'In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a
throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple.'--ISAIAH
vi. 1.
Uzziah had reigned for fifty-two years, during the greater part of
which he and his people had been brilliantly prosperous. Victorious in
war, he was also successful in the arts of peaceful industry. The later
years of his life were clouded, but on the whole the reign had been a
time of great well-being. His son and successor was a young man of
five-and-twenty; and when he came to the throne ominous war-clouds were
gathering in the North, and threatening to drift to Judah. No wonder
that the prophet, like other thoughtful patriots, was asking himself
what was to come in these anxious days, when the helm was in new hands,
which, perhaps, were not strong enough to hold it. Like a wise man, he
took his thoughts into the sanctuary; and there he understood. As he
brooded, this great vision was disclosed to his inward eye. 'In the
year that King Uzziah died' is a great deal more than a date for
chronological purposes. It tells us not only the _when_, but the _why_,
of the vision. The earthly king was laid in the grave; but the prophet
saw that the true King of Israel was neither the dead Uzziah nor the
young Jotham, but the Lord of hosts. And, seeing that, fears and
forebodings and anxieties and the sense of loss, all vanished; and new
strength came to Isaiah. He went into the temple laden with anxious
thoughts; he came out of it with a springy step and a lightened heart,
and the resolve 'Here am I; send me.' There are some lessons that seem
to me of great importance for the conduct of our daily life which may
be gathered from this remarkable vision, with the remarkable note of
time that is appended to it.
Now, before I pass on, let me remind you, in a word, of that apparently
audacious commentary upon this great vision, which the Evangelist John
gives us: 'These things said Esaias, when he had beheld _His_ glory and
spake of _Him_.' Then the Christ is the manifest Jehovah; is the King
of Glory. Then the vision which was but a transitory revelation is the
revelation of an eternal reality, and 'the vision splendid' does not
'fade but brightens, into the light of common day'; when instead of
being flashed only on the inward eye of a prophet, it is made flesh and
walks amongst us, and lives our life, and dies our death. Our eyes have
seen the King in as true a reality, and in better fashion, than ever
Isaiah did amid the sanctities of the Temple. And the eyes that have
seen only the near foreground, the cultivated valleys, and the homes of
men, are raised, and lo! the long line of glittering peaks, calm,
silent, pure. Who will look at the valleys when the Himalayas stand
out, and the veil is drawn aside?
I. Let me say a word or two about the ministration of loss and sorrow
in preparing for the vision.
It was when 'King Uzziah died' that the prophet 'saw the Lord sitting
upon the throne.' If the Throne of Israel had not been empty, he would
not have seen the throned God in the heavens. And so it is with all our
losses, with all our sorrows, with all our disappointments, with all
our pains; they have a mission to reveal to us the throned God. The
possession of the things that are taken away from us, the joys which
our sorrows smite into dust, have the same mission, and the highest
purpose of every good, of every blessing, of every possession, of every
gladness, of all love--the highest mission is to lead us to Him. But,
just as men will frost a window, so that the light may come in but the
sight cannot go out, so by our own fault and misuse of the good things
which are meant to lead us up to, and to show us, God, we frost and
darken the window so that we cannot see what it is meant to show us.
And then a mighty and merciful hand shivers the painted glass into
fragments, because it has been dimming 'the white radiance of
Eternity.' And though the casement may look gaunt, and the edges of the
broken glass may cut and wound, yet the view is unimpeded. When the
gifts that we have misused are withdrawn, we can see the heaven that
they too often hide from us. When the leaves drop there is a wider
prospect. When the great tree is fallen there is opened a view of the
blue above. When the night falls the stars sparkle. When other props
are struck away we can lean our whole weight upon God. When Uzziah dies
the King becomes visible.
Is that what our sorrows, our pains, losses, disappointments do for us?
Well for those to whom loss is gain, because it puts them in possession
of the enduring riches! Well for those to whom the passing of all that
can pass is a means of revealing Him who 'is the same yesterday, and
to-day, and for ever'! The message to us of all these our pains and
griefs is 'Come up hither.' In them all our Father is saying to us,
'Seek ye My face.' Well for those who answer, 'Thy face, Lord, will I
seek. Hide not Thy face far from me.'
