Seraphim (2022)

FOR QUINTET (S. SAX, TBN, E. GTR, DRUM SET, E. PIANO)
C. 9 MINUTES

written for Tacet(i) Ensemble

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The Seraphim are the celestial beings who serve the highest direct attendance of God. They are described as fiery beings with six wings and countless eyes. Upon seeing them, Isaiah makes remarks about the realization that, although he has come so close to God as to view his throne, the Seraphim demonstrate the verity of Isaiah as a being ridden with sin. It is then that he writes:

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“And he laid it upon my mouth and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged... Here am I, send me.”

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To me, when taken as a whole, Isaiah’s encounter with the Seraphim unveils a type of duality rooted in different forms infinity. The first is the infinite indiscriminite proclivity of human beings to express sin. The second is the infinite discriminate capacity of God to cleanse sin. Rather than exist separately, these two are embedded within each other. Isaiah found that the closer he came to God and the Seraphim, the deeper he found himself in a state of sin. In his efforts to escape that state, he became the very thing he was trying to avoid. However, once he yielded to the state of sin, he was instantly purged from it by the grace of the Seraphim.

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