Woe Is Me

Jesu Juva

Isaiah 6:1-8                                                         

May 26, 2024

The Holy Trinity – B                                     

 Dear saints of our Savior~

        Woe is me!  Have you ever said that?  “Woe is me” is a powerful phrase that packs a big punch.  In these days when communication is being boiled down to the bare essentials—to texts and tweets and memes—and as bad news proliferates daily—“Woe is me” really hits the nail on the head.  Yet, I almost never read it or hear it.  Where did all the woe go?

        This phrase has been around for a while.  In English literature it is most famously found on the lips of Ophelia, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  There the lovely Ophelia is overcome with anguish after witnessing the apparent madness of Hamlet, her one-time love interest:  Oh, woe is me, T' have seen what I have seen!   

        But long before “Woe” flowed from the pen of the Bard, those same syllables escaped from the lips of Isaiah the prophet.  The only difference being that Isaiah spoke in Hebrew.  Interestingly, the Hebrew word for “woe” is “Oy,” from which is derived the popular Yiddish expression, Oy vey!—which essentially means, woe is me!  So what’s with all the woe on this Trinity Sunday? 

        Isaiah tells us it was the year that King Uzziah died; and, although that means nothing to our ears, it signaled a seismic shake-up for God’s people in the land of Judah.  Uzziah had been the king for 52 years.  No royal reign had ever lasted that long before.  Those five decades had mostly been years of peace and prosperity.  But behind that façade, God’s people had been sliding deeper and deeper into idolatry and hypocrisy.  No one knew it at the time, but Uzziah’s death signaled the beginning of the end for Judah and Jerusalem.  Doom and gloom, death and destruction, defeat and exile were now on the horizon.  God’s people had been sinning boldly and brazenly for decades; and now there would be hell to pay.

        And so at that watershed moment—in the year that King Uzziah died—Isaiah was called and sent by the Lord.  The call of Isaiah is truly in a class by itself.  It happened right where you would expect it to happen—in the temple, near the altar.  It was holy ground in an evil time—the Lord’s dwelling place on earth.  The Lord who was normally unseen, was now beheld by Isaiah in all His majesty and holiness.  With mortal eyes Isaiah also saw and heard the seraphim, winged angelic creatures who called out to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.” 

        Right there, of course, is the textual connection to the Holy Trinity.  This threefold acclamation—holy, holy, holy—it’s much more than mere repetition.  According to St. Ambrose, those seraphim “say [the word “holy”], not once, lest you should believe that there is but one; not twice, lest you should exclude the [Holy] Spirit; they say not holies, lest you should imagine that there is a plurality, but they repeat [exactly] three times and say the [exact] same word, that . . . you may understand the distinction of Persons in the Trinity, and the oneness of the Godhead . . .” (TLSB, p.1098).

        But I’m guessing that Isaiah, as he witnessed and wondered at these heavenly sights and sounds—he wasn’t contemplating the finer doctrinal details of the Triune God.  No, Isaiah was filled with terror and despair at these sights and sounds—despair which he perfectly expressed in good Shakespearean style:  Woe is me!  For I am lost; for 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.”  Isaiah’s woe was not for show.  This woe was not a clever bit of stagecraft set in iambic pentameter.  This woe was not the overwrought emotion we sometimes witness on stage and screen.  This woe was as real as it gets. 

Why?  Because the bright light of God’s holiness illuminated all of Isaiah’s sin—all of his iniquity—all of his uncleanness.  The holiness of God shone on Isaiah like one of those lights used by dermatologists on human skin to reveal every blemish—every freckle of imperfection—every cancerous and pre-cancerous growth—every dark spot.  And it’s here that we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Isaiah—bearing our sinful blemishes.  Every Lord’s Day we stand here in this temple before this altar in God’s presence with our sin completely exposed. 

And yet, our woe seems to be woefully lacking much of the time.  I doubt that any of us has said “Woe is me” over our own sin in recent memory.  Sure, it’s an antiquated way of speaking.  But perhaps “woe” has wandered out of our vocabulary in the same way that sin has slipped out of our vocabulary—because we think that we’re not that bad, because we think that sinning is something other people do, or because we think that being saved by grace means that we’re free to go on sinning and cash in on forgiveness later. 

But Isaiah gets it just right with his “woe is me.”  Can you confess with Isaiah, “Woe is me?”  Can you acknowledge your unclean lips which can so cleverly craft lies and gossip?  Can you confess your unclean eyes that lust and covet with 20/20 accuracy?  Can you admit to unclean hands which are so quick to hurt and harm and take, but so slow to serve and pray and give?  Standing before God you cannot lie, and no excuses will do.  But the truth will serve you well:  Woe is me.     

But “woe” is not the last word where our God is concerned.  Woe wasn’t the last word for Isaiah.  For with a burning coal from the altar, Isaiah’s unclean lips were purified.  His guilt was taken away.  His sin was atoned for.  And something no less miraculous happens at this altar every Lord’s Day.  For all who are overcome with woe—for repentant sinners who have done the very sins they don’t want to do and who have failed to do the good deeds that they so desperately desire—the Lord takes from this altar and applies to your lips grace, mercy, forgiveness.  The body of God’s Son, once crucified for the sin of the world—and the blood of God’s Son, once shed at the cross—these precious gifts move from God’s altar to your lips.  These precious gifts turn your woe into relief, and joy, and peace that passes understanding.

God is holy and we are not.  But for the sake of His Holy Son, God removes the evil that clings to our lips, our hands, and hearts.  It happens because the woe of the world came to rest on Jesus.  Your woe, your sin, and the death you deserve—Jesus bears it all away for you.  Later in his ministry, Isaiah preached like an eyewitness to the crucifixion of Jesus: Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. . . . He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities . . . by His stripes we are healed.  In short, Jesus knows all your woe, and He makes your woe His own.  And you are never the same again.

Isaiah was never the same again.  The forgiveness Isaiah received equipped him for the hard work ahead.  In a matter of seconds, Isaiah went from “Woe is me” to “Here am I!  Send me!”  Isaiah was ready and willing, able and eager to follow where the Lord would lead him, and to proclaim the Word of the Lord to hard-hearted sinners.  It wasn’t an easy job.  In fact, at one point in his ministry Isaiah would walk around naked and barefoot for three years, just as he was commanded to do by the Lord (ch. 20).  And tradition tells us that Isaiah’s ministry ended when he was martyred—by being sawn in two.  Remember that when you raise your hand and tell the Lord, “Here am I!  Send me.”

And yet, you can say it.  You can say it with confidence and faith.  Your life can echo Isaiah’s unbridled enthusiasm.  The Triune God is working all things for your eternal good.  You probably won’t have to go without clothes for three years, and you probably won’t be sawed in two.  But your tasks are difficult nonetheless:  Loving your neighbor, forgiving those who sin against you, speaking the truth in love in an evil world that prefers to live by lies. 

You are the light of the world, Jesus says, sent by the Lord to be His witnesses, to be His hands and His feet and His lips in this dark world.  You are baptized—born again.  Your guilt is taken away.  Your sin is atoned for. Whatever your troubles and whatever your heartaches and challenges, your story is not—and will never be—a tale of woe.  For the worst tragedy cannot change the fact that resurrection is your destination.  The life of the world to come awaits you.  And to that you can only say, “Here am I!  Send me!” 

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.