Isaiah 6:1-8; Luke 5:1-11
4th Sunday before Lent
St Barbara’s 09.02.2025
Rev Tulo Raistrick
We live in times of change and flux, don’t we? Every day at the moment it seems that we can’t tune into the news without being confronted with a barrage of aggressive policies and bullying rhetoric from the President of the United States. Just this week, he has declared amongst many other things a willingness to break human rights law by sending immigrants to prison in Guantanamo Bay, he has slapped tariffs on trade, risking a worldwide recession, and he announced that the US would take over Gaza, expel all Palestinians and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”, acts that most commentators would view as provocation for all out war in the region.
If we feel somewhat helpless, blown about by the whims of someone we did not vote for or can control, that may be a feeling we experience in other areas of our lives too. We may feel helpless trying to sort out an issue with a bank or service provider, lost in an endless maze of bureaucracy. We may feel despairing, feeling lost in the health care system, waiting for an appointment that seems never to come. We live our lives with uncertainties, don’t we, often feeling powerless.
It is telling, then, that the reading we heard from Isaiah this morning is introduced with the words: “In the year that king Uzziah died”. Uzziah had been a strong king who had ruled Israel for forty years during Isaiah’s lifetime. But his death led to a power vacuum and left Israel open to invasion by foreign troops. There was great fear, insecurity, a sense of impending catastrophe.
But in the midst of the fears and turmoil, Isaiah receives a vision of the overwhelming glory, majesty and holiness of God. God is exalted on a throne far above. The train of his robe fills the entire Temple. The very threshold of the Temple, the largest most mighty building Isaiah would have known or ever seen, shakes in the presence of God. Even heavenly creatures, seraphs, are so in awe of his presence that they cover their faces, and they sing “Holy, holy, holy”.
This is a vision of a God awesome in majesty, a God of matchless power, a king who rules over all nations and whose glory cannot be contained. This is a God whose glory fills the earth.
For Isaiah, such a vision would have helped to put the events he was living through into some perspective, to realise that ultimately God was sovereign, that he was in control, that he would be more than capable of bringing good out of the situation he and his nation faced.
Peter and Andrew in our gospel reading experience something similar. They encounter the awesome power and holiness of God, and in a way that would have uniquely spoken to them as fishermen. For they knew better than anyone that the remarkable size of their catch in daylight after a night time of unsuccessful fishing, could only be a miracle, that in Jesus’ presence they knew they stood on holy ground. Jesus’ act cuts through all their preoccupations and worries, and reveals to them God’s glory.
Its why for us, catching glimpses of God’s glory is important too. When we have a true perspective of who God is, it transforms the way we see our lives and the world around us. When we come together on a Sunday morning, we may catch glimpses of God’s glory – maybe through the words that are said or sung, maybe through the space for meditation and reflection that this hour provides, maybe in the beauty of this building, prayed in and worshipped in for almost a hundred years.
But it is not just here in this place that we may see God’s glory. As the seraphs sang, and the disciples experienced: “the whole earth is full of his glory”. With eyes and hearts open, we may begin to see glimpses of the glory of God in the most unexpected of places: in the kindness of a neighbour taking our rubbish to the tip, in the skill of a surgeon replacing someone’s arthritic hip; in the thoughtfulness of a gift of flowers; in the courage of someone standing up against injustice; in the beauty of the trees that line our streets. God’s glory shines all around. Pause and ask: where have I already seen his glory this day, even if at the time I failed to notice it. We stand, we live, on holy ground.
In a world of change and flux, it is good to look for those signs of God’s glory in our midst – symbols of hope and love in our world.
Isaiah’s response to the vision of God’s glory, and Peter’s response to the glory Christ reveals through the miraculous catch of fish, is two-fold: repentance and action.
Before the awesome greatness and holiness of God, Isaiah becomes all too aware of his own unworthiness. How can he be in the presence of a God who is so pure, so worthy of praise and adoration, so awesome, when he so consistently falls short? And he realises that it is not just him. The world in which he lives also falls so far short. He cries out: “I am a man of unclean lips amongst a people of unclean lips.”
Peter’s reaction to the glory of God revealed in Jesus is similar: “Go away from me Lord. I am a sinful man.” In God’s presence we see what goodness and holiness are, and realise how far we fall short.
There are times in God’s presence when the only words we may feel able to pray are: “Lord, have mercy”. Whether that is because of our own failings, or the failings of our world that cause such pain, there are times before a holy God when those three words, “Lord, have mercy” are the only words we can say. When I feel stuck in a loop of messing up or failing others, I pray “Lord, have mercy”. When I look helplessly on at the suffering of those in Sudan, or the Congo, or Ukraine, “Lord, have mercy”. In God’s presence, there are times when those three words are the only words we can say, but they are words that are enough: Lord have mercy. I wonder, for you, for who or for what are those words needed to be said today. Take a moment to pray them now: Lord, have mercy.
God, in his mercy, does forgive us. Like with Isaiah, he takes away our guilt, he atones for our sins. And then he offers us the opportunity to serve. There is no coercion, no manipulation, in God’s invitation. He simply asks: “Who shall I send? Who will go for us?” And Isaiah responds: “Here am I. Send me.” Having experienced something of the glory and holiness of God, having received his mercy and forgiveness, how else could he respond?
The reality is that he could have walked away. Peter, when called by Jesus to go and fish for people, could also have turned round and said he was honoured to be asked, but really all he wanted to do was fish for fish. They had choices, and others around them, many of the people of Israel, many of those who heard Jesus, did just that, did walk away. And you can understand why. Responding to God’s call to serve him, to follow him, is not a guarantee of an easy life. Isaiah spent the rest of his life proclaiming a message that largely fell on deaf ears and unreceptive hearts. Peter, we are told, left everything to follow Jesus.
But responding to God’s call to serve, to follow, can lead to extraordinary things. Isaiah’s words may not have been heeded during his lifetime, but ever since, for the last two and a half thousand years, his words have resonated in the lives of every generation, offering hope and life. Peter became the rock on which Christ built his church.
We may never know the difference that responding to God’s call may make, but as with Isaiah and Peter, it is the only choice truly possible when we encounter the glory and forgiveness of God. I wonder where today you or I may be the answer to God saying “Who shall I send? Who will go for us?” Let’s allow God’s Spirit to prompt us as we take a moment to reflect now.
