Sunday, the lesson I taught was on the sixth Chapter of Isaiah.  I remember when I was a little girl, I heard a sermon on this and it has stuck with me all this time.

"In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up..."  The pastor said that sometimes, the year that something happens sticks in our head.  Isaiah had lived through other kings, but Uzziah was a good king.  Isaiah was disturbed by what was going to happen next.

This year will be like that.  None of us will forget 2020.

When Isaiah had the vision, he said, "Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.  We are also living in a nation of people who have run out of curse words, and foul words.  They have used them up and now attach adjectives to them to make them worse. 

I asked the class why the seraphim picked up a burning coal and touched Isaiah's lips and declared him clean and purged from iniquity and sin--when everywhere else in the Bible, cleansing from sin is always from the blood of sheep, doves, and finally, from Jesus.  He died as the ultimate sacrifice.

One of the women said, "Well, Isaiah had declared himself a man with unclean lips, and God always meets us at the point where we need grace.

God was getting ready to use Isaiah as a spokesperson to warn the Jews in Judah and Israel that he was sick of their sin.  And Isaiah's mouth was to be the instrument of God's message.  God touched him at the point that Isaiah had declared was unclean.  His mouth.