Aneesh P. Alex
WORSHIP ORDER
Call to worship:
The
Most Holy God, who revealed Himself, cleansed and commissioned prophet Isaiah in
the temple, is with us. Let us experience the holiness and glory of God
throughout our worship and respond to it creatively.
Opening Song:
Hymn no: 7 (Selected Hymns and Order
of Worship)
Kauma:
Opening prayer:
O God, Holy, Glorious, and Most
gracious; We praise You for your humility for coming down to the limitations of
this world to reconcile humankind with God. We praise You for Your vision and
commission which you gave to our parents for enabling us to be in your
ministry. We adore You for giving new meaning to our prayers and worship. Open our eyes to see Your Holiness. Make us
to be a part of Your Holy presence. Set us free from a past that we cannot
change, and lead to us a future in which we can be changed. Grant us grace to
grow more in Your likeness and image. Holy God, God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, have mercy on us for the sake of Your Son, who died to free us
from our sins. To you be the glory and honor, forever and ever.
All: Amen.
Confession prayer:
In the holiness
of God we can see our sinfulness. Let us confess our sins and pray for His
forgiveness.
Leader:
Merciful God, forgive us our sins; for being
critical of others when we fail to correct our own sins.
Response:
Lord grant us a right sensitivity to our own sinfulness and a loving attitude
towards others.
L: Merciful God, forgive us our sins; for giving priority
to the matters other than worship, and pardon us for altering the worship order
to our convenience.
R: Lord grant us the spirit of true worship to
see Your glory.
L: Merciful God, forgive us our sins, for making the worship as the
means of self-satisfaction and failing to
conduct ourselves in a manner that is worthy of our calling.
R: Lord grant us the mind of reflecting Your glory and blessings to the
entire creation.
Absolution:
May the Holy God forgive these our sins, and cleanse us to walk
blamelessly in His ways. Amen.
Thanksgiving prayer:
Thanksgiving is a response of knowing God’s
mercy upon us. Let us give thanks to the merciful lord.
Leader: Lord,
our Christian journey is influenced by many role models, mentors and all
faithful, who have lend their support for enabling us for Your ministry.
Response:
We give thanks for Your intervention through Your people.
L:
Lord, our calling and commission
is Your intervene through our varied life experiences.
R: We give
thanks for Your everlasting presence with us.
L: Lord, whole of the creation magnifies Your
Glory and Mighty.
R: We
give thanks for Your revelation through Your handiworks.
Intercessory prayer:
Leader: Lord
our Heavenly father, govern and direct Your holy church with love, truth and
bond of unity according to Your will.
Response:
O Lord leads us to unity.
L: We pray to guide the leaders of the nation
into the ways of your justice and peace.
R: O
Lord, restore your justice and peace.
L:
We pray to enlighten your ministers in this seminary with true knowledge
and understanding .
R: O Lord, grant us discernment of knowledge
and divine word.
L: We pray for the sick,
the lonely, the bereaved and the oppressed, especially for …………for your mercy.
R: O Lord,
heal and comfort those who suffer.
L: Strengthen us to live according to Your holy
will. Help and guide us to love and serve all the creation in the power of Your
spirit and in the name of Your son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
All: Amen.
Bible reading: Isaiah 6: 1-8
Sermon theme: Envisioning the Divine Holiness towards a Holy
Life.
1. Envisioning Divine Holiness
2. Response to Divine Holiness
Prayer and Benediction.
SERMON
Envisioning
the Divine Holiness towards a Holy life
Book
of Isaiah 6:1-8
David
Livingstone, spoke before a great youth rally in England. Before he could
retire from the ministry, he must find someone to take his place. He asked,
“Who, in this audience will be ready to go to Africa for me and take my place?”
nobody came forward. Heartbroken Livingstone said, “Then I myself will go.” And
so already in his seventies, he returned to Africa and worked there until he
died. This question is being asked to
us, by God almighty through His Word to carry His Good News amongst the
oppressed people. Are we able to respond to the divine will? The read portion
is an example of such calling and commissioning.
The Book of
Isaiah records the visions of Prophet Isaiah. Prophet Isaiah is the son of
Amoz. The name Isaiah means ‘Yahweh is salvation’. He lived and worked in
Jerusalem from about 750 to 700 B.C.E and had access in royal court. Isaiah
8:16 suggests Isaiah as the author to “bind up the testimony of God.”
The Book of
Isaiah contains 66 chapters that bear witness to God’s communication with His
disobedient people. Chapters’ 1-39 points out the nation’s problem of sin which
must be rectified before a proper relationship with the covenant God. Chapters
40 - 66 emphasize the forgiveness and pardoning of God to his people.
