Gathering On the Mountain of Salvation—Lectionary Reflection for Easter Sunday, Year B (Isaiah 25)

 Isaiah 25:6-9 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁶ On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
    a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,
    of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
⁷ And he will destroy on this mountain
    the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
    the covering that is spread over all nations;
⁸     he will swallow up death forever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
    and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
    for the Lord has spoken.
⁹ It will be said on that day,
    “See, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
    This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
    let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

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Palm Sunday invited us to celebrate the triumphal entry, but those of us who know the full story know that last Sunday’s parade was a bit misleading. That’s because Jesus’ triumphal entry would lead to his death on the cross. Now, three days after we watched Jesus’ death on the cross and entombment, we gather to celebrate the resurrection. With the resurrection, death’s grip on humanity has been broken. So, we can sing “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” and “Crown Him with Many Crowns.” So, with the celebration underway, we can now consider the biblical witness to the resurrection.

There is a choice for Easter Sunday’s first reading. We can go with a reading from Acts 10:34-43, which offers us a peek at Peter’s sermon to Cornelius and his household. In that sermon Peter spoke of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, declaring: “We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.” That excerpt from Peter’s sermon provides a foundational summary of the Gospel. The other passage is the reading from Isaiah 25, a passage that I’ve chosen to reflect upon.

                While Isaiah doesn’t speak of the resurrection, he does speak of God’s victory over death. The doctrine of the resurrection that we embrace on Easter Sunday speaks clearly of God’s victory over death. Isaiah offers a beautiful picture of “all the peoples” gathering on the mountain for a feast. It’s a feast “of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” We might want to think here in terms of the feast described in Babette’s Feast. It’s the story of several Danish sisters, who take in a French refugee who becomes their housekeeper. After some time with the sisters, Babette uses lottery winnings to provide the sisters, who had eaten a bland diet their entire life, with a full French dinner, or perhaps a heavenly meal.

                Isaiah offers us an apocalyptic vision that speaks of God’s deliverance of the people of Israel. Not only do the people gather for this glorious feast but God destroys the “shroud that is cast over all peoples.” That cloud or shadow of fear that enshrouded the people is done away with, for God has “swallowed up death forever.” For the people of Judah, the primary audience of this word from Isaiah, the threat of Judah’s enemies has dissipated. They no longer need to fear their enemies who have been dispatched. For us, who live in the aftermath of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can think more broadly of the promise of Isaiah. Thus, when we envision death being swallowed up in victory, we need not think only of mere mortality, such that when we die, we gain access to heaven. Rather, we might think here of the shadow of a culture of death that hangs over our world. We might envision here death as a negative force that seeks to dominate our lives that involves oppression, wars, mass shootings, and the like. The vision Isaiah holds out before us is a heavenly one that counters the realities of life, offering us a better way. We need not wait until the next life to enjoy it, but that vision can begin to penetrate life now. We can embrace God’s gift of life that pushes away the shroud of death. We can embrace a different way of living, one that no longer is defined by scarcity but instead by the abundance that is imaged by the feast on God’s mountain.

                The good news is that when God swallows up death, achieving victory that negative force that seeks to oppress humanity, that drains away the life force of creation, God wipes away the tears from the eyes of the people. It is a promise that is revealed as well in the closing chapter of Revelation, where a voice is heard coming from the throne of heaven, declaring:  

“See, the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them;

they will be his peoples,

and God himself will be with them and be their God;

⁴ he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

for the first things have passed away.” (Rev. 21:3-4)

This is the promise of God. It is eschatological because it envisions something that is still coming, something that God will bring about. While God is seen here as the primary actor, that doesn’t mean there is no place for us as the church.

                As we ponder the vision offered by Isaiah, it is worth considering that the people of ancient Judah and the contemporary church are being invited by God to embrace and live out this vision of abundance, where death no longer defines life. The veil spoken of here is really a spirit of fear that takes hold of the world and prevents us from fully embracing God’s vision of life. It is a spirit of scarcity that prevents us from fully investing in each other. We see the spirit of fear all around us. It defines our politics and even our faith. We fear our neighbors, especially those who don’t look like us. I find it interesting that fear of immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants gathered at the border, cast fear in the hearts of people far from the border, people who rarely have encounters with these immigrants. But, the message is being shared far and wide, such that large numbers of people have hardened their hearts to the needs and concerns of others. We see it play out in wars in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan. We see it in the growing embrace of authoritarian leaders. It is this spirit of fear that enshrouds our culture that Isaiah envisions being swallowed up. Such that the disgrace of God’s people will be removed.

                The closing word we hear from our reading from Isaiah is that having waited upon God, we receive our salvation. Therefore, we are invited by the prophet to “be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” This is the promise of resurrection that we celebrate on Easter Sunday. It is a message that is embodied by Jesus’ resurrection, such that death has lost its sting as Paul puts it (1 Cor.15:55). The question for us as we celebrate Easter has to do with how we embody this message. If we are, as Paul reveals, the body of Christ, who share in the resurrection. It is the promise we embrace in our baptisms, as Paul writes: “Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4).

                The question for us to ponder this Easter, as we celebrate the good news that death has been swallowed up, that our tears, which are real, have been wiped away, is how might we walk in newness of life? How might we embody this message of abundance that is pictured here in Isaiah 25?

                The closing words in our reading call on us to wait upon God. It is a call for patience and persistence. Death may have been defeated in the resurrection, but there is still resistance to that message. We see that resistance all around us. It would be easy to give up hope. But let us remember that hope is not optimism. It is a force that empowers us to keep moving forward. Hope is rooted in God’s fidelity.  It is a promise rooted in the future, to which we are moving.

                The reading began with a description of a great feast. While our general practice of the Eucharist involves a rather meager representation of that feast, it is, nonetheless, a call to embrace God’s heavenly banquet. It is a meal that is designed to sustain us spiritually as we continue our journey toward the fulfillment of God’s promise of redemption. The call that Jesus issued when instituting the Lord’s Supper, was that we should continue gathering for this feast, proclaiming his death until he returns (1 Cor. 11:26). So, as Jürgen Moltmann writes:

We do not celebrate the eucharist or Lord’s supper in our own name or in the name of our churches, but in the name of Christ. I believe that it is not the meal of the church, but Christ’s meal. Even when we understand our church as the “body of Christ,” the Lord’s supper, the eucharist, belongs together with the cross on which Christ’s gift of himself for us and for many is accomplished. This is why, ultimately, Catholics will not be counted off against Protestants here, or married persons against unmarried. Here, sinners are made righteous, victims are raised up, sad people are consoled, and the despairing are filled with hope.  [Moltmann, The Spirit of Hope: Theology for a World in Peril (Kindle, pp. 161-162)].

                While the spirit of death still hovers over us, the ultimate promise of God is that this spirit will not have the final word. That is the message of Easter. In the resurrection of Jesus, death has met its match. So, we gather with the promise of the resurrection serving as the foundation of our celebration. Christ has achieved victory over death, and we look forward to sharing in the heavenly banquet, at which we will dine on rich food and aged wine. So, as Jürgen Moltmann notes in his reflection on the resurrection of Jesus: “In the light of Jesus Christ’s resurrection, it becomes possible for life to overcome death, justice to overcome violence, and creation of being to overcome destruction. The force that woke Christ from the dad is the divine force of creation, just as potent as on the first day of creation” [Moltmann, Resurrected to Eternal Life, p. 14].  To that we can add our amen, as we gather on the mountain and wait upon the Lord, who is our salvation, allowing that divine force of creation to empower our activity in the world as God’s resurrection people.