Isaiah 6:1-7; Romans 11:33-36; St John 3:1-15(16-17)
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
In the year that King Uzziah died, the prophet Isaiah ought to have died. He was of fallen flesh. And he knew well the Torah and the Lord’s admonition to Moses, Man - literally, flesh - shall not see Me and live (Ex 33:20).
Moses had heard the Lord. He never saw Him. Like you, he got tired of living by faith. He wanted to live by sight. Please show me Your glory, he cried out in frustration. “I will make all My goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you My Name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” God said, “you cannot see My Face, for flesh shall not see Me and live.” (Ex 33:19-22).
Thus did the Lord place Moses in a cleft of the rock, covering him with His hand until He passed by. Moses did not behold the face of the Lord, but rather His back side. In mercy, the Lord hid His glory from the Moses. For flesh cannot look upon the Lord God and live.
What, then, did the prophet Isaiah see? What is the image of the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up? His eyes beheld the King, Yahweh Sabbaoth, the Lord of Hosts. He ought to have been annihilated, and he knew it. Woe is me! For I am lost. I’m dead meat.
That is what our flesh is according to its natural birth. Dead meat. That’s what St Paul says, You were dead - νεκροσ, a corpse - in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked (Eph 2:1). And that’s what Jesus says, That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The distinction is not material versus immaterial; not tangible versus intangible; not visible versus invisible; not between bodies of flesh and disembodied spirits.
Rather, the contrast is between that which bears the Spirit of God and that which does not. Flesh that is filled with the Spirit of God is alive and living. Flesh apart from the Spirit of God is dead and dying. It returns to the dust from whence it came. It decays, suffers destruction, and disintegrates.
And when such flesh comes into the presence of the pure, unmediated, holiness, power, and glory of the Most High God, it rightly ought to be seared as so much dead meat; as the Lord had warned Moses.
And so I ask again: What did Isaiah see? What about Nicodemus? What did he see? With his eyes of flesh he beheld a man - a man come from God, to be sure, who did amazing signs - but a man nonetheless. In seeing he did not see for he was but born of flesh, not yet of water and the Spirit. He was not yet begotten from above and so could not see the kingdom of God.
Do not be deceived, beloved, we are not speaking of a kingdom far above the heavens, transcended by spiritual sight or metaphysical motion. We are confessing the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God in the person of Jesus Christ. This Isaiah’s divine throne room manifest in the only Son of the Father. What the fleshly Nicodemus could not see without the divine birth of water and the Spirit. Not yet. For presently he still walked in darkness and the shadow of death, even as he came to Jesus by night.
You are no different. Your flesh, inherited from Adam, is dead meat. You ought to be undone by the holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabbaoth. You deserve temporal and eternal punishment. And like Nicodemus, in your spiritualizing speculations, you often and mistakenly search for a kingdom far above the heavens, outside of this material existence; something intangible and invisible. Something “spiritual.” But this, beloved, is not the catholic faith; it cannot save.
And so, one last time: What did Isaiah see? What did he behold and was yet not undone? What did Moses see? What did Nicodemus see? The answer is the same for them all: they beheld the sole-begotten Son of God, who was sent into the world not to annihilate sinners, but to save them. Christ Jesus, and Him crucified, is the back side of God. For no one has ever seen God; but the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, He has made Him known (Jn 1:18).
Christ Jesus is the glory of the Lord revealed to Moses. For hidden in Him in the fullness of the godhead, revealed among men that they may look upon God and live; that they may believe and have eternal life. The Lord does not want to hide Himself from people. Rather, He wants to make Himself known, for He desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth. Yet to reveal Himself, He must hide. If He did not, we would all be dead meat.
But Isaiah was not. Rather, in the year that King Uzziah died, he saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. Hear that: Lifted up. On a throne. The King. The fullness of His glory filling to the earth. Was not Christ the King lifted up on the throne of His Cross, thus revealing the fullness of His glory?
