November 3, 2024
Pastor John Hering
Isaiah 25:6-9
Isaiah 25:6-9
6 On this mountain the Lord of Armies will prepare for all peoples a banquet of rich food, a banquet of aged wines, with the best cuts of meat, and with the finest wines.
7 On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that covers all peoples, the burial cloth stretched over all nations. 8 He has swallowed up death forever! The Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face. He will take away the shame of his people throughout the earth. For the Lord has spoken.
9 On that day it will be said, “Look, here is our God! We waited for him, and he saved us! This is the Lord! We waited for him. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation!”
I hope you brought a napkin to church today after what I’m about to share with you. Imagine a beautiful bowl on the banquet decorated table. In the bowl is a cheesy potato dish. As you take the serving spoon and scoop out a portion for yourself the line of cheese follows the steaming spoonful all the way from the bowl to your plate. The corn, carrots and cauliflower bowl is colorful all by itself, but those tabs of butter are melting salty goodness on to every delicious vegetable. The platter has slices of oven glazed ham and juicy oak wood smoked turkey. The steam is rising from the stuffing and it looks like the kind your mother used to make with the sauteed turkey giblets and raisins for the slightly sweet taste. Over there is the basket and as the napkin is taken off the fresh rolls they smell so good you would love to eat the whole basket of rolls yourself. After you have enjoyed every bite of this meal you sit back thinking you couldn’t eat any more. But, then comes the blueberry or apple pie with the perfect round scoop of ice cream melting over the flaky crust. Ok. I’m done. Is your mouth watering? There are only 24 more days until your Thanksgiving meal is served. But, I have Good News for you today. You don’t have to wait 24 days to enjoy a wonderful feast! Today, on All Saints Day, we get to feast on the delicious spiritual delights that God’s Word puts before us. May the Holy Spirit nourish your faith and soul to
Live Knowing You Have A Seat At The Glorious Feast
With the Best Place You Can Be
When our kids were growing up one of the activities they enjoyed was building a fort with cardboard boxes or lining up chairs and placing blankets over the chairs to make a tent. I remember Jake as a toddler who liked to play “peak-a-boo” with either mom or dad. But there was one thing he made very clear he didn’t like and after that experience I made sure not to make the same mistake with the others kids. Jake didn’t like it when the blanket was put over his head. It was dark and lonely under there and he didn’t like it. However, when I would go under the blanket with him, he thought it was great. He would giggle and laugh when someone was with him, but he didn’t like being alone.
Isaiah uses a similar picture. He calls it “the shroud that covers all peoples, the burial cloth stretched over all nations.” This condition makes us feel like Jake. It’s not a good blanket to be under. It is a horrible covering over all people. You know what that covering is. Sin and its consequences as described by St. Paul who said,
“For the wages of sin is death”
Romans 6:23
All people are under this curse since the days of Adam and Eve. It means relationships will be infected with your fellow co-worker who doesn’t pull his weigh. Health will be attacked when you get up in the morning with a tooth ache or a sore back. Evil thoughts will run wild during this season of the presidential election. This dark blanket of sin covers us all and leaves no way to escape. It separates us from God. Sadly, people try to escape it by trying harder to get with God by doing more good things than bad things, or working harder to please God and earn his favor. Or by comparing themselves to others and self-righteously thinking they are better. However, the more one tries to escape the blanket of sin on their own, the darker it becomes. No one can keep God’s commands or live up to his standards of perfection. A person can try to pretend they are okay, but in the end it only causes anxiety, depression and failure.
I would imagine you have experienced this yourself. It reminds me of my neighbor, Mrs. Menke at Halloween. She would dress up as a witch, stirring up a black pot on her front porch that had dried ice in it. It was crazy scary! Was she cooking something yummy? No! The image was of an evil witch cooking up a recipe to curse or hurt people with wrath and pain. And she wanted the kids coming to her door to stop and think about how scary it would be to have such a person like her living in their neighborhood. Well, that’s exactly how the devil works. He did it with the Children of Israel in Isaiah’s day. They would choose to reject the company and promises of the Lord, follow the devil, and then face the evil, painful consequences of their sin.
