Isaiah 25:6-9 * April 26, 2009 * Easter
3 *
Pastor Leyrer
Dear Friends in the Risen Christ,
After singing the first two hymns and listening to this text you’ve probably detected a common theme. There is a lot of feasting going on here...
Which is exactly how it should be. After all, a feast – today we might say a party – is associated with happy and joyful occasions. And there is no happier or more joyful occasion for Christians than the one we celebrated just two weeks ago today and continue to remember in these weeks that follow.
Given the fact the Resurrection of Jesus Christ marks the defeat of death and the grave, Easter is indeed the Feast of Victory for our Lord. And given the fact the Resurrection means we will one day personally reside and fellowship with Jesus in “Jerusalem the Golden” (another hymn we’ll sing before this service is over), Easter is indeed the Lamb’s High Feast which makes our hearts sing and our spirits soar.
Generally speaking we like happy occasions and gatherings – feasts, if you will. That being the case, God is really speaking our kind of language when He pictures the eternal life won for us by the crucified and risen Christ as one grand party, isn’t He? That’s the kind of marvelous and easily identifiable imagery He uses in the first verse of our text for today and which we’ll stay with throughout the sermon as we talk about the
THE FEAST THAT AWAITS US
1. What it is, and
2. How it came about
First, some background information. These words were written by God through Isaiah approximately seven centuries before the birth of Christ. Because his public ministry stretched over the reign of four individual kings and a period of some sixty years, Isaiah saw God’s people experience highs and lows; but we might describe the general tenor of the times as both spiritually and politically chaotic.
Throughout his long ministry Isaiah did what all of God’s prophets were raised up to do: encourage the people to remain faithful to the God who loved them and cared for them. The other side of that encouragement was the frank warning of God’s inevitable judgment upon those who continued to disregard or dismiss or despise Him. This warning applied to both individuals and nations.
Judgment never happens in a vacuum. Since believers live side by side with unbelievers, they, too, will go through difficult times. That was true then and it is true now. Nevertheless, believers always have hope. Isaiah repeatedly turns the eyes of God’s people to the Savior who is to come and the eternal salvation He will provide.
That’s where our text fits in. It follows a section which speaks of God’s final Day of Judgment and His ultimate victory over the forces of evil. Whereas this will be a terrible event for the enemies of God, it will be a wonderful day of blessing for God’s people.
It is not difficult to see why this is also considered an Easter reading. Because of the victory of Christ over sin, death and the grave in His resurrection, we look forward to eternal blessings. Isaiah now describes these blessings in a way we can understand:
“On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine – the best of meat and the finest of wines.”
The mountain he speaks of here is not a physical place, but
a spiritual place. The Bible often uses
the terms “
And he talks about it in terms of a feast, a banquet – a
party. Check out how the food is
described. We get the distinct
impression that when God sets the table no one is going to be looking at labels
to check out sodium or trans-fat levels.
It would appear the word “lite” as a suffix doesn’t exist in heaven,
because these words in Hebrew refer to lots of olive oil.
This is rich food we’re talking about – the kind we like to eat as opposed to the kind we’re supposed to eat. And it’s all guilt free and nourishing and satisfying and perfectly good for us. This is stuff to indulge in.
Oh yes; God is talking our kind of language.
But there is more to be said. Before this Feast of Life could be offered up
to us humans, another entrée had to be presented first: the feast of death. This is the feast we had cooked up for
ourselves. It came from the recipe book
of our own hearts. Jesus reminds us of
the ingredients we use in Mark 7:21: “Out
of men’s hearts come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,
greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.”
This kind of feast Jesus ate for us. And let’s make no mistake about it: it didn’t taste good. Do you remember Jesus prayer in the
Maybe we’ve never thought of Good Friday as Jesus feasting
on our sins and death. But the writer to
the Hebrews did. Listen to what he
writes (2:9): “Jesus… suffered death, so that
by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”
Isaiah makes the same kind of reference in the next verse of our text: “On this mountain he will destroy the shroud (of sin) that enfolds all peoples, the sheet (of death) that covers all nations; He will swallow up death forever.” That’s exactly what Jesus did for us and all mankind. He ate our recipe and tasted the death it brings.
