The Great Feast
Isaiah 25:6-9
Main Idea: We are to eagerly wait for the great banquet feast of God when he swallows up death forever.
I. The Future Feast (25:6)
Isaiah is given a vision of a day where “on this mountain” (Mt. Zion; cf. Isa 2:2), a great feast will be held. In ancient times, kings would hold feasts in order to show off their power, glory, and wealth. As the host of this feast, the Lord has prepared everything in an act of sacred hospitality.
The feast is marked by:
Inclusivity: ‘all’ peoples are invited; any and all who come to Jesus in faith are freely welcomed to his banquet table of grace
Generosity: the meal consists of ‘rich food’ and ‘well-aged wine,’ symbolizing the abundance of salvation. God is generously inviting all to “taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Ps. 34:8)
John 6:35: Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
Our “feasting” in the Christian life right now is an invitation to pause, remember, and prepare our hearts for the great feast that awaits us on this promised day (cf. Rev. 19:6-9).
“The eucharistic meal uses everyday elements of the common life to connect me with the extraordinary and unique crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Eucharist is at one and the same time ordinary and extraordinary, the repetition of the commonplace and the celebration of the unique. Meals, in all cultures, seem to have this capability of stretching from the ordinary to the extraordinary.” ~ Eugene Peterson
II. The Destruction of Death (25:7-8)
Our secular culture today has a very difficult time with death. In the Scriptures, death is:
The Great Interruption
The Great Schism
The Great Insult
The Great Enemy (1 Cor. 15:26)
Three realities mark the occasion of this great celebratory feast:
God will remove the “covering” (burial shroud) & “veil” over all people, which is the fear and shadow of death
Hebrews 2:15: … and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
God will “swallow up death forever”
God will wipe away every tear & remove the reproach (disgrace) of his people
This great victory will be accomplished “on this mountain,” precisely where Jesus completes his mission. In his death, the “veil” is torn in two (Mt. 27:51), and in his resurrection the “burial shroud” is folded up in defeat (John 20:7).
Though Christ has defeated death and robbed the grave of its power, we still feel the “sting” of death right now as we await this promised day. Rather than despairing death or avoiding it, we are invited to take up the posture of Ps. 90:12-13:
So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Return, O Lord! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
III. The End of our Exile (25:9)
The Advent season is a call to long with patience for the promised ‘day’ of verse 9, when we will see God face to face and our waiting, restlessness, and angst will be over forever.
“You cannot judge God by your calendar. God may appear to be slow, but he never forgets his promises. He may seem to be working slowly or even to be forgetting his promises, but when his promises come true (and they will come true), they always burst the banks of what you imagined… God’s grace virtually never operates on our time frame, on a schedule we consider reasonable. He does not follow our agendas or schedules. God seems to forget his promises, but he comes through in ways we can’t imagine before it happens.” ~ Tim Keller
Hebrews 9:28: So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
“Those who serve God still stand in a dark place, but we strain forward with expectation and an unconquerable hope toward the horizon where the Sun of Righteousness will appear someday with healing in his wings.” ~ Fleming Rutledge
