Christ conquers death
Commentary
[Rev. Dr. Mark J. Molldrem is Senior Pastor at Resurrection Lutheran Church in Saginaw, Michigan. A parish pastor for 25 years, he has written articles for various religious publications, organized ecumenical and community efforts in the areas of refugee resettlement and securing a shelter home for victims of domestic violence, and has led workshops for youth, single adults, and married couples. CSS has published his book The Victory Of Faith, meditations on Lenten and Easter texts, as well as his numerous sermon illustrations for Emphasis.]
Though death comes to all, death comes in many ways. It may tarry and gently wrap itself around the mortal coil in an old-timer's sleep. It can just as likely strike an infant thought to be safely belted in the back seat of the car. Christians, as well as other targeted populations around the world and throughout the ages, know what it is like to be hunted down and persecuted unto death. Sometimes for no apparent reason, the sinister claws of disease will tear at the fabric of life and reduce a once healthy person to a rumpled mass of flesh and bone before the fatal moment. Since every cradle swings over an open grave, any words about death will address a vital concern of the living. How do people who claim the favor of the living God deal with death?
Isaiah 25:6-9
The prophet Isaiah, working in the eighth century B.C. (Read "Before Christ." There is nothing common about this era, folks! The crucified Lord is risen. Something seriously uncommon is afoot. A "new age" is either here, as Paul claims, or it isn't), had to deal with death all around him. The Southern Kingdom had been embroiled with the Northern Kingdom and Syria. Things got worse when the Assyrians overran both these and then came knocking on the gates of Jerusalem. From a human point of view, the people had cause to despair. Their enemies seemed more prevalent than the favors of God. The precious holy hill on which Jerusalem was perched did not commend itself to "wine on the lees" at this time. Yet, with death prowling at every turn for someone to devour, Isaiah has the boldness to paint with words a different picture of how things are going to be.
With an interesting pun created by the English translation, we see the Lord of hosts (a mighty array of soldiers) hosting a feast for all people -- including the Northern Kingdom, Syria, and Assyria, enemies of the godly? Death will no longer do the devouring. Rather, it will be swallowed up in a victory that defies human foresight. Isaiah portrays this landscape of the mountain, so that the people might not lose hope. For in treacherous and tumultuous times, it is easier to sink into despair than to swim in 70,000 fathoms (Kierkegaard). The antidote to despair is faith; but, faith needs hope, as the writer to the Hebrews reminds us. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not [yet] seen" (Hebrews 11:1). With hope, the people can wait for the Lord to weave his will into the fabric of history.
Although verse 9 is in prose form, there is either the poetic heart or a poetic antecedent that expresses the people's resolve to wait for the Lord. "We have waited for him," because we had this vision of his salvation. "We have waited for him," and now that he has come, how can we be anything but glad? How can we do anything but rejoice? Since the waiting is filled with an eschatological vision of such magnitude, despair gives way to faith; and faith produces the patience that is needed to continue to wait.
The waiting will be painful, however, because one hundred years later, Jerusalem will be sacked by the Babylonians. Then, 600 years after that, again by the Romans. What patience is needed by the people of God to claim their inheritance! Even when the Messiah comes there remains unfinished business.
Revelation 21:1-6a
John's exile to the island of Patmos could very well have been an extension of the persecution under Domitian at the end of the first century A.D. John's vision, in the spirit of Isaiah (see Isaiah 65:17), contains a new heaven and a new earth and a new Jerusalem. With Rome on a rampage, John provides his readers with a cosmic glimpse to put everything in perspective. Rome may have its hour on the stage, but, as Macbeth observed upon the death of his wife, "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more." When Rome is gone, God will still be! God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Everything else is "in between stuff." Not that the "in between stuff" is unimportant; it's just that it does not have ultimate importance.
What God is doing and decides to do is what is important. God will create a new cosmos -- physical (heaven and earth) and spiritual (Jerusalem). God's people will be its inhabitants. That nemesis, death, will be dealt with once and for all. What Isaiah's contemporaries and descendants had to wait for will ultimately come. It will come "from God." This is the Christian character of hope. Hope is not the imagined future desired by the best of human aspirations. This would be Feuerbach revisited. (Feuerbach proposed that God was simply the projection of the human spirit.) Hope has its foundation in God, who is working out the divine plan in history. The writer to the Hebrews understood this, as Abraham's nomad wanderings in tents is described as anticipatory to something more substantial, like a city with solid foundations (see Hebrews 11:9-10). As Abraham knew, the hoped-for promise had to be made real by God's own hand -- from a new land, to a new nation, to a new blessing that would be for all people.
