In the Year that King Uzziah Died

A story that has circulated among preachers for years concerns a small, African-American Church in Michigan on that Sunday after the Kennedy assassination, a Sunday in which all across the land people poured out of their homes into houses of worship. In this particular church, the minister stepped to the pulpit, pulled the chain which turned on the light by which he could read, opened his Bible, and read words from Isaiah that open our scripture today: “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord.” The minister then proceeded to ask his grieving, gathered congregation: In the year that we have lost our King, In the year that we have lost our dashing young president, Can we – can we – can we see the Lord? Larry Hayward preaches on Isaiah 6:1-8.