Text: Luke 5:1-11

S. Epiphany 5.10 “Catch and Release…” Luke 5:1-11

His first inclination is to hide. But in a small fishing boat, there’s no place to hide. If he thought about it for a while, he’d realize how foolish it is to try to hide from the Lord of heaven and earth. Adam and Eve had the same inclination, right after they ate the apple, when the Lord God came looking for them in the breeze of the evening in the garden. They hid. But He found them. He’s good, He is! Can’t fool Him or hide from Him!

Isaiah had the same inclination when he was lifted up to heaven, the year that King Uzziah died, when he saw the Lord high and lifted up, sitting on the throne of heaven, the train of His robe filling the temple quite, and the seraphim and cherubim flying around the throne and singing “holy, holy, holy…”. His inclination also was to hide (or escape).

We think we’re pretty fine the way we are. But that’s only because we haven’t seen the Holy One, or His glory for a very long time. We’ve forgotten what the sight is like, what it does to mortals, how it shows up instantly all the ugliness, all the filth of our sinful selves. We think just because we look fairly decent compared to Tiger Woods, or John Edwards, or the other failed heroes trotted out on the pages of the Sunday papers, that we are clean and pure, or close enough. Our secret pride at this we keep buried deep and think no one sees, no one knows our little secret: that while all men are created equal, we know, deep down, we’re a little more equal than the others, at least in the areas that really count…

So they show us this morning, Isaiah and Peter, what holiness really is, what it looks like, and how we measure up on the divine and absolute scale, the only one that is true, the One that really matters. They remind us why Moses couldn’t see God’s face, why just the sight of His back made Moses’ face glow in such an unearthly and disturbing way, the children of Israel made him put a bag over his head.

And I’ll warn you right now that you will want to avert your eyes too. What you’re about to see is shocking and awesome. For mature audiences only, as they say, but for exactly the opposite reason they say that on TV. Not because it’s filled with language and violence and uncleanness, but because here you see the light of heaven: the purity and splendor of the Divine Radiance that casts a most unflattering light on the likes of you and me.

Isaiah saw it most clearly, shows it the simplest and best: the unveiled glory of God in His element, His heaven, is so awesome, so pure, dazzling, so radiant, the sound of the voice of His angels shook the roof beams and the lintel posts and all the house was filled with billowing smoke from the celestial Fire burning on the altar before the throne. And Isaiah saw right away he didn’t fit, didn’t belong, was totally out of his element. Did he fancy as a young man he was one of the holy ones, the saints, bound for glory? Well, the sight of the real thing knocked any such ideas right out of him! “Woe is me! For I am [literally] “undone, destroyed”; for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Ruh-oh.

Not looking so good now, is Isaiah, the would-be prophet and saint! In fact, it looks like he’s dying as he is crumpling into a heap in the corner of the sanctuary, awestruck at God’s glory and aghast at his failure to measure up to that in any way, to have any capacity for participating in the divine service going on there. That’s what holiness does to sinful beings like us. It kills us. Literally. We go out in a blaze of glory, but oh… we go out like a nightlight at sunrise.

But the seraphim catches Isaiah when he’s falling, lifts him up—with a glowing coal from the altar producing all the smoke, touching his lips, purging his sin. Since only the righteousness of Christ, hard-won by the blood He shed on the cross can purge sin, that must be what glows before the altar in heaven. Since past, present, future have no meaning outside of earth’s temporal frame, that must be what touched Isaiah: the body, the blood of the Lamb slain 700 years after his time, since only the Body of the Lamb can save like this.

And with sin purged, Isaiah can hear the voice of the Lord Himself now, saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And hears himself saying: “Hear am I, send me!” He’s caught in God’s net now. The beginning of a beautiful friendship.

And later, come in our flesh this time, all the glory and radiance covered up and concealed under the form of a Servant, a carpenter’s son from Nazareth, the Lord of heaven comes incognito to walk among us as one of us, taking on our flesh and blood Himself to fix you, fix me, fix Peter. The glory slips out just a little bit when He speaks the Word of forgiveness. It shakes things up, shakes loose the demons as we saw last week, breaks the darkness all around with a new and better light. But in Jesus, the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily, yet concealed from our sight in such a way we can be near Him without perishing, without seeing how miserable we are by comparison.

He slides right into the boat next to Peter, and says “Do you mind?” Peter goes: “Well, kinda…” but Jesus is hard-pressed by the crowds, so Peter makes room for Him, lets Him say His piece, while he listens with one ear, but both eyes on the water, looking for fish. But then Jesus tells him to cast his net in the worst spot, an empty spot, Peter knows, and when the nets are filled with fish to the breaking and Jesus is just smiling, Peter finally sees: the Lord of heaven is in the boat, the One who made and rules all has caught the fish… has caught Peter.

And Peter’s first reaction is to hide, but there is nowhere to hide. He’s caught. So he begs Jesus to depart from him, because he’s a sinful man, Peter is. But Jesus has other ideas. “Don’t be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men.” (Just as Peter himself has been caught!)

Secretly, we yearn for heaven. We were made for this, for the Presence of the Holy One, but sin has made it impossible for us to be comfortable there. So God sneaks up on us, catches us unawares, coming incognito in the body of Jesus, purging all our sin with the blood of Christ so we can stay with Him a while.

Still He’s catching loose fish, fast fish too, like Isaiah, Peter, you, me--dazzling us with Light, catching and releasing us from shame, by the Word of His Cross burning our guilt clean away—“a lifetime burning in every moment”, catching us up in Christ, in such a way as to never need hiding again, but rather enjoying that song of angels, archangels, and the whole company of heaven.

We sing their song this morning as we come to the Table, in the words of that great hymn, “Isaiah, Mighty Seer…” because here, like Isaiah, like Peter, we are caught up by heaven too, blown away: as His body and blood in the Sacrament touch our lips, His Word takes away our sin; just so His sanctuary is made our home, our hearts His temple, our bodies light and pure as His own, and the Peace that surpasses understanding catches us, to guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, always. Amen. 

Pastor Kevin Martin