In this text, as well as in the Isaiah text, the sense of allness pervades. All people are invited to the feast; all things are made new. Paul expressed the embracing nature of God's Messiah when he wrote in reference to civilized and uncivilized humanity that "Christ is all and in all" (Colossians 3:11). Perhaps with our shrinking global village and our growing sense that everything is related in some intrinsic way to everything else -- from the human family to the ecosystem to the mother board -- we can gain a deeper appreciation of what Scripture means when it talks about God being all-encompassing, like the first and last letters of the alphabet.
John 11:32-44
Since we know that all the signs in John's Gospel point to Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God (John 20:30-31), we have to ask what this sign tells us about Jesus the Christ. There are two things that stand out -- one human, one divine. Other than being late, the human quality that Jesus reveals is his compassion. Jesus was not without feeling, here the feeling of sorrow. He shared completely the deep anguish of Mary and Martha over the loss of their brother. Jesus loved him too, the crowd observed. No matter what dark valley we may walk through, we can have the confidence that Jesus understands our human situation and can "feel with" us.
Now, the crowd was savvy as to issues of power and purpose. If Jesus had the power of miracles, like restoring sight to the blind, such that we should believe that he is the Messiah from God, then, should he not also be able to demonstrate his power in this situation? And, if not, then we have grounds to question the validity of the claim that this is indeed the One sent from God. Essentially, this is a variation on the age old question of theodicy. Where is God in the presence of human suffering? How can a loving God allow such things to happen? Why doesn't God now simply make things right? In light of these kind of understandable questions, can we even dare to ask if God is alive? Was Nietzsche right all along, when he declared "God is dead"?
Reminiscent of the priestly account in Genesis in which God liturgically speaks and there is the immediate response of creation, Jesus speaks and death surrenders to life. "Come out!" It is like God calling forth light from the darkness. Out of the hole of the death comes restored wholeness of life. This same Jesus, who could weep in the fullness of humanity, can also wrestle with the power of death in the fullness of deity and win. The justifying answer to the questions about the justice of God is heard in the voice of Jesus, who simply adds without fanfare, "Unbind him and let him go." Where is God in the presence of human suffering? Look to Jesus weeping. How can a loving God allow such things to happen? Look to Jesus, who battles the happening of these things. Why doesn't God now simply make things right? Look to Jesus, asking the same question, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Is God alive? Look to Jesus on the cross, as Martin Luther would explain "under the form of opposites," for it was precisely there that he did his mightiest work and conquered sin, death, hell, and all evil.
Lazarus' cave with a stone laying upon it is a foreshadowing of the very tomb in which Jesus would be laid, with a stone rolled in front of it. The One who said, "Come out!" would in turn be called out by God the Father to rise before all the world as Lord and Savior, so that all who believe in him should not perish but find life in his name. John would have us understand that every Christian funeral takes place next to Lazarus' tomb. Together, with him we will hear the call of Jesus to come out. All the saints of God -- past, present, and future -- can rejoice with Isaiah and John in this eschatological hope finally made real.
Application
If William Strauss and Neil Howe are correct in their book The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy, then we will be facing trying times ahead in the crisis period that is coming upon us, like it did our ancestors respectively in the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression followed by World War II. But, we do not have to wait for our Millennial Crisis to spring upon us in order to appreciate the words of our texts. We are living in unraveling times now, as most every newspaper headline announces and magazine editorial reflects upon and television anchor comments. Part of this unraveling can be traced to how Christian mores have been purged from the American conscience, such that Christianity is associated with narrow-mindedness, the faith made the butt of publicly accepted jokes, and Judeo-Christian values relegated to opinion.
How do people who claim the favor of the living God not despair in these days? How do those who trust God for life abundant now and life eternal to come deal with death, personal and cultural and perhaps even national? With the patience of Isaiah, with hope of John, and with focused devotion to Jesus, the Lord of life and the Lord over death -- personal, cultural, and national.
In what direction will you take your preaching this week? Will you lift up the Christian character of patience in daily life? Will you proclaim the spectacular hope that is ours in the great promises of God? Will you gather your hearers around Jesus and let Jesus speak and act for himself, especially in the face of death? What do your hearers need to hear in the very real situations in which they have been living this past week and will enter into this coming week?