In John 12, when some Greeks seek Jesus, He tells them, “Now is My soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour?’ But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify Your Name.” This is St John’s Gethsemane scene. Christ Jesus, the Man come from God who is God, wresting with His Father’s will for Him. Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd thought it had thundered, or an angel had spoken, even as the thresholds shook at the voice of Him whom Isaiah saw. But Jesus answered, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself.” He said this, St John remarks, to show by what kind of death He was going to die.
His crucifixion is His inauguration as King. His Cross is His throne and the revelation of the glory of God given among men that we may behold Him and not be undone.
And only a few verses later, St John cites the prophets Isaiah and says, Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory and spoke of Him (Jn 12:41)! Isaiah saw His glory! No one can see God and live. Yet Moses did! Isaiah did! For they beheld He who is the glory of the Lord in the flesh of man.
No one has seen the Father, but the Son, who is very God of very God, makes Him known; reveals the glory of the Blessed Holy Trinity in the instantiation of His person - the Word made flesh - and in the work of His Cross, by which He is obedient to the Father’s will and hands over the Spirit. That sounds philosophical. Its not meant to. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not an academic playground for theologians; a place for them to sit and pontificate. It is overwhelmingly pastoral; it is for your comfort, your peace, your joy. All pure doctrine is. The Blessed Holy Trinity is for you and for your salvation.
For flesh could not see God and live. So in Christ, God took up your fallen flesh into His holy divinity, and forever joined the two natures in the One God-Man. In His own flesh He paid the penalty of your death. For He who bestows the Spirit took up your flesh in order that by the glory of His death He might beget you from above by water and Spirit! With the eyes of faith you behold the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ. You are born, as Nicodemus, in darkness, but in His mercy the Lord pulls back the veil and gives you to see, as Isaiah, the heavenly throne room with the Lord Jesus Himself high and lifted up for you.
That is, in Holy Baptism you have been born again by water and the Spirit and given to share in the fellowship of the Kingdom and Life in and with the Blessed Holy Trinity. Thus do you hear and see the Lord your God, your Savior and Redeemer, and you are not undone, but rather atoned for and redeemed. For His Word goes forth, read and preached, sung and confessed, creating and sustaining faith. And His visible Word, that is Baptism and the Sacrament, are for you the material and tangible signs of His kingdom among you.
For now, the whole ministry of the Gospel is the lifting up of the Son of Man, of Christ the crucified, by which you are brought to faith and life in Him, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
One more thing. An artistic thing, for the catholic faith has long been expressed in art and image. After all, the Word became flesh. In 1525 Albrecht Durer completed a drawing depicting in stunning detail our crucified Lord Jesus Christ. Only in this piece he does not have the bystanders, the crowds, the Virgin Mary or the beloved disciple standing by. He simply portrays the bleeding King, dying upon the throne of His Cross; and three angels - representing the sanctus: holy, holy, holy - flying around His cruciform throne, with chalices in their hands in which they collect the holy, precious Blood of the immortal Son of God.
Beloved that holy blood is distributed to you here, from the Throne and the Altar of His Cross, in the material and tangible, and yet truly spiritual, in the bread and wine, the very Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Here the Coal of the Cross touches your lips and you are cleansed, your sin atoned for, your guilt removed. For the Father did not send an angel to ransom and redeem you, but His only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who has given you His Holy Spirit. And here, the veil pulled back, you see with the eyes of faith your Lord Jesus, high and lifted up, in the liturgy and hymnody, in the preached Word, and you join in song with angels and archangels singing to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of Your glory!
For the fullest expression of the catholic faith is not in academic exercise, nor in dogmatic textbooks, but in worship. True worship is Divine Service, God the Holy Trinity to you, for you. True worship is the posture of reception, of faith, which receives that which the Trinity bestows from His very essence. For who has given a gift to God that he might be repaid? Oh the depth of His riches and wisdom! Indeed, from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him - Father, Son and + Holy Spirit, be glory and dominion, now and forever. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
In the year that King Uzziah died, the prophet Isaiah ought to have died. He was of fallen flesh. And he knew well the Torah and the Lord’s admonition to Moses, Man - literally, flesh - shall not see Me and live (Ex 33:20).
