Purification by Seraph

"Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"  Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out." Isaiah 6: 5-7

                                                         "Purification"     by Tim Mackie and Jon Colli

Here we have this rather terrifying story of a seraph, a kind of six winged angel, who suddenly flies straight at Isaiah carrying tongs that hold a red hot coal. When the seraph reaches Isaiah, he presses the burning charcoal into Isaiah's lips. It sounds like villainous torture. Imagine his burned lips, the smell of charred human flesh, the blistering and discoloration............. So much for benign angels.

If we get all hung up, however, on the drama being played out in this brutal scene, we might miss the coda. Notice what the seraph says after he sears Isaiah's mouth with the burning coal:  

                    "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out." 

It is so easy to miss the Good News! Many Western Christians have a propensity to dwell in the dreary, in the inhospitable, in the subterranean caves of our souls -- and yet, God promises us Good News. The passage begs the questions: 

What is the price we pay for the alleviation of our guilt? 

What is the cost of having our sins blotted? 

And, conversely, what are the costs of holding onto our guilt and sin?

Let our habitual propensity for clinging to guilt and sin never separate us from the love of God and true freedom in Christ.