My sermons at First Presbyterian Church, Lowville, for this week (here) and next week take a look at Isaiah 6, one of the most intriguing chapters in the Bible. In the first part of the chapter, Isaiah is reported to have this weird vision of God high and lifted up in the Temple in Jerusalem. There are seraphim flying around praising God, a booming divine voice, and holy smoke that fills the temple. The chapter starts with the prophet saying, "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord...sitting on his throne, high and exalted." (Isaiah 6:1) Isaiah responds to this vision of God by proclaiming his own unworthiness and his feeling that he is doomed, but what actually happens is that God had him cleansed with a hot coal from the altar pressed on his lips and forgave him his sins. Then, God asks, "Who will be my prophet?" Although the question isn't directed specifically to him, Isaiah answers boldly, "I will." (6:8) God's accepts Isaiah's commitment to be a prophet but then commissions him to preach in such a way as to confuse the people of Judah so they won't listen to him and won't be healed. God declares God's intention to destroy the land and send the people off into exile so that only a remnant is left, a stump that will be the beginning of a new future.I'd like to chew on this chapter for a few postings. There's a lot in the chapter that needs chewing.
For starters, we probably need to talk about the historicity of the passage and get that issue off the table as quickly as we can. Biblical literalists, of course, will insist that Isaiah went to the temple and saw God just as chapter six says he did and get themselves all tangled up in defending the Bible from its attackers (even when no one is attacking). Biblical scholars, on the other hand, will get all tangled up in trying to figure out the historical dimensions of the story. Who really put it in writing? Was Isaiah really involved? What historical period (pre-exilic, exilic, post-exilic) does it really reflect? At the end of the day, scholars don't have clear answers to any of these questions.
What really matters, however, is that this story is filled with meaning. It was meaningful in ancient times, and it remains meaningful today. And what matters is the meaning we can dig out of the story today. It is important to try to understand what it might have meant 2,800 years ago, but we can't know for sure what it did mean then. And we should keep in mind the human fact that different people find different meanings in things like this anyway, whether in ancient times for now. Isaiah's vision didn't mean just one thing then nor does it now. Our focus here, then, is on the meaning of the passage, especially for today. More in the postings that follow.