Moses had heard the Lord. He never saw Him. Like you, he got tired of living by faith. He wanted to live by sight. Please show me Your glory, he cried out in frustration. “I will make all My goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you My Name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” God said, “you cannot see My Face, for flesh shall not see Me and live.” (Ex 33:19-22).
Thus did the Lord place Moses in a cleft of the rock, covering him with His hand until He passed by. Moses did not behold the face of the Lord, but rather His back side. In mercy, the Lord hid His glory from the Moses. For flesh cannot look upon the Lord God and live.
What, then, did the prophet Isaiah see? What is the image of the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up? His eyes beheld the King, Yahweh Sabbaoth, the Lord of Hosts. He ought to have been annihilated, and he knew it. Woe is me! For I am lost. I’m dead meat.
That is what our flesh is according to its natural birth. Dead meat. That’s what St Paul says, You were dead - νεκροσ, a corpse - in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked (Eph 2:1). And that’s what Jesus says, That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The distinction is not material versus immaterial; not tangible versus intangible; not visible versus invisible; not between bodies of flesh and disembodied spirits.
Rather, the contrast is between that which bears the Spirit of God and that which does not. Flesh that is filled with the Spirit of God is alive and living. Flesh apart from the Spirit of God is dead and dying. It returns to the dust from whence it came. It decays, suffers destruction, and disintegrates.
And when such flesh comes into the presence of the pure, unmediated, holiness, power, and glory of the Most High God, it rightly ought to be seared as so much dead meat; as the Lord had warned Moses.
And so I ask again: What did Isaiah see? What about Nicodemus? What did he see? With his eyes of flesh he beheld a man - a man come from God, to be sure, who did amazing signs - but a man nonetheless. In seeing he did not see for he was but born of flesh, not yet of water and the Spirit. He was not yet begotten from above and so could not see the kingdom of God.
Do not be deceived, beloved, we are not speaking of a kingdom far above the heavens, transcended by spiritual sight or metaphysical motion. We are confessing the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God in the person of Jesus Christ. This Isaiah’s divine throne room manifest in the only Son of the Father. What the fleshly Nicodemus could not see without the divine birth of water and the Spirit. Not yet. For presently he still walked in darkness and the shadow of death, even as he came to Jesus by night.
You are no different. Your flesh, inherited from Adam, is dead meat. You ought to be undone by the holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabbaoth. You deserve temporal and eternal punishment. And like Nicodemus, in your spiritualizing speculations, you often and mistakenly search for a kingdom far above the heavens, outside of this material existence; something intangible and invisible. Something “spiritual.” But this, beloved, is not the catholic faith; it cannot save.
And so, one last time: What did Isaiah see? What did he behold and was yet not undone? What did Moses see? What did Nicodemus see? The answer is the same for them all: they beheld the sole-begotten Son of God, who was sent into the world not to annihilate sinners, but to save them. Christ Jesus, and Him crucified, is the back side of God. For no one has ever seen God; but the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, He has made Him known (Jn 1:18).
Christ Jesus is the glory of the Lord revealed to Moses. For hidden in Him in the fullness of the godhead, revealed among men that they may look upon God and live; that they may believe and have eternal life. The Lord does not want to hide Himself from people. Rather, He wants to make Himself known, for He desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth. Yet to reveal Himself, He must hide. If He did not, we would all be dead meat.
But Isaiah was not. Rather, in the year that King Uzziah died, he saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. Hear that: Lifted up. On a throne. The King. The fullness of His glory filling to the earth. Was not Christ the King lifted up on the throne of His Cross, thus revealing the fullness of His glory?
