5th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2024c
Old Testament - Isaiah 6:1-8
New Testament - Luke 5:1-11
Torchbearers
INTRODUCTION: According to the history books, Hildegard of Bingen, who lived around 1100 AD, started having powerful visions when just three years old.
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And even though she was just three, she seemed to understand her visions made her different from other kids. And so she, wisely, kept her visions a secret for much of her life.
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At age 42, though, she had an especially powerful vision where she was instructed by God to "write down that which you see and hear." And so that’s what she started doing. She began keeping a record of her visions, eventually filling up three books with her experiences, along with assorted intricate and dazzling sketches she drew herself. Believed to be a polymath, Hildegard referred to her repeated visions as “the reflection of the living Light.”
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Or as she wrote about one recurring vision at the ripe old age of 77, “From my early childhood, before my bones, nerves, and veins were fully strengthened, I have always seen this vision in my soul, even to the present time when I am more than seventy years old. In this vision, my soul, as God would have it, rises up high into the vault of heaven and into the changing sky and spreads itself out…”
Is it any wonder that upon her death in 1179 AD the sisters in the monastery where Hildegard was the superior, or abbess, claimed they witnessed two beams of light shooting across the sky and over the room where she had died.
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ONE: Well, the prophet Isaiah also knew a little something about visions, right?
There he is one afternoon, presumably just trying to make it through another day, only to find himself suddenly transported into the Temple in Jerusalem.
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Even better, he finds himself actually pulled behind the curtain in the Temple into the holy of holies. And there, behind the curtain, he finds himself staring at God perched in a throne while wearing a robe so big the hem of it spills out into the entire temple. Seraphs are flitting about calling to each other with that famous refrain of “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts!”
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They’re so loud the posts for the entryway move and sway as if they’re in an earthquake measuring a 9 on the Richter scale. And then there is the smoke. With the censers smoldering away with their incense, the entire space is full of an aromatic cloud.
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No wonder Frederick Buechner likes to describe the scene by saying that Isaiah was staring at “Mystery Itself.” And that when Isaiah finally gets to speaking, his first response is hardly full of bravado: “Woe is me!” proclaims Isaiah, “I am lost.” After all, what else is anyone to say when staring into the face of Mystery Itself.
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Only a fool would dare to ignore the smallness and fleetingness of their lives when face-to-face with the very source of life itself.
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TWO: Of course, amidst the smoke and the rushing wind caused by the seraphs flapping wings, Isaiah is given his own task by God, right?
And while Hildegard was instructed by God to put her visions to paper, Isaiah is ordered to exhort the people of Israel to get busy once again being God’s chosen people in the world. After all, from the very beginning, Israel was supposed to be God’s special people, remember? Through Israel’s example and common life, the world was supposed to see a living tangible, visible, sign of God’s intentions for the world.
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Or as God actually puts it to Israel in chapter 42 of Isaiah, “I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind…”
And still later in chapter 49 God can be found putting it this way: “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
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No wonder another man claims that Israel, because of its special calling from God, was supposed to be a “torchbearer.” Through its life and actions, in other words, tiny Israel was to show the other nations of the world what God desires for all people.
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But of course, as anyone who has ever thumbed through the Old Testament knows, Israel, like any other group of people if they had also been so lucky to be handpicked by God for the task, is pretty lousy at its job. The double command to love God and love neighbor gets so distorted, twisted, and warped by Israel even God gets close to losing his religion on more than one occasion!
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Again, that’s not meant to say Israel was any worse than the surrounding nations. Rest assured the Edomites, Philistines, Moabites, and Caananites would have also mucked things up just as well. After all, every single one of those nations was also composed of humans. And humans across the board, well, we’re not the best at listening to God, are we?
And so Isaiah is told to be, well, a prophet to Israel. “Preach!” God says to Isaiah. “Preach until pigs fly. Preach until hell freezes over. Preach until the people can’t stand the sight of you coming in order to call them back to my ways.”
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And, apparently, Isaiah did just that to an annoying and infuriating degree. After all, tradition claims King Mannasah finally had Isaiah put to death for his meedlin’ preaching. And the chosen method? Well, he was cut in half lengthwise with a giant wooden saw. Ouch!
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THREE: Of course, years later Jesus would end up saying pretty much the same thing to his disciples.
Yep, just like Isaiah, who encouraged the people of Israel years earlier to be bearers of light in the world, Jesus also gave the same instructions to his followers. “You are the light of the world, " said Jesus in his inaugural sermon. “A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”
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Why, I would even argue Peter, James and John’s encounter with Jesus while fishing this morning is just another way of expressing the same idea. After pulling in bursting nets loaded with fish, Jesus tells Peter his new job will be to catch people, which is just another way, it seems to me, of saying he is to be a light that shows others the way.
On the campus of the University of Tennessee there is a beloved and famous statue at the intersection of Circle Park and Volunteer Boulevard. Nine feet tall, the statue is of a young man draped in a toga-like piece of cloth while also holding a torch up into the air with his right arm. Except for those rare occasions when heavy rains and strong winds have been able to briefly extinguish it, the torch in the young man’s right hand burns continuously. Is it any wonder the statue is actually known as The Torchbearer?
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Dedicated in 1968, the University's motto, or creed, is also displayed at its base. And that motto? It reads, “One that beareth a torch shadoweth oneself to give light to others.”
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Well, I think both Isaiah and Jesus would approve of such a motto. For they too think it is important for people to be lights in the world.
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FOUR: In February of 2026, Italy will host the next round of the Winter Olympics.
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Of course, a few months before that, on November 26, 2025, a torch will be lit in Olympia, Greece, which will then be carried by hundreds of runners for brief stretches to Milan, Italy for the lighting ceremony to open the games. Known as the torch relay, it was, interestingly, actually an idea first hatched by the Nazis, who hosted the Olympic Games in 1936.
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Although Hitler considered the Olympics to be “an invention of Jews and Freemasons,” Joseph Goebbels convinced Hitler the relay would be a great propaganda tool. And so the first relay was actually orchestrated as a way to promote Nazism.
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And so after much fanfare and assorted stops along the way from Olympus, the Olympic flame was brought into Berlin Stadium in front of 100,000 onlookers by a runner named Fritz Schilgen, who was specifically chosen because of his Aryan appearance.
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Of course, as many of you might recall. Jesse Owens would put to rest any notion of Aryan superiority during the 1938 games by winning four gold medals. One of them being a gold in the 100 meters - a signature race of the Olympics even today.
Today, though, the torch relay, thankfully, has a very different meaning. As the flame moves through various countries and is passed from one person to another, it is now meant to symbolize the spread of peace, friendship, and unity.
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And the people that carry the torch these days are always a wonderful hodge-podge of differences. Blacks, whites, browns, men, women, people with disabilities, those from different nations, cultural backgrounds, and so on and so on…well, they all take turns carrying the torch. And while we are probably right to lament the commercial aspects of the Olympics these days, we can also celebrate something like the torch relay, I think.
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For it’s a nice reminder of the high calling for us to also be lights in the world.
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CONCLUSION: Well, even all these years later, God is still looking for torchbearers. Yep, by the grace of God present in Jesus Christ, Isaiah’s call is also our call.
For even now God is looking for people who are willing to bear a torch to give light to others. God’s salvation, after all, is supposed to reach to the ends of the earth.
But for that to happen, well, a whole lot of torchbearers are gonna be needed. For “One that beareth a torch shadoweth oneself to give light to others.”
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And now blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.