Ultimately redemption for Israel must come from the ‘ideal servant,’ the
Messiah. Isaiah discussed the depths of Israel's sin and the heights of God’s
glory and His coming kingdom
Proto-Isaiah,
especially chapters’ 1-5 emphasizes that the people lacked spiritual insight
and would not turn from their sinful condition. Isaiah 6 is a climax to the
troubles of Judah accounted in Isaiah 1-5, and bridges the Lord of hosts to
become the Holy One of Israel.
Isaiah 6 emphasis the extreme depravity of the nation by contrasting it with God’s
holiness. Through chapters’ 1-5 we can know that the prophet see the sinful
condition of the nation, and he set himself apart from the nation until he saw
the vision of God and realized that he too was part of the sin. Here the
prophet knew the entire nation needed the same kind of awareness of God and
cleansing of sin he had received. So he responds to the call of God and commits
himself to serve him.
The Israelite society
that Isaiah was addressing in the eighth century had undergone great socio-economic
and political changes since the introduction of monarchy. In the
pre-monarchical period of the tribal confederation, the majority of the
populations were peasants living off their in egalitarian communities under the
leadership of elders. These tried to guarantee the welfare of everyone’
especially the weaker section of society such as widow and orphans. Yahwism
inspired and directed every aspect of people’s lives. All this changed with
monarchy and during the time of Isaiah. The economy was controlled by the
ruling classes and their wealthy associates. This system was based on the
Canaanite model of the city state, where Baalism favored a social system in
which the ruling classes controlled the economy and oppressed the rest of the
population.
This
society has some similarities with Indian society. Baalism which established a
hierarchical model of this society, as have and have not, is similar to the
caste system in India, placing about 16 percents of the population who call
themselves Dalits. They were at the bottom of the social ladder in a continued
and hopeless situation of poverty and subjugation rendering them as
untouchables and polluting. Modernization and westernization is weakening the
old communitarian and family values of traditional Indian culture. Women live
in rather vulnerable state as victims of cultural degradation and abuse.
Religion, which is to call people to repentance and justice, is used for the
wrong reasons, to incite hatred and tolerance and to justify the oppression of
certain classes of people. It is an implicit rejection of god’s absolute
sovereignty over human affairs. This is the sin of pride that was at the root
of all the disorders in Israelite society that Isaiah condemned in his
prophecies of judgment: social inequalities, injustice and militarism.
In
this context of the text, I would like to call your attention to the two points
that supported the title ‘Envisioning
the Divine Holiness towards a Holy life’. My first point is
1.
Envisioning
Divine Holiness.
This portion is a foundational
text for understanding Isaiah’s concept of God. Yahweh is identified as the
holy one which is typically Isaian, because it occurs 26 times in this book and
only 6 times in the rest of the Hebrew Bible. Holiness has the idea of apartness. It describes someone, or
something, which is set apart from other people or things. ‘Qadosh’
is a word that demonstrates God’s holiness. He stands alone in comparison to
creation and all other things. God is unique in His very essence and being. The
prominence of God’s holiness is expressed through the repetition of,
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts.”
This form of repetition is used for expressing
a superlative idea in Hebrew. God is
Holy and transcendent in nature. This transcendent God is at the same time
immanent in the world through God’s glorious splendor that actively fills the
earth both in judgment and salvation. The holiness demanded here is ethical not
just ritual. God’s laws are themselves as expression of God’s being and that is
why any sin is considered as the attack on God.
During the interview
of the Seminary entrance process, we will claim to have received the ‘call of
God.’ It had been understood through the experience of healing in our lives, a
dream, a life changing experience etc. Many of the call narratives are
described as an experience out of the ordinary.
For the impoverished and the struggling people in India, prominent among
the attributes of God are God’s holiness, righteousness, justice, pity, love
and kindness. This is the Isaiah’s understanding of God’s holiness. God is the
creator and hence life giver. So each and every action will be judged on the
account of whether it promotes life or diminishes it. Anything that is
anti-life is therefore sin against God and always merits God’s anger and
punishment.
If
this is the nature of God, God also hopes to see these qualities and attributes
in God’s children. God’s holiness defines not only God’s being but also God’s
relationship with the world and humanity. This is why God say that “you shall
be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” in Leviticus chapter 29 verse 2. An
object can be holy if it is set apart for sacred service. A person is holy if
they are set apart for God’s will and purpose. As God is holy, our calling is
to work towards the establishment of justice and life for all people, life in
all its fullness.
According
to G. Campbell Morgan, genuine holiness is defined as:
- Not the inability to sin, but
the ability to not sin.
- Not the freedom from temptation,
but the power to overcome temptation.
-
Not infallible judgment, but earnest and honest endeavor to follow the higher wisdom.
-
Not deliverance from infirmities of the flesh, but triumph over all bodily
afflictions.