In John 12, when some Greeks seek Jesus, He tells them, “Now is My soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour?’ But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify Your Name.” This is St John’s Gethsemane scene. Christ Jesus, the Man come from God who is God, wresting with His Father’s will for Him. Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd thought it had thundered, or an angel had spoken, even as the thresholds shook at the voice of Him whom Isaiah saw. But Jesus answered, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself.” He said this, St John remarks, to show by what kind of death He was going to die.
His crucifixion is His inauguration as King. His Cross is His throne and the revelation of the glory of God given among men that we may behold Him and not be undone.
And only a few verses later, St John cites the prophets Isaiah and says, Isaiah said these things because he saw His glory and spoke of Him (Jn 12:41)! Isaiah saw His glory! No one can see God and live. Yet Moses did! Isaiah did! For they beheld He who is the glory of the Lord in the flesh of man.
No one has seen the Father, but the Son, who is very God of very God, makes Him known; reveals the glory of the Blessed Holy Trinity in the instantiation of His person - the Word made flesh - and in the work of His Cross, by which He is obedient to the Father’s will and hands over the Spirit. That sounds philosophical. Its not meant to. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not an academic playground for theologians; a place for them to sit and pontificate. It is overwhelmingly pastoral; it is for your comfort, your peace, your joy. All pure doctrine is. The Blessed Holy Trinity is for you and for your salvation.
For flesh could not see God and live. So in Christ, God took up your fallen flesh into His holy divinity, and forever joined the two natures in the One God-Man. In His own flesh He paid the penalty of your death. For He who bestows the Spirit took up your flesh in order that by the glory of His death He might beget you from above by water and Spirit! With the eyes of faith you behold the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ. You are born, as Nicodemus, in darkness, but in His mercy the Lord pulls back the veil and gives you to see, as Isaiah, the heavenly throne room with the Lord Jesus Himself high and lifted up for you.
That is, in Holy Baptism you have been born again by water and the Spirit and given to share in the fellowship of the Kingdom and Life in and with the Blessed Holy Trinity. Thus do you hear and see the Lord your God, your Savior and Redeemer, and you are not undone, but rather atoned for and redeemed. For His Word goes forth, read and preached, sung and confessed, creating and sustaining faith. And His visible Word, that is Baptism and the Sacrament, are for you the material and tangible signs of His kingdom among you.
For now, the whole ministry of the Gospel is the lifting up of the Son of Man, of Christ the crucified, by which you are brought to faith and life in Him, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
One more thing. An artistic thing, for the catholic faith has long been expressed in art and image. After all, the Word became flesh. In 1525 Albrecht Durer completed a drawing depicting in stunning detail our crucified Lord Jesus Christ. Only in this piece he does not have the bystanders, the crowds, the Virgin Mary or the beloved disciple standing by. He simply portrays the bleeding King, dying upon the throne of His Cross; and three angels - representing the sanctus: holy, holy, holy - flying around His cruciform throne, with chalices in their hands in which they collect the holy, precious Blood of the immortal Son of God.
Beloved that holy blood is distributed to you here, from the Throne and the Altar of His Cross, in the material and tangible, and yet truly spiritual, in the bread and wine, the very Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Here the Coal of the Cross touches your lips and you are cleansed, your sin atoned for, your guilt removed. For the Father did not send an angel to ransom and redeem you, but His only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who has given you His Holy Spirit. And here, the veil pulled back, you see with the eyes of faith your Lord Jesus, high and lifted up, in the liturgy and hymnody, in the preached Word, and you join in song with angels and archangels singing to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of Your glory!
For the fullest expression of the catholic faith is not in academic exercise, nor in dogmatic textbooks, but in worship. True worship is Divine Service, God the Holy Trinity to you, for you. True worship is the posture of reception, of faith, which receives that which the Trinity bestows from His very essence. For who has given a gift to God that he might be repaid? Oh the depth of His riches and wisdom! Indeed, from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him - Father, Son and + Holy Spirit, be glory and dominion, now and forever. Amen.
RSS Feed