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
[Dr. Elizabeth Achtemeier, an ordained Presbyterian minister and the Retired Adjunct Professor of Bible and Homiletics at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, is known throughout the United States and Canada as a preacher, lecturer, and writer. She is the author of 25 books and frequently contributes to church publications.]
Isaiah 25:6-9
This is one of the few places in the Old Testament where God's defeat of death is promised or even hinted at. Other texts include Isaiah 26:19; Job 19:25-27; Psalm 73:26; and Daniel 12:2-3. It is not surprising that the texts are so few, because Israel had no doctrine of resurrection or life after death until very late in the second century B.C. Then Daniel 12 promised resurrection to the faithful who were being persecuted in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes IV. It is only after the resurrection of our Lord in the first century A.D. -- only after the event actually takes place -- that the assurance of death's defeat becomes a basic foundation of the biblical faith. Nevertheless, the intimate fellowship of some of the faithful with God brings forth the statements in Psalm 73 and Job 19 that even death itself cannot destroy the bond of the worshiper with his or her God. And in our text for the morning, the faith of Israel boldly asserts that in an eschatological time in the future, God "will swallow up death for ever" (v. 8). The statement arises out of a sure and intimate knowledge of the power and love of the God, whom no evil can defeat.
That the statement is eschatological, having to do with God's final defeat of his enemies and his establishment of his kingdom over all the earth is indicated by the phrase "in/on that day," in 24:21, 25:9, and 26:1. That indicates an indeterminate time in the future, a time known only to God (cf. Mark 13:32; Acts 1:7) and planned by him, but a time that is promised throughout the Scriptures. Thus our text is preceded in Isaiah 13--27 by oracles announcing God's judgments against his enemies in the foreign nations. "In that day," God will defeat all evil and wrong, including "the last enemy to be destroyed," which is death (1 Corinthians 15:26; cf. Revelation 21:4). Death has been the "wages of sin" (Romans 6:23) since the beginning of human history (cf. Genesis 3:19), bringing with it tears beside a grave, but our text says that when death is banished, God himself, by his victorious defeat of death, will "wipe away tears from all faces" (v. 8; cf. Revelation 21:4). The sorrow that Israel -- and we -- have known will be done away forever.
Not surprisingly, that is a cause for celebration, according to our text, and the festive time will take the form of a feast on Mount Zion, which will become the center of the Kingdom of God (cf. Isaiah 2:2). Repeatedly in the Scriptures the coming establishment of God's kingdom is portrayed by the figures of a banquet. In Matthew 8:5-13, Jesus teaches that many will come from east and west and sit with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven. In Luke 22:28-30, the disciples are said by our Lord to be appointed to eat and drink at his table in the kingdom. Indeed, throughout the Gospel stories, Jesus, the one in whom the kingdom has begun, is repeatedly shown dining with all sorts and conditions of human beings.
We share in that kingdom-table fellowship, don't we? Every time we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we participate in the foretaste of that heavenly food of the kingdom, sharing in the body and blood of the risen Lord who now reigns in glory with the Father. Through Christ's resurrection, God the Father has defeated the power of death forever. Participation in Christ, through the sacrament, is our foretaste of that festive banquet first promised here in our text from the prophet Isaiah.
I do not mean to be facetious, but to us cholesterol-conscious modern Christians, the menu at Isaiah's kingdom-banquet does not sound too appetizing, however, does it? A "feast of fat things full of marrow"? Ugh, all that fat! But think. It is prime beef marbled with fat that is the best and the most tender, isn't it? And the "wine on the lees" is wine that has been left long enough on its sediment ("lees") to be a sweet, choice drink. So the food that is promised at the heavenly banquet in the Kingdom of God is the finest food, a gourmet meal, fitting the unprecedented, festive occasion. Just imagine! In the coming kingdom, the God whom we have known in Jesus Christ rules over all the evil and wrong of this world. He has banished those who oppose him and has defeated his enemy, death. And that, good Christians, is a cause for celebration, as our Lord's Supper is always such a cause! It is no accident that the Supper is called the "eucharist" -- thanksgiving.