Let us take care that we do not waste our griefs and sorrows. They
absorb us sometimes with vain regrets. They jaundice and embitter us
sometimes with rebellious thoughts. They often break the springs of
activity and of interest in others, and of sympathy with others. But
their true intention is to draw back the thin curtain, and to show us
'the things that are,' the realities of the throned God, the skirts
that fill the Temple, the hovering seraphim, and the coal from the
altar that purges.
II. Let me suggest how our text shows us the compensation that is given
for all losses.
As I have pointed out already, the thought conveyed to the prophet by
this vision was not only the general one, of God's sovereign rule, but
the special one of His rule over and for, and His protection of, the
orphan kingdom which had lost its king. The vision took the special
shape that the moment required. It was because the earthly king was
dead that the living, heavenly King was revealed.
So there is just suggested by it this general thought, that the
consciousness of God's presence and work for us takes in each heart the
precise shape that its momentary necessities and circumstances require.
That infinite fulness is of such a nature as that it will assume any
form for which the weakness and the need of the dependent creature
call. Like the one force which scientists now are beginning to think
underlies all the various manifestations of energy in nature, whether
they be named light, heat, motion, electricity, chemical action, or
gravitation, the one same vision of the throned God, manifest in Jesus
Christ, is protean. Here it flames as light, there burns as heat, there
flashes as electricity; here as gravitation holds the atoms together,
there as chemical energy separated and decomposes them; here results in
motion, there in rest; but is the one force. And so the one God will
become everything and anything that every man, and each man, requires.
He shapes himself according to our need. The water of life does not
disdain to take the form imposed upon it by the vessel into which it is
poured. The Jews used to say that the manna in the wilderness tasted to
each man as each man desired. And the God, who comes to us all, comes
to us each in the shape that we need; just as He came to Isaiah in the
manifestation of His _kingly_ power, because the throne of Judah was
vacated.
So when our hearts are sore with loss, the New Testament Manifestation
of the King, even Jesus Christ, comes to us and says, 'The same is my
mother and sister and brother,' and His sweet love compensates for the
love that can die, and that has died. When losses come to us He draws
near, as durable riches and righteousness. In all our pains He is our
anodyne, and in all our griefs He brings the comfort; He is all in all,
and each withdrawn gift is compensated, or will be compensated, to each
in Him.
So, dear friends, let us learn God's purpose in emptying hearts and
chairs and homes. He empties them that He may fill them with Himself.
He takes us, if I might so say, into the darkness, as travellers to the
south are to-day passing through Alpine tunnels, in order that He may
bring us out into the land where 'God Himself is sun and moon,' and
where there are ampler ether and brighter constellations than in these
lands where we dwell. He means that, when Uzziah dies, our hearts shall
see the King. And for all mourners, for all tortured hearts, for all
from whom stays have been stricken and resources withdrawn, the old
word is true: 'Lord shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.'
Let me recall to you what I have already insisted on more than once,
that the perfecting of this vision is in the historical fact of the
Incarnate Son. Jesus Christ shows us God. Jesus Christ is the King of
Glory. If we will go to Him, and fix our eyes and hearts on Him, then
losses may come, and we shall be none the poorer; death may unclasp our
hands from dear hands, but He will close a dearer one round the hand
that is groping for a stay; and nothing can betaken away but He will
more than fill the gap it leaves by His own sweet presence. If our eyes
behold the King, if we are like John the Seer in his rocky Patmos, and
see the Christ in His glory and royalty, then He will lay His hands on
us and say, 'Fear not! Weep not; I am the First and the Last,' and
forebodings, and fears, and sense of loss will all be changed into
trustfulness and patient submission. 'Seeing Him, who is invisible,' we
shall be able to endure and to toil, until the time when the vision of
earth is perfected by the beholding of heaven. Blessed are they who
with purged eyes see, and with yielding hearts obey, the heavenly
vision, and turn to the King and offer themselves for any service He
may require, saying, 'Here am I; send me.'