#DailyDevotion The LORD Has Provided Us A Means Of Grace

Isaiah 6:5-7 ⁵“Woe to me!” I said. “I’m destroyed, because I’m a man with unclean lips, living among people with unclean lips, and I’ve seen the King, the LORD of armies.” ⁶Then one of the angels flew to me, and in his hand were tongs with which he had taken a glowing coal from the altar. ⁷He touched my mouth with it and said, “Now this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin is forgiven.”

We often mistakenly think the saints in the bible were somehow perfect and above the rest of us. Isaiah was a prophet. Certainly he was good. But when confronted with the majesty and awe of God what does he do? He confesses his sinfulness. Peter, when he sees the great catch of fish at Jesus’ command to cast the net, he tells Jesus, “Depart from me LORD for I am a sinful man.” Well Isaiah makes a good confession as he is a man with unclean lips living among people with unclean lips. It is an interesting confession. He doesn’t confess the bad things he did with the rest of his body. Paul writes in Romans 10, “The mouth confesses what is on the heart.” God gave us the gift of speech to praise his name and to love one another. Even the best of us do not have completely pure hearts that speak rightly at all times.

Now watch what happens. One of the seraphim takes a coal from the under the altar and touches Isaiah’s lips. He pronounces, “your guilt is taken away, and your sin is forgiven.” Mind you this is in heaven above where the vision is taking place. All the sacrifices of bulls, goats, sheep, doves and the like, were done on earth. They were received in faith. They pointed to the one, total, complete sacrifice that Jesus the Son of Man would make. He is “the Lamb Who was slain from the beginning of the world.” It is his blood that makes the coals of the altar redemptive.

I don’t know about all communion liturgies. In many though, there is an ebb and flow of God’s presence and law then God’s grace and mercy. We invoke his name at the beginning and we are in his presence. We confess our sins and the angel of the Lord (the pastor) forgives us. We hear his word in the Scriptures and the sermon and we sing Psalm 51 confessing our sin and seeking his mercy preached to us. The Lord’s servant offers up our prayers before him at the altar. Then most particularly, we sing the seraphim’s song in the liturgy just before communion and sing the song of the crowds as Jesus entered into Jerusalem to save us. Again we are in the presence of the Almighty, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Sabaoth. We recognize our sinfulness and confess it with Isaiah. The angel of the LORD, the pastor, then takes from the altar the body and blood of the LORD Jesus Christ and places it upon our lips. In this action our guilt is taken away and our sins are forgiven us. Here Christ’s body and blood mortify our sinful flesh and strengthen our spirits. He seals us for the day of salvation. All the other absolutions we’ve been pleading for and been given are fulfilled and completed as these tokens of his body and blood are given and shed for us to eat and to drink. We commune not only with his flesh and blood which are truly and essentially there but also with Jesus in the whole as we also commune with one another who receive it with us. Jesus’ divine nature is communed to us and we become participants in it as Peter tells us in his second epistle 1:4, “ you might by these promises share in the divine nature.” We then sing the Nunc Dimittus which basically says, it doesn’t get any better than this, you can take me now LORD. But we receive the LORD’s blessing and are sent out to live out our vocations in his peace.

Heavenly Father, always provide for us pastors who take the body and blood of your son Jesus Christ upon our lips so we live without our guilt and sins. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.