Dr. Robin H. Kimbrough
The stores have emptied of shoppers searching for Easter dresses, Easter suits and Easter baskets filled with candy. The fields are empty of Easter eggs.
Church attendance will be back to normal this Sunday. Although the Easter celebration has come to a halt, we as Christians need to know that there is still work to be done after Easter. The resurrection of Jesus Christ came with hope, and it also came with great responsibilities for Jesus disciples. We are now responsible for sharing this Gospel and building up the Kingdom of God. For us, this means being open and available to continue the work of Jesus Christ.
Jesus is calling out to us today, after Easter, to go into the world and share his grace and love. We, like the prophet Isaiah, need to respond without complaint—send me!
Isaiah writes that in the year King Uzziah died, he had a vision of the Lord High and lifted it up.
During this encounter with God, an angle touched his lips with a live piece of coal to deal with his thoughts of uncleanness and worthiness, because Isaiah said he was man of unclean lips. Then he writes: “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, send me,” Isaiah 6:8. Our objective upon learning there is life after death is knowing that there is resurrection on the other side of our pain and sin. We have made a resounding agreement to do the work of our Lord. Unclean lips should not be a barrier to our ability to do what we have been destined to do. Unclean lips are no excuse for living out our destinies and calling. Unclean lips cannot stop us from being who God wants us to be and called us to be. For Isaiah, it was in the year King Uzziah died in which he heard the Lord calling out and wanting to know who he should send. It is in those times when things, and even people die, in which we recognize our need for a piece of live coal and hear the voice of our Lord calling out to us.
Like the Lord did with Isaiah, he does not always ask us directly to go. But we know when he is calling that he is calling out to us. In the year King Uzziah died, Isaiah was ready to go without hesitation. We cannot forget that before he sends us out, the Lord prepares us.
We may like the way God prepares us to do his work, because sometimes it’s painful. And the way he does it, we do not understand it. If we thought about the number of challenges we have faced in our lives, the disappointments, laundry lists of rejections, and the times we were sick, we can see how God was preparing us for the year in which King Uzziah would die.
We cannot volunteer to go if we have not been prepared, pruned, humbled, and matured. Like God was patient with Isaiah as he waited on him until the year King Uzziah died, God is patient with us. He keeps checking in with us to see if we are ready. We know when we are ready to surrender to him, when the Holy Spirit speaks to us to go, and we go without mumbling, talking back, or making excuses—send me! We do not need to be begged to go or told where to go. We know the places in need of hope and restoration. Send me to Juvenile Justice Center to help some hopeless youth.
Send me to the corners of North Nashville and Dickerson Rd. where women feel like the only way they can survive is to sell their bodies. Send me to those meetings in which people promote racism and other injustices. Send me to the prisons to help some man reclaim his dignity.
Send me to the struggling single mother, the father who is strung out on crack, the child who is left home alone, and to other people who need to experience deliverance. Send me—I will go!
