A little over a week ago I sat in a pew at my home church and wept as I remembered the life of one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever known. It’s been a very long time since Ashley and I were close, but at one time, we were good friends. We had a special relationship and special names for one another. She wasn’t Ash. She was Shley. I wasn’t LA or Les. I was Lie (like Les-lie). I, being three years older than her, considered her my “little sister” in the youth group. She always made me laugh, and we had such wonderful memories.
I remember teaching her the alto lines in our youth choir. Leaning over and singing the notes into her ear so that she could hear the harmony. We went to Knoxville and painted that falling-apart house that was scheduled to be torn down and replaced. But we did it anyway. Ashley kept taking a break to talk to the owners of the house. She shared her light with them. We were just trying to make things better for them in the short term. We got in trouble on that trip. If you ask me why, I might tell you someday.
I remember when she found out she had cancer, six years ago. I was a sophomore at Mississippi State. She was a senior in high school. When mom told me the news, my jaw dropped in shock. Ashley? Cancer? It couldn’t be. She was one of those girls that everyone loved. She was gorgeous, one of the most popular girls in her school. Captain of the soccer team, on the homecoming court and student council. If you didn’t know her, you would assume that she was one of the “pretty people” who couldn’t care less about others. But that wasn’t the case with Ashley. She was a kind and gentle person, always willing to widen her circle to let others in.
My Hebrew class is translating passages from Isaiah, which is a bit of divine humor, since everywhere I turn around Isaiah is staring me in the face. Anyway, if you don’t know much about it, Isaiah’s one of the major prophecy books in the Old Testament. It’s a sobering message to God’s people about all the ways they have failed him. Even though they go through all the right motions of worship and sacrifice, it’s all for naught because their hands are covered with the blood of the innocent. They refuse to take care of the orphans and widows in their midst, and they fail to be the bearers of justice, grace and mercy to vulnerable people. Therefore, they have failed to keep their end of the bargain with God (the one that they agreed to when God through Moses led them out of Egypt), and Isaiah delivers a scathing message of judgment and indictment to them. But the book is beautiful because it also testifies to God’s mercy and grace. Even though these people, who are supposed to be God’s own people, have failed so miserably, he preserves a repentant remnant. He restores them. So the book can be roughly divided into two parts: messages of condemnation and messages of consolation.
All of that to say that in one particular passage, Isaiah 6:1-7, Isaiah has this vision of God in the temple. And it’s awe-inspiring. God is so big and mighty that the hem of his robe fills the temple. Angels are flying around overhead shouting praise to the Lord, an incessant chorus of “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts!” Their voices are so thunderous that the temple starts shaking and quaking, and Isaiah’s response is one of despair. He knows that he cannot see the Lord. He knows that he is not worthy to see the Lord. He knows that he is a part of this sinful and rebellious people. He knows that he is about to be destroyed. And he says, “Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips.”
