The Wednesday within the Octave of the Feast of the Holy Trinity
Posted on June 18, 2025 by under
Scripture: Isaiah 6:1-13 (NKJV)
6:1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. 2 Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one cried to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!”
4 And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.
5 So I said:
“Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth with it, and said:
“Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.”
8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying:
“Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?”
Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
9 And He said, “Go, and tell this people:
‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
10 “Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed.”
11 Then I said, “Lord, how long?”
And He answered:
“Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, the houses are without a man, the land is utterly desolate,
12 “the Lord has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
13 “But yet a tenth will be in it, and will return and be for consuming, as a terebinth tree or as an oak, whose stump remains when it is cut down. So the holy seed shall be its stump.”
Devotion
These days, it seems we overuse the word “awesome”. In older English, “awe” reflected a sense of wonder and excitement, but also a little bit of dread. In particular, it could include the kind of dread that one might experience when seeing a vision of God sitting on a throne and attended by His angels. And the angels were singing a hymn that reminds us of the Benediction in Numbers—it is threefold, like that Benediction. Yet, it is a hymn to the one God. This shows us again that God is revealed as triune also in the Old Testament—we see “Holy, Holy, Holy” and we immediately think of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Isaiah, of course, is terrified; but because God is gracious and merciful, one of the seraphim assures Isaiah that his sin is purged and touches his mouth with a live coal. Isaiah then fulfilled his calling as a prophet for many years, going into exile in Babylon and providing some of the clearest and most beautiful prophecies to point to the Christ who was to come. Isaiah faithfully preached that hard times were coming, but that God had not forgotten, and would not forget, His people.
Collect: Almighty and Everlasting God, Who hast given unto us, Thy servants, grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity: We beseech Thee, that Thou wouldest keep us steadfast in this faith, and evermore defend us from all adversities; Who livest and reignest, One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
