When Isaiah wrote about the day of judgment, the coming of
the Lord, he wrote from personal experience as no other prophet did. His experience of seeing the Lord in the
temple gave him a unique perspective on what it would look and feel like to see
the Lord. His reaction that day was to
see himself as undone, hopeless, without a plea of personal righteousness, he
was "a man of unclean lips living among a people of unclean
lips". Isaiah saw that he was no better
than the people to whom he was sent as prophet.
That was an important thing to know, that God's holiness separates Him
not only from "those sinners" but from us equally. No matter how righteous we may appear in our
own eyes or in the eyes of those around us, we are all sinners without hope
unless He pardons. So, when Isaiah
writes here, "all hands will be feeble, and every human heart will melt. They will be dismayed: pangs and agony will
seize them; they will be in anguish like a woman in labor", he knows what
he is talking about.
John's humility before Jesus never wavered. Jesus may not have done all John prophesied
or that he hoped for but he knew his place in the grand scheme of things. When Jesus presented Himself to John for
baptism John already knew that he was unworthy to do anything of the sort and
said it should be the other way round, Jesus should baptize him, he was
unworthy to even untie His sandals.
Afterwards, when some have noticed that people are going from John to
Jesus, the prophet is characteristically humble in saying that he has no
ministry that was not a gift to him and that people should follow Jesus as He
is greater than John. The time has come
for John to become less and Jesus to become more.
In the first paragraph of the reading we see the difference
between the giving of the Law at Sinai, the old covenant, and the new covenant
in Jesus' blood. The old covenant was
given in fierceness and fearsomeness, no one was to come near the mountain lest
they die. The new covenant bids us come
to this beautiful city filled with the glory of God. The final sentence says we are called to
"Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that
speaks a better word than the blood of Abel." The blood of Abel cried out for vengeance
while the blood of Jesus cries out for our pardon. You would think then that we should hasten to
let go of that image of fear because of the work of Jesus but you would be
wrong, judgment is severe against those who reject the Son says the second
paragraph. It ends with the admonition
"our God is a consuming fire."
We should never lose sight of God's holiness and His attitude towards
sin.
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