The chapters preceding our text proclaim the downfall of all of the nations that have harassed or defeated God's people Israel, and when those enemies are destroyed, the reproach, that is, the humiliation of Israel will be removed (v. 8). Yet, despite its preceding context, our text proclaims that God's kingdom-banquet will be a feast for "all peoples" (vv. 6, 7). God will wipe away the tears from "all faces" (v. 8), and "all the earth" will be involved (v. 8). In short, the Kingdom of God is intended not just for the Lord's chosen people, Israel, and it is not intended only for the Christian Church, the wild branches grafted into the root of Israel (cf. Romans 11:17-24). Peoples from every nation and race, every status and situation, every background and class will feast together in eternal life. Indeed, our Lord tells us that there will be some surprising citizens of the Kingdom of God, for he teaches that "the first will be last and the last first" (Mark 10:31 and parallels). All of those important people whom we so admire and look up to, even all of those self-proclaimed pious who are sure they will be citizens of heaven, may not make it. And those whom we scorned or ignored, those considered the least among the rabble of the earth, they may be there at the heavenly banquet. When he walked this earth, our Lord shocked the pious with his welcome of sinner and poor and helpless, and he promised that it is not the powerful who will inherit the earth, but the "meek."
So how about us, friends? Will we be there at the table of our Lord and eat and drink with him in his eternity? Will we be among those "last" who will finally be "first"? To ask the question is to go off on the wrong track, isn't it? It is to be like the mother of James and John, in the Gospel according to Matthew, requesting of Jesus that her sons be allowed to sit at the places of honor, at Christ's right hand and left, when the kingdom comes (Matthew 20:20-21).
Perhaps the last verse of our Old Testament text can point us in a better direction. Israel is quoted as saying on the day of the kingdom's coming, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him" (v. 9). And it is that "waiting" for the Lord that is the proper approach to the coming of God's eternal reign. When we "wait" for the Lord, we do not rely on ourselves or on our own good works or piety or faith. We know "there is no health in us," as the ancient prayer of confession says. Rather, we know that our forgiveness for our manifold sins, our good, and our eternal life are completely dependent on God's loving action. Except God grant us forgiveness for our many wrongs and look on us with the mercy he has shown in his Son and accept us because of the righteous sacrifice of Jesus Christ, you and I have no hope of eternal life in the Kingdom of God. To wait on the Lord, is therefore to deliver ourselves into his hands and to wait in total surrender for his loving action. Then we will be able to join in the gladness and rejoicing of his salvation. Wait, good Christians, on the Lord.
Though death comes to all, death comes in many ways. It may tarry and gently wrap itself around the mortal coil in an old-timer's sleep. It can just as likely strike an infant thought to be safely belted in the back seat of the car. Christians, as well as other targeted populations around the world and throughout the ages, know what it is like to be hunted down and persecuted unto death. Sometimes for no apparent reason, the sinister claws of disease will tear at the fabric of life and reduce a once healthy person to a rumpled mass of flesh and bone before the fatal moment. Since every cradle swings over an open grave, any words about death will address a vital concern of the living. How do people who claim the favor of the living God deal with death?
Isaiah 25:6-9
The prophet Isaiah, working in the eighth century B.C. (Read "Before Christ." There is nothing common about this era, folks! The crucified Lord is risen. Something seriously uncommon is afoot. A "new age" is either here, as Paul claims, or it isn't), had to deal with death all around him. The Southern Kingdom had been embroiled with the Northern Kingdom and Syria. Things got worse when the Assyrians overran both these and then came knocking on the gates of Jerusalem. From a human point of view, the people had cause to despair. Their enemies seemed more prevalent than the favors of God. The precious holy hill on which Jerusalem was perched did not commend itself to "wine on the lees" at this time. Yet, with death prowling at every turn for someone to devour, Isaiah has the boldness to paint with words a different picture of how things are going to be.
With an interesting pun created by the English translation, we see the Lord of hosts (a mighty array of soldiers) hosting a feast for all people -- including the Northern Kingdom, Syria, and Assyria, enemies of the godly? Death will no longer do the devouring. Rather, it will be swallowed up in a victory that defies human foresight. Isaiah portrays this landscape of the mountain, so that the people might not lose hope. For in treacherous and tumultuous times, it is easier to sink into despair than to swim in 70,000 fathoms (Kierkegaard). The antidote to despair is faith; but, faith needs hope, as the writer to the Hebrews reminds us. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not [yet] seen" (Hebrews 11:1). With hope, the people can wait for the Lord to weave his will into the fabric of history.