“The burial cloth stretched over all nations.”
That includes us. Too many times dirty words come out of our mouth, rejection of worship for the relationship with family, abuse of God’s gift of marriage for the arrogant free culture of today. For filling his nose with the stench of our sin we know God should stir up a pot of wrath and cover us with a dark, eternal burial cloth of punishment in hell.
Just like a little boy covered in a dark blanket and relieved to see his dad, so the Lord God came to rescue his people.
“7 On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that covers all peoples.”
This is God’s grace. It is the Best Place To Be! Rather than giving us what we deserved, our God blesses us With The Best Place We Can Be!
“6 On this mountain the Lord of Armies will prepare for all peoples a banquet of rich food, a banquet of aged wines, with the best cuts of meat, and with the finest wines.”
Even better than a delicious Thanksgiving Feast, the Lord prepared a feast for you. Where exactly is this mountain? Mount Zion was the place of God’s temple and represented the place where God meets his people. Can you think of a place where this happens to you today?
“7 On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that covers all peoples, the burial cloth stretched over all nations. 8 He has swallowed up death forever! The Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face. He will take away the shame of his people throughout the earth. For the Lord has spoken.”
Right here in God’s House is the Best Place To Be where God comes to us through the Gospel in Word and Sacrament. Here in God’s House you are
With the Best Company You Can Imagine
But how is it that underserving sinners can have a heavenly feast instead of eating our words and choking on our hypocrisy, drinking wrath and punishment? Come with me to meet Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. The mob came at night and Judas carries out his plan to betray his innocent friend to death. Peter tried to resist his arrest, but Jesus corrects him and says,
“Put your sword into its sheath. Shall I not drink the cup my Father has given me?”
John 18:11
Christ Jesus was willing to drink the cup of wrath for us. Jesus was willing to die on the cross to pay the penalty of the sins of the whole world. Jesus tasted death for us so we could enjoy The Best Company You Can Imagine! The disciples would learn how wonderful it was to be in the company of their Savior. Our loved ones in heaven enjoyed his company through faith while on this earth, but now are in his presence in heaven.
“8 He has swallowed up death forever! The Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face. He will take away the shame of his people throughout the earth. For the Lord has spoken.”
Isaiah uses these words to describe the feast that our dear loved ones, who have already died and gone to heaven, are experiencing. They are With the Best Company You Can Imagine with Jesus at the Banquet of the Lamb.
Did you catch what else happens on the Mountain. This would sound strange to someone who doesn’t know the company of Jesus, for usually death does the swallowing. It is the fate of every person on earth. No one can escape death. You have seen it happen and one day it will be your turn. One by one coffins are lowered into the ground and the hole is filled in, or ashes are placed into containers. Death has swallowed another one. But, on the Mountain of the Lord death is in the casket. “8 He has swallowed up death forever!” Jesus did this when he died on the cross, was buried in the ground and when he rose again. Jesus left dead, death. Death could not hold Jesus and it can’t hold us.
This is why we celebrate All Saints Day. We are celebrating our Loved Ones who are At The Best Place They Can Be, With The Best Company You Can Imagine. All our loved ones who died believing in Jesus are living with Jesus in heaven! Now it is time for us to Live Knowing We Have a Seat At the Glorious Feast! Jesus has your seat reserved. The table is set and ready there with Jesus. We will be with Jesus to enjoy the most perfect heavenly meal of eternity in God’s glory. Today we will enjoy the foretasted of our heavenly meal like a bowl of steaming cheesy bowl of potatoes and vegetables by listening to the nourishing Word of God. Better than glazed ham and smoked turkey we will enjoy the foretaste of the heavenly banquet at the Lord’s Supper today. We get to see and touch and smell and taste the forgiveness of sins. We get to have our tears wiped away and our shame removed. This is Christ’ love for us that we also get to share as we invite others to the Best Place and With the Best Company you can Imagine. Yes, Live Knowing You Have a Seat At the Glorious Feast for Jesus’ sake. Amen!
