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| Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights, over Bear Lake in Alaska. via |
Have y’all ever heard of the
Northern Lights? They only happen that I know of, along the northern edge of
the United States and in Canada. Supposed to be one of the most beautiful
things you’ll ever see. I had
heard of it before, also known as the Northern Lights, but I’d never seen it,
nor had my roommate Stacey. When we heard, we went out from our room onto the
fire escape of our building, and looked out and could see something faintly,
but the light from the building was too bright to see clearly. So we went down
the fire escape and down the road from school into the cornfield next door.
Everywhere you looked, people were stopped, on their way back to the dorms or
the library or wherever, just staring up at the night sky.
When
we finally got far enough away from the lights to see it clearly we were
amazed. I had always heard of the Northern Lights as streaks of white light,
but on truly good nights for it, the lights show up in different colors, as if
someone streaked glitter highlighters all over the night sky. We stood outside
in awe, staring at the majesty of creation, suddenly aware of our own size
relative to the world we live in, the universe around us.
It
is moments like these that we suddenly find ourselves confronted with the
majesty of God. I’ve experienced
it most often outside and alone, whether watching a sunset from the patio or
wandering around on a hike, but I’ve often been struck by this feeling of awe,
at the wondrous work of creation that God wrought.
Rudolf
Otto talks about this feeling. He refers to it as the creature feeling, when we
are seized with fear and trembling, suddenly aware of our own mortality in
reference to the immortal. It is in a moment like this that we find Isaiah
today. Isaiah sees a vision of the powerful presence of the Almighty. The hem
of God’s robe fills the temple, smoke fills the house, and the voices of the
seraphs in attendances praise the Lord so powerfully that it shakes the very
foundations of the building.
And
Isaiah’s response is purely natural. He is suddenly filled with awareness of
his own sinfulness, his own shamefulness, his own overwhelming creature-ness,
standing before one who is supreme over all creatures. It is as if, like Adam
and Eve, suddenly he is aware of his own nakedness, his own weakness, his own
enfleshedness. He finds himself in want of a fig leaf. And he declares, “Woe is
me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of
unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
He’s
like Peter, who sees Jesus’ miracle that filled his fishing boat with fish
beyond number, and declares, “depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” Or Like
Abraham, who says, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the Lord, I who am
but dust and ashes. The presence of such greatness makes us realize how little
we are in comparison. As Otto explains it, “It is the emotion of a creature,
abased and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is
supreme over all creatures.”[1]
This
is the root of a classic Presbyterian doctrine that has obtained a bit of a bad
reputation over the years. It is the doctrine of total depravity (it’s the T in
the Reformed acronym TULIP). It’s received a bad reputation because people who
don’t understand it in relationship to God think it’s a little harsh. They
accuse reformed believers of telling people that they are worthless, and in a
world where self-esteem is prized over logic, this seems a great sin. But what
these people don’t realize is that the doctrine of total depravity can only be
understood in the greater reality of the greatness of God. We are not worthless
and alone, as people who misinterpret this doctrine would say, but all of our
worth is given to us by the Almighty.
Now this can be taken too far. The
critics do have some ammunition. There have been, and probably still are
pastors who preach our sinfulness so much they never have time to get to the
grace part, or they have us believing that we are worthless. But the idea of
total depravity must always be balanced with the Scriptural proclamation that
we were made in the image of God. We have worth, our lives are not empty, our
spirits not crushed, because God, in God’s infinite goodness, has seen fit to
give it to us.
How
radical an idea this is, in a world where we are constantly seeking the
approval of others. We want someone to tell us we’re beautiful, we want to be
recognized as good leaders, as important people in society, as good parents,
good teachers. We spend our lives hoping that someone will declare us worthy,
obsessing over what other people think of us, and God’s grace comes to us and
tells us that we are already worthy, we have been made worthy by our Creator,
and we need not worry. What an incredible thought!
And
so it happens with Isaiah, standing in the presence of God, feeling all too
creaturely, all too unworthy to be in this great presence. Just as he is
brought to confess, as we are, that we are insignificant compared to the power
of God, one of the seraphs brings to him a live coal, touches it to his lips,
and declares to him that his guilt has departed and that his sins have been
blotted out. In spite of his unworthiness, his overwhelming smallness in the face
of the Infinite, the Almighty, God cleanses him, counting him as righteous,
erasing his sinfulness and making him worthy to stand before the Lord.
This
is the greatness of God. God’s love is so great, God’s mercy so infinite, that
God can come down even to us, lowly and insignificant though we are, and make
us worthy of his love. God’s love for us runs so deep that God took on flesh,
and all of the creaturely limitations there in, that everyone might experience
God’s grace, that all of us might have our sins forgiven, our wounds healed,
our hearts uplifted.
As
Jesus explains to Nicodemus, in our Gospel message for today, “Indeed, God did
not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the
world might be saved through him.” Friends we stand before God as sinners,
unclean and unworthy, like Isaiah, lost and alone. But the good news for today
is this: God does not condemn sinners. God welcomes us. God redeems us. And God
calls us to lives worthy of the grace which we have been given, that we might
stand in the presence of the Almighty, as sinners redeemed, and say, “Here I
am, Lord. Send me”
[1] Otto,
Rudolf, “The Idea of the Holy” Trans. John Harvey. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1958. p. 10.
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