When I read today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah, for some reason I thought of video games.
I’m not sure why, since I don’t play them very frequently these days. But stick with me on this.
There is a term from video games that has entered the common vocabulary in recent years:
“leveling up”. In many games, once you earn enough “XP” (ahem… “experience points”), you
“level up”. Basically, the “character” that you are playing becomes more powerful and skilled,
making old challenges easier and opening up the possibility of taking on harder challenges that
before were impossible.
These days, you can hear the term applied to almost any domain that one can improve in.
When you improve your knowledge and skills at work, school, or a hobby, you “level up” and
improve your performance, can embrace new challenges, and are rewarded with new
opportunities in work and social life.
But as most of us have experienced, this real life effort doesn’t come as easily as learning which
buttons to press at the right times on a keyboard or game controller. Not only is getting better at
life skills hard, but we also encounter barriers to our goals. Such obstacles may be put in our
way by other people or even society itself. Or those obstacles may live inside of us, causing us
to put ourselves in our own way. We bang our head against invisible walls and only grow in
frustration.
The prophet Isaiah leveled up in today’s reading. But it wasn’t a mere earthly endeavor for
which he strove, it was his very relationship with God.
In his vision, Isaiah observed the magnificent glory of Yahweh seated in heaven. Seraphim, the
highest order of angels, stood before the Lord in full communion with their Maker. Their
heavenly ecstasy was so overwhelming and tremendous that their praise of love and worship
shook the heavens.
And there stood Isaiah looking at the God He too loved. He too wanted to be united to God in
the same way. But instead of hope and determination, he was discouraged, for there was a
barrier in his way. The object of his love seemed to him impossible to reach because of sin, his
own and that of his people. In other words, the sin of all men (the original sin of human nature)
and his own actual failures made it impossible for him to join in the joy of the angels.
Then one of the seraphim placed a hot coal from heaven’s altar on Isaiah’s lips. This is symbolic
of purification. Immediately, Isaiah’s internal barriers were lifted. His soul was opened and his
lips cleansed. He leveled up! He could now approach the Lord with His praise. Moreso, He
embraced a new challenge that was only moments before impossible. Isaiah answered the call
to the adventure of being God’s messenger with a joyful shout: “Here I am, send me!”
When it comes to our relationship with God, it doesn’t matter how hard we work at it (though of
course our effort demonstrates our desire for it). We don’t level up merely through practice, we
do so when we humbly admit our limitations and surrender the rest to God. He will do the rest
through His grace. His grace lets us get out of our own way, opening the pathway to Him and
giving us the strength and ability to answer His call to proclaim the Good News in our lives.