Red-hot

"Woe is me for I am lost!" Isaiah 6:5.

That's what Isaiah said. When? when he saw the Lord. Well, actually, when he saw himself thrust into the immediate presence of God's throne room. God up, up high on the throne, where God's robe filled the whole temple, where monstrous dragons flitted about hiding their faces from God, where these creatures thundered out to each other, back and forth: Holy, Holy, Holy is Jehovah, God of armies! Back and forth, where dragon songs shook foundations. Where smoke filled the whole place. Yeah. That's when. That's when Isaiah saw himself: unfit to see such things. Unclean. Unworthy to speak what he saw. Then a dragon hand seared Isaiah's mouth with a red-hot atoning coal plucked from the altar. And then God's voice told the prophet to tell what he saw. And he did. Word.

When we check in with a brother or sister today, we have a healthy fear in God's presence. But we remember Jesus in whom we were water-baptized. Jesus, who baptized us in Spirit and fire. And, together, we praise the grace of our God who declared us worthy.