But He did more than taste it. He swallowed it. He consumed it. Meaning, it is no more. Three days from Good Friday Jesus rose from the dead. And death – not temporal death, but eternal death brought about by sin – died. The Risen Jesus makes to us that glorious Easter pronouncement: “Because I live, you also will live.” And the ultimate fulfillment of that promise will be in heaven.
Which means the grand feast that awaits us will never end.
Contemplate this and it naturally translates into high
spirits for all who are involved. Isaiah
describes it this way: “The sovereign Lord will wipe away the
tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the
earth.” How do we know this will
happen? Because “the Lord has spoken.”
Meaning, there will be no sadness in heaven. Practically speaking, whatever we endure here on this earth because of our faith or because of the sin that surrounds us now will disappear then. Whatever difficulties the Lord in His wisdom may allow into our lives now will vanish without a trace then. And the only emotions we will know are joy and peace and happiness and contentment. That makes our spirits soar.
Isaiah sums up the joy of the redeemed – as well as the kind of exchange that goes on in heaven – in our final verse: “In that day they will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.’” High spirits, indeed. And the free flowing, happy conversation goes on into infinity.
You may have been to some pretty nice parties or banquets in your life. Yet this we can say for sure: they are nothing in comparison to the one that awaits us.
However, the Feast of Life and the sustenance it provides and the joy that accompanies it doesn’t just kick in on the day of our death. The truth is, it’s available to us now. But we need to see it. We need to make ourselves available to it. Because when we don’t we have the tendency to become spiritually lethargic and emotionally sluggish.
Staying with the imagery, we could put it this way: Too often we eat from the trough of our own worries and concerns and preoccupations. We dine at the table which has fear of the future or “how are we ever going to get through this” as the main course. And the more helpings we take, the more bloated and unhealthy and defeated we feel, spiritually speaking.
It’s kind of like that story told about Martin Luther. Maybe you heard the one about how, at particularly difficult time in his life, Luther was moping around the house feeling weighed down by his cares and responsibilities. After a few days of this exhibition of joylessness, his wife Kate changed her clothes and came out wearing the black mourning dress she wore only for funerals. Luther asked, “Who died?” She answered, “The way you’re acting, I thought God did.”
If we can at all identify with that story, perhaps we need
to be asking ourselves some questions: Have
I been attending the right feast? Am I
eating the right stuff? Am I sitting at
the right table?
Interestingly enough, a little later on in this book God Himself
asks us to examine our diet. He asks us why
we want to waste our time trying in vain to find satisfaction in something
other than Jesus or to obsess on things which God has under control: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the
waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and
without cost. Why spend money on what is
not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and
eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.”
The “richest of fare” is the Gospel message of Jesus Christ revealed to us in the Bible. So if our joy barometer is a little low, perhaps we need to look at our diet. We are what we eat. How are we doing with our Bible reading? How are we doing with our daily devotions? Are we trying to exist on a starvation diet, eating only on Sundays?
King David offers us this advice in Psalm 34: “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.” And when we do, the result is spiritual health, wealth and vitality.
Let us not misunderstand or oversimplify. Staying close to the Word does not mean the difficulties we face will disappear or life in some areas will cease being hard. God’s plans and the paths He chooses for each of us are as individualized as we are.
What staying close to Word and Sacrament will do for us is this: As we fill ourselves with the promises and assurances of God we find strength for our journey and develop a spiritual fitness that is more than equal to the rigors of life, whatever they may be.
So what have we learned today? We are indeed blessed people. Thanks to the Risen and victorious Jesus, we have much to look forward to. On earth, we receive a foretaste of all that will be ours through devotion to Word and Sacrament. But in heaven, we will receive the full taste of what God has prepared for His people.
Isaiah likens it to a feast – a party. Not just any party, but a good party – where the food is fabulous, the spirits are high and the celebrating never ends.
Because of Easter, this is the feast that awaits us. Amen.