Although verse 9 is in prose form, there is either the poetic heart or a poetic antecedent that expresses the people's resolve to wait for the Lord. "We have waited for him," because we had this vision of his salvation. "We have waited for him," and now that he has come, how can we be anything but glad? How can we do anything but rejoice? Since the waiting is filled with an eschatological vision of such magnitude, despair gives way to faith; and faith produces the patience that is needed to continue to wait.
The waiting will be painful, however, because one hundred years later, Jerusalem will be sacked by the Babylonians. Then, 600 years after that, again by the Romans. What patience is needed by the people of God to claim their inheritance! Even when the Messiah comes there remains unfinished business.
Revelation 21:1-6a
John's exile to the island of Patmos could very well have been an extension of the persecution under Domitian at the end of the first century A.D. John's vision, in the spirit of Isaiah (see Isaiah 65:17), contains a new heaven and a new earth and a new Jerusalem. With Rome on a rampage, John provides his readers with a cosmic glimpse to put everything in perspective. Rome may have its hour on the stage, but, as Macbeth observed upon the death of his wife, "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more." When Rome is gone, God will still be! God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Everything else is "in between stuff." Not that the "in between stuff" is unimportant; it's just that it does not have ultimate importance.
What God is doing and decides to do is what is important. God will create a new cosmos -- physical (heaven and earth) and spiritual (Jerusalem). God's people will be its inhabitants. That nemesis, death, will be dealt with once and for all. What Isaiah's contemporaries and descendants had to wait for will ultimately come. It will come "from God." This is the Christian character of hope. Hope is not the imagined future desired by the best of human aspirations. This would be Feuerbach revisited. (Feuerbach proposed that God was simply the projection of the human spirit.) Hope has its foundation in God, who is working out the divine plan in history. The writer to the Hebrews understood this, as Abraham's nomad wanderings in tents is described as anticipatory to something more substantial, like a city with solid foundations (see Hebrews 11:9-10). As Abraham knew, the hoped-for promise had to be made real by God's own hand -- from a new land, to a new nation, to a new blessing that would be for all people.
In this text, as well as in the Isaiah text, the sense of allness pervades. All people are invited to the feast; all things are made new. Paul expressed the embracing nature of God's Messiah when he wrote in reference to civilized and uncivilized humanity that "Christ is all and in all" (Colossians 3:11). Perhaps with our shrinking global village and our growing sense that everything is related in some intrinsic way to everything else -- from the human family to the ecosystem to the mother board -- we can gain a deeper appreciation of what Scripture means when it talks about God being all-encompassing, like the first and last letters of the alphabet.
John 11:32-44
Since we know that all the signs in John's Gospel point to Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God (John 20:30-31), we have to ask what this sign tells us about Jesus the Christ. There are two things that stand out -- one human, one divine. Other than being late, the human quality that Jesus reveals is his compassion. Jesus was not without feeling, here the feeling of sorrow. He shared completely the deep anguish of Mary and Martha over the loss of their brother. Jesus loved him too, the crowd observed. No matter what dark valley we may walk through, we can have the confidence that Jesus understands our human situation and can "feel with" us.
Now, the crowd was savvy as to issues of power and purpose. If Jesus had the power of miracles, like restoring sight to the blind, such that we should believe that he is the Messiah from God, then, should he not also be able to demonstrate his power in this situation? And, if not, then we have grounds to question the validity of the claim that this is indeed the One sent from God. Essentially, this is a variation on the age old question of theodicy. Where is God in the presence of human suffering? How can a loving God allow such things to happen? Why doesn't God now simply make things right? In light of these kind of understandable questions, can we even dare to ask if God is alive? Was Nietzsche right all along, when he declared "God is dead"?
Reminiscent of the priestly account in Genesis in which God liturgically speaks and there is the immediate response of creation, Jesus speaks and death surrenders to life. "Come out!" It is like God calling forth light from the darkness. Out of the hole of the death comes restored wholeness of life. This same Jesus, who could weep in the fullness of humanity, can also wrestle with the power of death in the fullness of deity and win. The justifying answer to the questions about the justice of God is heard in the voice of Jesus, who simply adds without fanfare, "Unbind him and let him go." Where is God in the presence of human suffering? Look to Jesus weeping. How can a loving God allow such things to happen? Look to Jesus, who battles the happening of these things. Why doesn't God now simply make things right? Look to Jesus, asking the same question, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Is God alive? Look to Jesus on the cross, as Martin Luther would explain "under the form of opposites," for it was precisely there that he did his mightiest work and conquered sin, death, hell, and all evil.