- Not exemption from conflict,
but victory through conflict.
- Not freedom from liability and
falling, but gracious ability to prevent falling.
- Not the end of progress, but
deliverance from standing still.
Christ chose
to die for you and me. His motives behind it were clear. He wants to redeem,
rescue and deliver us from all that enslaves harms or disappoints. He also
wants us to be pure and unstained in this wicked world. He yearns for us to be enthusiastic about doing well in this world.
God through His Spirit is working in the world to inspire in us the value
system that would make us holy because God is holy. This inspiration will
promote us to respond to the divine holiness. This leads to my second point
which is….
2.
Response
to divine holiness.
The vision of
God’s majesty, holiness and glory made Isaiah realize that he was a sinner.
When Ezekiel saw God’s glory, he too responded with humility. Isaiah had
pronounced threats of judgment on the nation, but now he realized that he was
subject to judgment. This was because he is unclean. When been next to the
purity of God’s holiness, the impurity of human sin is all more evident.
There
are no volunteers in Bible. When we begins with Abraham, Moses, the prophets,
even Mary the mother of Jesus were all called for a purpose. None of them volunteered.
They were all chosen. Isaiah is not being called to be a priest or a ritual
expert, but to be prophetic, to condemn the injustice in the world and to work
towards righting it.
Almost all who were called are
first offered reasons as to why they were not fit for the ministry. Abraham
said ‘I am too old’. Moses replied ‘I am slow to speech’. Mary wondered ‘but I
am a virgin’. Jesus prayed ‘if possible, take this cup away from me’. Like ways
Isaiah says “I am a man of unclean lips”. Isaiah became profoundly aware of his
own and his society’s sinfulness and unworthiness (vs., 5). This is used as a
reason to excuse from the mission. It is a difficult task ahead of him to
prophecy words of judgment.
Isaiah had to
preach Good News, which is the bad news to the hearers. Isaiah saw his sinfulness, and the sinfulness of
his people. The reality of God’s righteousness and holiness
immediately brings Isaiah’s unrighteousness into the light. But
God took the initiative to cleanse him (vs. 7) and sent him on a mission to
preach what he had experienced, namely God’s holiness and the possibility of
being pardoned through repentance (6:8-13). Isaiah was cleansed by God, through
the intermediary work of the seraphs, touched Isaiah's lips with a hot coal
from the alter. This symbolic action signifies the removal of the prophet’s
guilt and his sin. Of course this is what the entire nation needed. The
cleansing is through the mercy of God.
Once
a student in a college who received only five marks out of hundred in the examination
asked teacher- “sir, five marks out of?” in fact he deserved to get only zero,
but the teacher gave him five marks. The teacher surprised that the student had
the audacity to ask – “sir out of?” the teacher answered “out of mercy”. If we ask God why god is still forgiving and
equipping us, god would answer- “out of mercy.”
God does not appoint a person to
service and then cleanse them. He will always cleanse them and then commission
them. God
does not call without being aware of what our capabilities or our weakness are
and God will equip us out of his mercy, for the task if only we are willing to
respond to His call and say, “here I am, send me”. Respond to divine holiness
or not is our choice.
The aim of
mission is not only be the conversion of souls, but the liberation of all
people from poverty and suffering. We hope our actions will speak for us and
express our understanding of God and Jesus. To be called as holy people we are
called to work for the liberation of the oppressed and make possible life in
all its fullness. Jesus shows the good model of mission through healing,
teaching and reconstructing the society. The work of Jesus removes sin
and imputes righteousness. Jesus is the good model of the holy life. Doing the
will of God is the symbol of holy life. The mission should
change the life and life situation of the society. Through the vision of God,
we would enable to serve God and thus lead a holy life.
Within
this short time, I wanted to take all of you to the world of prophet Isaiah and
consider how we would respond to the understanding of the holiness of God. What
attributes of God challenge us? How does our life and ministry reflect the
qualities of God? God is transcendent and powerful. God’s presence fills the
whole world. God intervenes in the history through human. The vision in the
temple, the hymn, the smoke of the offering and the ritual of purification show
the transformation of the prophet Isaiah. The contemporary call to respond
prophetically to social injustice is experienced in the context of prayer and
worship. The sense of sin in the society makes a prophet. Likewise prophetic
words and actions gain conviction and force when expressed out of genuine
piety.
I would like
to share that, a very dangerous vehicular accident in my childhood turned a
life changing event; it could have even lead to my death or brain death. But
god through his providential care saved and healed me. It led me more close to
God and prepares me for Lord’s ministry.
Our
experiences, worships, hymns, prayers, rituals and practices are shallow
without concern for the specific and concrete problems of human society. By Envisioning the Divine Holiness
through our worships, are we ready to respond; “here I am, send me”.