Easter
Isa
25:6-9
4/12/20
The schools are closed. The restaurants can only serve carry out and
delivery. Many businesses are closed, or
are only having employees work from home.
People have been furloughed and now find themselves unemployed. The state of Illinois has told the population
to shelter in place, and so churches can’t meet for services.
It’s nothing like anything we have seen
in our lifetime. We may call it “social distancing.” We may say it has been caused by the Covid 19
pandemic. But really, it has been caused
by death. That’s what is at work here.
No one wants to get a really bad case of the flu. But that’s not why people are
fearful of getting Covid 19. They are
fearful because the virus has the potential to put you on a ventilator in the
ICU, and kill you. And while there are groups of people who are more at risk
than others, even if you are not in those groups you don’t really know how things are going to turn out if you get the virus.
It is the fear of death that is
driving this convulsion that has upended normal daily life. And remember, from the perspective of world
history, Covid 19 is nothing. The
bubonic plague of Justinian in the sixth century killed an estimated 25 million
people. The Spanish flu of 1918 killed
around 50 million people – more than all the military and civilian deaths of
World War I combined. And the grand daddy of them all, the bubonic plague of
the fourteenth century, killed around 50 million people in Europe – some 60% of
the population. It killed up to 200
million total in Europe, Africa and Asia.
These pandemic events of death stand
out in history. But death does its thing year in and year out in ways that we
consider “normal”: In the US each year 647,000 people die from heart disease;
600,000 die from cancer; 169,000 in accidents; 160,000 from chronic respiratory
conditions; 146,000 from strokes and 121,000 from Alzheimers. And I haven’t yet
mentioned the number one killer: 860,000 babies are killed by abortion each year.
Yes indeed, as Isaiah says in our text today, death is the covering that is cast over all
peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.
However, in
our Old Testament lesson for the Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord, Isaiah
speaks of a time when God will swallow up death forever. Instead of death, the celebration of a great
feast will occur. On this Easter Sunday, as we celebrate the resurrection of
Jesus Christ, we rejoice in the knowledge that this day has already begun.
In the
previous chapters of Isaiah, the prophet has been speaking about judgment that
God is going to bring upon the foreign nations who threaten and harm Israel and
Judah. The book of Isaiah never lets us
forget that while Yahweh had called the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
to be his people, he is still the almighty God who is the Creator of all
things. His attention is also directed
toward all other people both in the hope of salvation and in the judgment of
their sin. God’s intentions include, as well,
the welfare of creation itself.
While the
earlier chapters had spoken about God’s judgment against individual nations,
chapter 24 had summed this up by talking about Yahweh’s judgment on the whole
earth. The prophet says, “Behold, the LORD will empty the earth and
make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants.”
The reason he will do this is clear.
Isaiah writes, “The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants;
for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the
everlasting covenant.”
Now remember,
the prophet is speaking about all people,
not just Israel and Judah. And this is a
reminder that as the Creator, God has ordered his creation to work in certain
ways. He has determined what is right
and what is wrong. The truth of this determination is not relative. It is absolute, because the Creator has
established them. And when the creature – when man violates this ordering – this
is sin against the holy God.
It is this
sin that brings death. God commanded Adam in the Garden of Eden, “You may surely eat of
every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it
you shall surely die.” Adam and Eve disobeyed – they sinned – and found
out that God was deadly serious about what he had said. As the apostle Paul told the Romans, “The
wages of sin is death.”
Unless
Christ returns first, you will die because you are sinners. We don’t know when it will happen. We don’t
know what the cause will be. But it will
happen because you are sinners in thought, word, and deed.
However,
in chapter 25 Isaiah shifts to praising God for the salvation that he is going
to bring. He says, “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.” We
are reminded that God’s plan of salvation was not done on a whim. Instead it was his plan worked out
according to his timing.
And then Isaiah declares, “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. 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.”
Yahweh promises a sumptuous feast of
celebration on this mountain – on Mt.
Zion where Jerusalem and the temple were located. Isaiah had spoken about this at the beginning
of his prophecy when he wrote, “It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain
of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to
it.” This would be the
time when, “He shall judge between
the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall
beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning
hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they
learn war anymore.”
In the Old Testament, Zion and the temple that stood on it
were about the located presence of God with his people. Israel knew where God
was present for them. This was a type
that pointed forward to the way God would bring salvation. Indeed, God’s plans formed of old were
faithful and sure. In the fullness of
time God sent forth his Son, as Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born
of the virgin Mary. In the Christmas
Gospel lesson John says, “And the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us” He uses
language from the Old Testament to tell us that all which had been true of the
temple and tabernacle was fulfilled in the incarnation of the Son of God.
And so, when Jesus opponents asked
for a sign he answered
them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews were confused. John tells us, “But
he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was
raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and
they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”
On
Good Friday we heard Isaiah speak about how God would work through the suffering
of the Servant to win forgiveness for us.
Jesus Christ died on the cross as the atoning sacrifice, and then they
buried his dead body in a tomb.
But
on the morning of Easter when the women went to the tomb they did not find the
body of Jesus. Instead, as the banner
behind me declares, they found angels who said 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.”
Jesus
Christ died, and then by his resurrection he defeated death. Where Adam’s sin brought death into the
world, Jesus Christ’s resurrection has begun the bodily life that cannot die. Paul told the Corinthians, “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.”
The
resurrection of Jesus Christ means that death has been defeated. Yes, people die. But for those who are in
Christ, death cannot separate them from him.
They already have eternal life with God, and death cannot change this
fact. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection
and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet
shall he live, and everyone who lives and
believes in me shall never die.”
We have been born again of water and Spirit to a life that will never
end, and not even physical death can change this.
And
while death may claim our bodies for a time, it does not have permanent
possession. It cannot because Jesus
Christ has already risen from the dead.
In him the resurrection of the Last Day has already started. And so the
Scriptures often describe the death of a Christian as sleep. For after all, people who fall asleep, wake
up. And because of Jesus, bodies that have died will live again. They will
“wake up” when the risen and ascended Lord returns in glory on the Last Day and
transforms our mortal bodies to be like his eternal, resurrection body.
On
that day, as Isaiah says in our text, he will swallow “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.” Instead of
tears there will be joy. With Isaiah we will say, “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.”
Make no
mistake, until that day, death is still the enemy. Death was not God’s intention for his
creation. Death has been produced by sin, and so it continues to be the source
of grief due to the loss it causes. But
death is a defeated enemy. It was
defeated on Easter when Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Because of Jesus, our
life with God continues after death – we already have eternal life now. And
when the Lord Jesus returns in glory he will swallow up death forever when he
raises us from the dead with bodies like his that can never die again. On that day we will say: “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."
