The Fire of God
Text: Isaiah 6:1-8, Acts 2:1-4

Throughout the Old and New Testaments, fire is seen again and again as a sign of God’s presence. God appears to Moses in the form of a burning bush; God guides the Israelites through the wilderness in a pillar of fire. In Exodus we read that "Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended upon it in fire." (Ex. 19:18) And later, we read, "For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, before the eyes of all the house of Israel at each stage of their journey." (Ex. 40:38)

In all of these images, fire is the sign of God’s presence. And the one attribute of God that comes across most clearly in all of them, the one we are left with an overwhelming sense of, is God’s holiness.

It is God’s holiness that is most like fire - awesome, powerful, frightening - and yet transforming, purifying, and inspiring.

But what exactly is holiness? It’s a word that we use a lot - but what does it really mean to say that something is holy?

Israel had any number of objects that were considered holy, and they quickly learned that that which was holy was not to be trifled with. That which is holy is to be treated with due respect and reverence - and failure to do so carried consequences.

When Moses approached the burning bush, he was immediately told to remove his shoes, "for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." Removing your shoes was what you did when you entered someone’s home - you didn’t track the filth of the street into the home. You stopped at the door, removed your shoes, and washed your feet, so as not to defile the home. Moses is being told quite clearly that you don’t tread casually on holy ground - you enter God’s presence with respect and awe.

Later in Exodus, when God was speaking with Moses on the mountain, the entire mountain itself was considered holy, and no one except Moses was permitted to go there.

The Ark of the Covenant was holy - and was treated accordingly. When it was necessary to move the Ark, you didn’t touch it directly - it was carried on poles which were specifically made for the purpose.

But even in all of these examples, we still don’t get to the true essence of what holiness is, because all of these objects were just things prior to the touch of God. Their holiness was derived from the holiness of God, and from the fact that they became significant in Israel’s journey with God.

If we’re going to understand holiness, then, we need to start with the holiness of God - the source of holiness.

Contemporary theologian R. C. Sproul gives what I think is probably one of the best, most practical definitions of what holiness is, by referring us to the simple children’s prayer of table grace - a prayer many of us probably learned as children:

"God is great, God is good, and we thank Him for this food."

If we concentrate on the first two ideas there, we get a sense of holiness - God is great, and God is good. If we take the first one, God’s greatness, in the true sense of the word, what does it mean? In the idea of greatness, we get power - God is powerful - powerful enough to create all that we see, all that there is, all that we have yet to discover. Greatness also implies greatness of knowledge - there is nothing that is not known to God. God is everywhere at once - from the farthest reaches of the universe to the darkest corners of our own minds.

Coupled with this is God’s goodness. In God, there is no deceit, no falseness - God is always true to his own nature, which is perfect goodness, perfect purity.

It is this fusion of perfect power and perfect purity which we find so threatening, so awe-inspiring, so frightening. It is like a fire - a fire that can burn through anything in its path. This is the holiness of God - the fire of God.

This brings us to our friend Isaiah. In this morning’s reading, Isaiah comes face to face with the holiness of God in a vision in the temple. And this encounter with the holy transforms him forever.

"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.’"

Now in order to understand the song of the seraphim, we need to understand a little bit about how the Hebrew language worked. In Hebrew, if you wanted to express the ultimate, the "nth degree" of something, you repeated the word. In English, we would have "big, bigger, and biggest" or "big, bigger, and enormous" - but in Hebrew, you would have "big, bigger, and big-big." The repetition signified the ultimate degree to which something could be taken.

There is a passage that illustrates this, and it speaks of a pit into which one could fall or into which one could be thrown. If you read the different translations, you’re tempted to wonder what’s going on, because you’ll see it variously translated the "deep pits," the "slime pits," the "tar pits," or the "awful pits." All of these are attempts on the part of the English translators to render an accurate idea of the sense of the original Hebrew -- which literally translated, says, "the pit pits." If you fell into a pit, that was bad enough, but if you fell into a pit pit, that was the worst - because there was no pit worse than a pit pit!

Once we understand this repetition, a number of other passages begin to make sense. What are some of the titles given to the Messiah by the prophets? "King of kings, and Lord of lords" - often simply adding the word "of," in English, gives the appropriate meaning to the repetition. The innermost chamber of the Tabernacle was called what? The "holy of holies." Israel had many things that were considered holy, but this was the ultimate of holiness.

So now we come to the song of the seraphim, where God is described not simply as "holy," nor even as "holy holy" - which would have been the ultimate in holiness - but as "holy, holy, holy." What just happened there? The ultimate in holiness just shrank into insignificance in comparison to the holiness of God!

It is also significant that in all of Scripture, it is this attribute of God - God’s holiness - that is the only attribute of God to be "raised to the third power." We don’t see passages describing God as "love, love, love" or "peace, peace, peace," or even "wrath, wrath, wrath" or "justice, justice, justice" - but God is described as "holy, holy, holy" - both here in Isaiah’s vision, and in the vision of John in Revelation.