Lazarus' cave with a stone laying upon it is a foreshadowing of the very tomb in which Jesus would be laid, with a stone rolled in front of it. The One who said, "Come out!" would in turn be called out by God the Father to rise before all the world as Lord and Savior, so that all who believe in him should not perish but find life in his name. John would have us understand that every Christian funeral takes place next to Lazarus' tomb. Together, with him we will hear the call of Jesus to come out. All the saints of God -- past, present, and future -- can rejoice with Isaiah and John in this eschatological hope finally made real.
Application
If William Strauss and Neil Howe are correct in their book The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy, then we will be facing trying times ahead in the crisis period that is coming upon us, like it did our ancestors respectively in the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Great Depression followed by World War II. But, we do not have to wait for our Millennial Crisis to spring upon us in order to appreciate the words of our texts. We are living in unraveling times now, as most every newspaper headline announces and magazine editorial reflects upon and television anchor comments. Part of this unraveling can be traced to how Christian mores have been purged from the American conscience, such that Christianity is associated with narrow-mindedness, the faith made the butt of publicly accepted jokes, and Judeo-Christian values relegated to opinion.
How do people who claim the favor of the living God not despair in these days? How do those who trust God for life abundant now and life eternal to come deal with death, personal and cultural and perhaps even national? With the patience of Isaiah, with hope of John, and with focused devotion to Jesus, the Lord of life and the Lord over death -- personal, cultural, and national.
In what direction will you take your preaching this week? Will you lift up the Christian character of patience in daily life? Will you proclaim the spectacular hope that is ours in the great promises of God? Will you gather your hearers around Jesus and let Jesus speak and act for himself, especially in the face of death? What do your hearers need to hear in the very real situations in which they have been living this past week and will enter into this coming week?
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
[Dr. Elizabeth Achtemeier, an ordained Presbyterian minister and the Retired Adjunct Professor of Bible and Homiletics at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, is known throughout the United States and Canada as a preacher, lecturer, and writer. She is the author of 25 books and frequently contributes to church publications.]
Isaiah 25:6-9
This is one of the few places in the Old Testament where God's defeat of death is promised or even hinted at. Other texts include Isaiah 26:19; Job 19:25-27; Psalm 73:26; and Daniel 12:2-3. It is not surprising that the texts are so few, because Israel had no doctrine of resurrection or life after death until very late in the second century B.C. Then Daniel 12 promised resurrection to the faithful who were being persecuted in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes IV. It is only after the resurrection of our Lord in the first century A.D. -- only after the event actually takes place -- that the assurance of death's defeat becomes a basic foundation of the biblical faith. Nevertheless, the intimate fellowship of some of the faithful with God brings forth the statements in Psalm 73 and Job 19 that even death itself cannot destroy the bond of the worshiper with his or her God. And in our text for the morning, the faith of Israel boldly asserts that in an eschatological time in the future, God "will swallow up death for ever" (v. 8). The statement arises out of a sure and intimate knowledge of the power and love of the God, whom no evil can defeat.
That the statement is eschatological, having to do with God's final defeat of his enemies and his establishment of his kingdom over all the earth is indicated by the phrase "in/on that day," in 24:21, 25:9, and 26:1. That indicates an indeterminate time in the future, a time known only to God (cf. Mark 13:32; Acts 1:7) and planned by him, but a time that is promised throughout the Scriptures. Thus our text is preceded in Isaiah 13--27 by oracles announcing God's judgments against his enemies in the foreign nations. "In that day," God will defeat all evil and wrong, including "the last enemy to be destroyed," which is death (1 Corinthians 15:26; cf. Revelation 21:4). Death has been the "wages of sin" (Romans 6:23) since the beginning of human history (cf. Genesis 3:19), bringing with it tears beside a grave, but our text says that when death is banished, God himself, by his victorious defeat of death, will "wipe away tears from all faces" (v. 8; cf. Revelation 21:4). The sorrow that Israel -- and we -- have known will be done away forever.
