"Welcome to the Feast"

These twin promises are good news … for God’s people. But the promises refuse to be hemmed in, to color inside the lines, to respect the border. Instead, Isaiah repeats one word over and over again: “all”!

[1] “Sojourners” by Carol Aust for Church of the Sojourner, San Francisco

Isaiah 25:6-9

October 6, 2024

Dr. Todd R Wright

When Isaiah opened his mouth people would have expected him to say certain things.

Prophets are known for saying words most don’t want to hear and Isaiah played the part.

In the chapter leading up to today’s passage, he spoke of judgment and destruction. Listen:

“Now the Lord is about to lay waste the earth and make it desolate,

and [God] will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants.”[2]

Isaiah says this judgment applies to priests and people, slaves and masters, buyers and sellers, lenders and borrowers, “for they have [all] transgressed laws, violated statues, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse devours the earth and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt.”

He hardly takes a breath before piling on. Eugene Peterson puts it this way:

“No more wine, no more vineyards, no more songs or singers.

The laughter of castanets is gone, the shouts of celebrants, gone, the laughter of fiddles, gone.

No more parties with toasts of champagne.”[3]

Don’t think you can escape this, Isaiah warns:

“If you run from the terror, you’ll fall into the pit.

If you climb out of the pit, you’ll get caught in the trap.”

For God’s verdict is final and complete:

“The earth is utterly broken; the earth is torn apart; the earth is violently shaken.

The earth staggers like a drunkard; it sways like a hut;

its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls and will not rise again.”[4]

That’s what people expect to hear from a prophet.

But then Isaiah pulls a U-turn. Tires screech, horns blare, and the view changes!

Suddenly he switches to delivering an invitation to a feast God is preparing for all people!

Can you imagine?

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When I was hiking the Appalachian Trail, eating oatmeal morning after morning, I was susceptible to dreaming about certain comfort foods – cheeseburgers and tater-tots; a bowl of never-ending pasta at Olive Garden; even a grilled cheese and tomato soup sounded good!

Scholars remind us that Isaiah’s listeners would have been even hungrier.

“The rise of Assyrian domination [had] led to the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel and subsequent siege of Jerusalem. Siege warfare weaponized food scarcity by cutting off food supplies to the population within the city walls.”[5]

And to these starving people God promises a feast of rich food and fine wine!

Anathea Portier Young writes, “In the ancient near eastern world, such feasts provided opportunities for mighty rulers to display their wealth and power, foster loyalty, communicate their protection, negotiate treaties, and render judgments. The feast was a hallmark of empire.”[6]

But not here. Here God is answering the people’s pleas with blessings, no strings attached.

There’s no demand that they right their ways, convince God, complete probation. Just grace!

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While that is wonderful, there is something else odd going on. Did you notice it?

God, the host at the feast, does not eat the rich food or drink the vintage wine.

Instead, God swallows up … death!

That’s odd! Usually it is death that does the swallowing.

Young digs into this startling image. She writes: “To swallow is to consume utterly, leaving no trace behind [and] to swallow is also to take something into one’s own body.”

So God is promising to make death utterly disappear. It will not growl from people’s empty

stomachs; it will not prowl the walls surrounding their city; it will not howl at the graveside. It will disappear like the morning mist before a blazing sun! God promises!

It will not be confined to the underworld or cast into the sea. God is promising to take death into God’s own self. To absorb it. To know it intimately. To transform it, somehow.

I do not understand the full implications of what Isaiah is promising here.

But later theologians will remember this promise when Jesus goes to the cross and rises – swallowing up death forever, somehow.

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These twin promises are good news … for God’s people.

But the promises refuse to be hemmed in, to color inside the lines, to respect the border.

Instead, Isaiah repeats one word over and over again: “all”!

The feast is for “all peoples”; the swallowing up of death applies to “all nations”; and the tears that God will wipe away will be from “all faces”.

While Isaiah’s prophesy of judgment had been comprehensive, so is this blessing!

The implications are staggering!

Blessing for the faithful and the sinful.

Blessing for the battered, broken and besieged, as well as the besiegers.

Blessing for those who have been formed as God’s people and those who worship other gods.

And we have absorbed this message, having wrestled with it and believed it, as the needy, hopeful, welcomed people who take part in this feast with brothers and sisters around the world.

It is hard to believe – but then most good news is! Amen

[1] “Sojourners” by Carol Aust for Church of the Sojourner, San Francisco

[2] Here and following, see Isaiah 24:1, 5b

[3] Here and following, from The Message, Isaiah 24:7-9a and 17a

[4] See Isaiah 24:19-20

[5] From Corrine Carvalho’s reflections on the text for workingpreacher.org, 11/7/21

[6] Here and following from her reflections on the text for workingpreacher.org, 11/1/15