And in the face of this holiness - the fire of God - Isaiah is certain that he is about to be destroyed. Isaiah’s reaction is typical of the reaction of people to an encounter with the holy. The first reaction is an acute awareness of personal sin. Like most of us, Isaiah probably lived most of the time without being aware of the true nature of sin. Often we think that we can somehow divide human behavior into two lists - this one over here is "righteous actions," and that one over there - "sins." We think that all that we have to do is to confine our behavior to the first list, and we’re OK.

But to stand in the presence of the holy is to have all of this simplistic understanding blown away. To stand in the presence of the holy is to re-learn the lesson of Adam and Eve - that it is not the action itself that is the sin, but the decision to be our own gods - to decide for ourselves what is good and evil for us, apart from the authority of God. To stand in the presence of the holy is to know the true essence of what is holy and what is sinful - that any action which stems from the love of God is holy, and any action which stems from anything else is sin - even if it outwardly looks like righteousness.

I think that’s a key point, so I’ll say it again - any action that springs from the love of God is holy, and any action which springs from anything else is sin, even if it outwardly looks like righteousness. It’s what Jesus knew from the beginning, what the disciples learned as they followed him, and what the Pharisees never quite understood.

It’s been said that we typically live our lives as though with most of the lights turned off - the part that we want to show others, the part that we think "looks like righteousness," is what we show in the light. All the other stuff - the motives, the attitudes, the things we’re not too proud of - we keep back here in the shadows, hidden from others - and maybe even from ourselves.

But as Isaiah finds out, in the presence of the holy, there are no shadows. Everything is right out in the open, exposed to the fire of God’s holiness. So it’s not surprising that Isaiah is looking for a place to hide, certain that at any moment he is going to be destroyed.

And what is the focus of his awareness of his sin? His lips - his words. Even before this, Isaiah has been serving as a prophet - one who speaks for God. If there is any part of his life that should be OK, wouldn’t it be his words? But in the presence of the holy, even this - his greatest strength - is a weakness, and becomes the focus of his awareness of sin.

Isaiah is now ready to hear the good news. In the fire of God’s holiness, he finds not destruction, but forgiveness - grace. One of the seraphs flies to him, and touches his lips with a coal from the fire, and tells him, "your guilt is taken away, and your sin is atoned for."

Notice that this is not cheap grace - there is a cost. "Your sin is atoned for" - how? By the same means that our sin is atoned for - by the saving work of Christ on the cross. God is not bound by space and time. Christ’s saving work is valid for Isaiah, who lived many years before him, just as it is for us, who live many years later. Christ has existed with God from the beginning. The plan is already in motion. In fact, one of Isaiah’s tasks will be to prophesy to Israel about their Messiah - what the Messiah will look like, what the Messiah will be about.

And there is a cost to Isaiah as well. His sin is forgiven, but his lips - the focus of his awareness of sin - are refined by the fire. The sin may have been dealt with, but the residue must be refined before he is ready for service. It’s often not pleasant to be refined, but it’s a necessary part of our growth.

And now Isaiah stands before God - brought into God’s presence, made aware of his sin by the fire of God’s holiness, forgiven by God’s grace, and refined, transformed, and made ready for service by the fire of God. Now he is ready to hear God’s call, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Isaiah answers with the response of faith, "Here am I; send me!" Notice his choice of words - not "here I am," as in, "here I am, over here!" It’s "here am I" - the offering of a gift.

I want you to mentally fast-forward now to our second reading this morning, the account of Pentecost. Here, again, we see the presence of God in the form of fire.

The disciples are people who are in much the same position as Isaiah - they have also had their encounter with the holiness of God, and found awareness of their own sin.

They began by following the fire, much as the Israelites did in the desert - only they were following the fire that they saw in a man who could say, "Follow me," in a way so compelling that they followed willingly. And as they followed, they began to see more and more glimpses of the fire - and even had experiences of being on fire themselves. But when faced with the ultimate test of obedience, they found their own limitations, their own weakness. One by one, they fell away, leaving Jesus to face the cross alone. And the flame that had burned so brightly now seemed to have been extinguished for good.

But then comes the great news - the unbelievable good news. The flame has not been extinguished! It’s burning even brighter than before! Now, finally, comes the understanding - Jesus has broken out of the grave! The curtain of the temple is torn open, and the fire of God has broken out! And now the fire of God rests on them! This is the critical difference at Pentecost - the fire is not on the mountain, where no one but Moses can go. The fire is not in the temple, where only the priests can go. The fire is on the people! The fire of God is out of the box, and is spreading through Jerusalem and Judea like wildfire!

And spread like wildfire is exactly what it did - reaching the ends of the known world in only a few short decades.

The good news for us this morning is that we, like the disciples, are called to be a part of the fire. The commission that Jesus gave to the disciples - "Go, and make disciples of all nations" - is the mission of the church. We’ve seen the fire, we’ve felt it here, we’ve seen the sparks right here in our midst. But the fire is not meant to exist only here, a controlled burn on our altar. The fire is meant to spread! Like Abraham and the Israelites, we are blessed so that we might be a blessing to all. Our task, our mission to which we are called, the privilege that we are invited to share, is to spread the wildfire throughout the world.

Go, and tell the Good News!

Go, and make disciples of all nations!

Go - and spread the wildfire!

Amen.

(c) 2001, Bill McWilliams