Not surprisingly, that is a cause for celebration, according to our text, and the festive time will take the form of a feast on Mount Zion, which will become the center of the Kingdom of God (cf. Isaiah 2:2). Repeatedly in the Scriptures the coming establishment of God's kingdom is portrayed by the figures of a banquet. In Matthew 8:5-13, Jesus teaches that many will come from east and west and sit with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven. In Luke 22:28-30, the disciples are said by our Lord to be appointed to eat and drink at his table in the kingdom. Indeed, throughout the Gospel stories, Jesus, the one in whom the kingdom has begun, is repeatedly shown dining with all sorts and conditions of human beings.
We share in that kingdom-table fellowship, don't we? Every time we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we participate in the foretaste of that heavenly food of the kingdom, sharing in the body and blood of the risen Lord who now reigns in glory with the Father. Through Christ's resurrection, God the Father has defeated the power of death forever. Participation in Christ, through the sacrament, is our foretaste of that festive banquet first promised here in our text from the prophet Isaiah.
I do not mean to be facetious, but to us cholesterol-conscious modern Christians, the menu at Isaiah's kingdom-banquet does not sound too appetizing, however, does it? A "feast of fat things full of marrow"? Ugh, all that fat! But think. It is prime beef marbled with fat that is the best and the most tender, isn't it? And the "wine on the lees" is wine that has been left long enough on its sediment ("lees") to be a sweet, choice drink. So the food that is promised at the heavenly banquet in the Kingdom of God is the finest food, a gourmet meal, fitting the unprecedented, festive occasion. Just imagine! In the coming kingdom, the God whom we have known in Jesus Christ rules over all the evil and wrong of this world. He has banished those who oppose him and has defeated his enemy, death. And that, good Christians, is a cause for celebration, as our Lord's Supper is always such a cause! It is no accident that the Supper is called the "eucharist" -- thanksgiving.
The chapters preceding our text proclaim the downfall of all of the nations that have harassed or defeated God's people Israel, and when those enemies are destroyed, the reproach, that is, the humiliation of Israel will be removed (v. 8). Yet, despite its preceding context, our text proclaims that God's kingdom-banquet will be a feast for "all peoples" (vv. 6, 7). God will wipe away the tears from "all faces" (v. 8), and "all the earth" will be involved (v. 8). In short, the Kingdom of God is intended not just for the Lord's chosen people, Israel, and it is not intended only for the Christian Church, the wild branches grafted into the root of Israel (cf. Romans 11:17-24). Peoples from every nation and race, every status and situation, every background and class will feast together in eternal life. Indeed, our Lord tells us that there will be some surprising citizens of the Kingdom of God, for he teaches that "the first will be last and the last first" (Mark 10:31 and parallels). All of those important people whom we so admire and look up to, even all of those self-proclaimed pious who are sure they will be citizens of heaven, may not make it. And those whom we scorned or ignored, those considered the least among the rabble of the earth, they may be there at the heavenly banquet. When he walked this earth, our Lord shocked the pious with his welcome of sinner and poor and helpless, and he promised that it is not the powerful who will inherit the earth, but the "meek."
So how about us, friends? Will we be there at the table of our Lord and eat and drink with him in his eternity? Will we be among those "last" who will finally be "first"? To ask the question is to go off on the wrong track, isn't it? It is to be like the mother of James and John, in the Gospel according to Matthew, requesting of Jesus that her sons be allowed to sit at the places of honor, at Christ's right hand and left, when the kingdom comes (Matthew 20:20-21).
Perhaps the last verse of our Old Testament text can point us in a better direction. Israel is quoted as saying on the day of the kingdom's coming, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him" (v. 9). And it is that "waiting" for the Lord that is the proper approach to the coming of God's eternal reign. When we "wait" for the Lord, we do not rely on ourselves or on our own good works or piety or faith. We know "there is no health in us," as the ancient prayer of confession says. Rather, we know that our forgiveness for our manifold sins, our good, and our eternal life are completely dependent on God's loving action. Except God grant us forgiveness for our many wrongs and look on us with the mercy he has shown in his Son and accept us because of the righteous sacrifice of Jesus Christ, you and I have no hope of eternal life in the Kingdom of God. To wait on the Lord, is therefore to deliver ourselves into his hands and to wait in total surrender for his loving action. Then we will be able to join in the gladness and rejoicing of his salvation. Wait, good Christians, on the Lord.
