignity and power, bringing to fulfilment the one plan of
salvation. The three persons are one
God, distinct yet united, and if all this seems a bit to understand, that is as
it should be.
Be wary of those cutesy metaphors people
sometimes use to explain the Trinity, as the theologians tell us that they
usually run afoul in one aspect or another.
The doctrine of the Trinity testifies to God, but does not control
Him. Even the writings of our most
brilliant theologians can but grasp the train of His robe. We can say clearly what God is not. He is not brute force or doddering
benevolence. He is not a capricious trickster
like the ancient pagan gods, sheer oppressive will like the master of the
mosque, or some abstract higher power, the creation of our own whims. He’s much bigger than all that, much more
majestic and profound, and to meet Him, as Isaiah found long ago, is to be
transformed forever.
Perhaps like the prophet, you bring anxieties
with you to God’s House today. There’s
trouble with your job, someone you love is sick. You worry about the future of our
congregation or the stability of our nation.
You don’t really know how to pray about it, but you know that is the
place to come when you need a change of perspective.
May you find Him today, the One who fills the
temple and blazes with glory, the one thronged by seraphim who has come as the
Savior and who lives within you in His Spirit.
Whatever you are facing, you can be sure that our God, the Triune God,
is wiser, stronger and purer than whatever troubles you. May you see Him in new ways and know without
a doubt that when your life is in His hands, there is no safer place to be.
In the
Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
[1]
This wonderful story and text connection
comes from Scott Hoezee, The Center for Excellence in Preaching—Trinity Sunday
B. http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/trinity-sunday-b-2/?type=old_testament_lectionary
25 May 2015.
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