Easter
Isa
25:6-9
4/20/25
The Surburg family has a tradition
called “wine time.” It started when I
was away at college. My parents began the habit of having a glass of wine
together before dinner when they got home from work. This was an opportunity for them to unwind
and talk about their day. At some point,
something to eat was added to this – cheese and crackers, or some summer
sausage.
My parents have continued the
practice in their retirement. When the
day reaches around 4:00 p.m., it is wine time.
This was always the case when my family visited them, and so wine time
became part of being with Papa and Grandma. Of course more people meant more
food, as the variety and the amount of snacks grew.
Wine time is now an established
tradition that is part of visiting with my parents. It is something that we do
when they come to see us in Marion. When
we have wine time with them at our house there are two things that happen. First, my parents bring some good wine
for us to drink. This always an upgrade from what we would normally have, and
it’s not hard to tell the difference. And second, Amy prepares a charcuterie
board filled with a variety of cheeses, meats, and crackers. It borders on being a meal in itself. Good
wine and good food make wine time a joyous occasion as the Surburg family gathers
together.
In our Old Testament lesson for
Easter, the prophet Isaiah describes a joyous occasion that is also a time of
good wine and good food. He describes
the feast of salvation – the occasion when God will have destroyed death
forever. Today on Easter, we rejoice that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
God has begun that victory for us.
In the chapters leading up to our
text, God has revealed through Isaiah that the Messiah descended from King
David will bring peace and salvation for God’s people. In chapter eleven we
learn, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a
branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the LORD shall
rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel
and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.” This One will
destroy the wicked and bring peace that extends to creation itself as the wolf
will dwell with the lamb.
Isaiah tells us in chapter twelve
that God’s people will rejoice in response to this. They will say, “Behold, God is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength
and my song, and he has become my salvation.” Isaiah adds, ‘With joy
you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that
day: ‘Give thanks to the LORD, call upon his name, make known his
deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted.”
The flip side of salvation for God’s
people is judgment upon their enemies. Those who oppose God and his work will
receive destruction from God. And so, in chapters thirteen to twenty three, the
prophet shares oracles of judgment against the surrounding nations. The enemies
of God’s people are the enemies of God, and he will destroy them.
The description of God’s judgment
against individual nations leads in the chapter before our text to something
much more extensive. We hear about a universal judgment that Yahweh will bring
upon the world – upon all people. Isaish says, “Behold, the LORD will
empty the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and
scatter its inhabitants.” He adds, “The
earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered; for the LORD has
spoken this word.”
In this scene of judgment, all joy
is gone. In ancient Israel wine was a central feature of celebrations. And so
Isaiah says that there is no wine.
He announces, “No more do they drink wine with singing; strong
drink is bitter to those who drink it. The wasted city is broken
down; every house is shut up so that none can enter. There is an outcry in
the streets for lack of wine; all joy has grown dark; the gladness of the
earth is banished.”
Isaiah tells us why this judgment of
God will come upon all the earth. He
says, “The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants; for they have
transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant.”
God is the Creator of all things. He is the One who ordered his creation, and
determined how things are to work. This is a truth that applies to all people,
of all cultures, and of all times. His law is an expression of his will for
life. It determines how we are to live
as those who are in fellowship with God.
Yet since the sin of Adam, we have
all been people who break God’s law. We
are people who sin. We break God’s law as we create false gods – as we place
more effort, money, and time into our sports, hobbies, and interests than we
direct towards God and his Word. We sin
as we are jealous and covet the success and wealth of others. We break God’s law as we lust and sin
sexually.
We learn from Isaiah that God acted
to give us the forgiveness for these sins.
The holy and just God did indeed judge this sin. He did so through the
suffering Servant. Isaiah says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have
turned--every one--to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the
iniquity of us all.” The prophet tells
us, “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our
iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with
his stripes we are healed.”
The surprise of Jesus Christ is that
the Messiah and the suffering Servant are one and the same. Jesus descended from David and the Spirit was
upon him as the Christ – the Messiah.
But at his baptism, he was also identified by God as the Servant. On
Good Friday, Jesus fulfilled Isaiah’s words as he hung on the cross. God judged
and condemned our sin as Jesus suffered and died.
Sin brings death. But at the beginning
of this chapter we hear, “O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you; I
will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of
old, faithful and sure.” Isaiah tells us that God has a plan for the future,
and that this plan will bring the destruction of death.
The prophet begins our text by
saying, “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast
of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of
aged wine well refined.” In the previous
chapter, God’s judgment had been the occasion when there was no joy and no
wine. But now his salvation is described as a joyous feast. It is a feast which
does not just have wine. It has very
good wine. It is a sumptuous feast
that includes the meat that was a rarity in the diet of ancient Israel.
Isaiah tells us that this will be
the occasion when God destroys death. He
says, “And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast
over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will
swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all
faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the
earth, for the LORD has spoken.”
God defeated death today, on Easter,
when he raised Jesus Christ from the dead.
Jesus had died as the suffering Servant, and had been buried. But on the
morning of Easter, when the women went to the tomb, they found that it was
empty. Angels announced to them, “Why do
you seek the living among the dead?
He
is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still
in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful
men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”
Later that day, Jesus appeared in
the midst of the room where the disciples were gathered and said, “Peace to
you!” They were startled and frightened and thought they saw a
spirit. So he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise
in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me,
and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And
when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
God vindicated Jesus by raising him
from the dead. He demonstrated that he
was in fact the Christ. Yes, he had died as the suffering Servant. But this was part of God’s saving work to
give us forgiveness. Jesus is also the
Christ – the Messiah – the One who brings God’s end time salvation as Isaiah
had described.
On Easter, God raised Jesus from the
dead with a body transformed so that it can never die again. Scripture teaches us that the resurrection is
a Last Day event. The resurrection of
Jesus was the beginning of the Last Day.
It was the defeat of death in
Christ that will be true for all of us.
St. Paul told the Corinthians that
our resurrection has begun in Christ. He
said, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the
firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came
death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in
Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own
order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to
Christ.”
When Jesus Christ returns in glory
on the Last Day he will raise our bodies and transform them to be like his own.
We will live with bodies that can never die again. It is in this action that Isaiah’s words will
find their fulfillment: “And he will swallow up on this mountain the
covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all
nations. He will swallow up death forever.”
Christ will destroy death forever when he returns on the Last Day and
raises our bodies.
In our text, Isaiah declares what
our response will be. He writes, “It will be said on that day, ‘Behold, this is
our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD;
we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.’” We
will rejoice in God’s salvation as we live in the new creation – the creation
made very good once again.
For now, we do wait. We wait for our Lord’s return. Death has been
defeated in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
But it has not yet been destroyed as Isaiah describes. We await the consummation of God’s saving
work – the feast of salvation that we hear about in our text.
And so in the present we are
sustained in faith by the foretaste of the feast to come that we receive in the
Sacrament of the Altar. The risen Lord
comes into our midst as he is present in his true body and blood. Through the Sacrament he gives us the
forgiveness of sin that he won for each one of us by his death and
resurrection. Through his body and blood he gives us food for the new man to
enable us to wait in faith.
Because Jesus Christ rose from the
dead on Easter, we know that the wait will come to an end. The risen and ascended Lord will return in
glory. Death will be swallowed up – it will be destroyed forever when he raises
our bodies to be like his. There will be
no more tears, and instead we will declare: “Behold, this is our God; we
have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited
for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
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