The First Gospel Part 33: Isaiah - When God Shows Up | Josh Harrison
When God Shows Up: Reflections on Isaiah’s Commissioning
We are now deep into the “First Gospel” series, journeying through the winding narrative of the Old Testament—a story that, as Josh Harrison reminded us this week, is less about endless genealogy and tired morality tales, and more about the persistent goodness of God breaking through history’s chaos. For those wondering if this series will carry us on “eternally,” rest assured: an end is on the horizon, somewhere around Christmas, but the themes we explore are, in truth, everlasting.
This week, attention turned from the era of Israel’s kings to the poignant, often underappreciated, moments when God raises up prophets—those unlikely truth-tellers who hold up a mirror to both kings and priests. “Speaking truth to power” is, as Josh notes, an ancient tradition, and nowhere is this calling more dramatically displayed than in the commissioning of the prophet Isaiah.
A Moment of National Crisis—And Divine Encounter
The context is crucial: Isaiah’s vision comes “in the year that King Uzziah died”—a period of societal anxiety not unlike the times following the death or removal of any long-serving, stabilizing leader. After 52 years of relative security and prosperity under Uzziah, the people of Judah suddenly find themselves without the king who had kept Assyrian imperial ambitions at bay. Their world, until now predictable, is upended.
It’s at this moment of grief and fear, Josh notes, that God so often “shows up”—not because He’s been absent, but because, in our disorientation and loss, our perception opens up. “Pain, the grief, the loss shatters that sense that all is well, and you realize it’s not,” he observes, channeling C.S. Lewis’s insight that “God shouts in our pain.” In the aftermath of personal or collective upheaval, we become capable of deeper seeing.
Theophany: Holiness and Human Limit
Isaiah’s encounter with God is not calming, but catastrophic—at least at first. He sees the Lord “high and exalted, seated on a throne,” surrounded by fiery seraphim whose primary work is simply to marvel, perpetually, at God’s holiness: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” These burning ones are not performing a duty so much as engaging in a kind of divine astonishment, urging one another, as astonished friends do, to behold what is incomparable.
But for Isaiah, the effect is not comfort—it’s undoing: “Woe to me…for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips.” Notably, Isaiah does not zero in on some moral failing or private vice, but rather on his best, most public gift: his words, his calling, even these are inadequate in the presence of true Holiness. Harrison parses this as the heart of the gospel—our deepest need is not just to be rid of our failures, but to recognize that even our strengths, our proudest achievements, cannot bridge the gap between us and God.
Grace at the Altar
The story does not end in annihilation. From the altar, a seraph touches Isaiah’s impure lips with a live coal—a sign of grace and forgiveness, of sin atoned and guilt removed. This moment of divine initiative, Josh suggests, is what truly transforms Isaiah; not awe or fear or even the most sincere moral effort, but grace alone. Only then does Isaiah hear God’s call, and, now wholly reoriented, Isaiah offers: “Here am I. Send me.”
Living in the Light of the Vision
The challenge for us, as Josh concludes, is how we learn to see—how we become attentive to the glory that “fills the whole earth,” not just in moments of acute crisis, but in the everyday. It is possible, he insists, to develop the discipline and vision to see God’s presence and beauty not just “when God shows up,” but as the ongoing reality in which we live.
Four Key Lessons from This Sermon
Grief can open us to divine presence. Often, it is in our moments of loss and insecurity that we are best able to perceive God—not because He is more present, but because pain shatters our illusions of control.
True worship is a response to God’s incomparable holiness. Like the seraphim, we are called to be captivated and awestruck, not out of obligation but as a natural response to encountering Someone wholly unlike anything else.
Even our best efforts cannot bridge the gap. Isaiah’s confession reveals that our greatest strengths and religious achievements are still insufficient before God—what we most need is grace, not just moral improvement.
Transformation comes through God’s initiative. It is God who acts to forgive and cleanse, making us fit for mission and witness. The call is to respond to grace, not to earn God’s favor, and to allow that grace to send us forth as “burning ones” into the world.
