Bon Appetit!

Isaiah 25:6-9, the First Reading appointed for the Festival of All Saints in the Year of Mark, is a marvelous text of comfort.  Not only does it promise us that death will be swallowed up forever, but it also gives us a picture of a compassionate God who wipes tears from all faces.  This is the picture we have:  a God who is able to defeat death, and yet also able to stoop down and wipe the tears from our eyes.  What a marvelous God we have!

(The following questions are not meant to be exhaustive, but only to open up some of the questions which are important for Law and Gospel preachers; specifically we ask, "How is the Word at work?"  To learn more about this unique genre of preaching, see my brief guide to Law and Gospel preaching, Afflicting the Comfortable, Comforting the Afflicted, available from wipfandstock.com or amazon.)

1.  How does the Word function in the text?  The Word of the prophet is pure gospel.  God will provide a feast, destroy death, and wipe the tears from our eyes.  The only thing we can do in the face of this amazing God is rejoice.

2.  How is the Word not functioning in the text?  There is really no word of Law here, except, of course, the mention of "the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations", (i.e. death).  If the Law always functions to show us our need for Christ, then the mere mention of death shows us our need for Christ, and thus is a word of Law.

3.  With whom are you identifying in the text?  We are the people of Israel, God's people, to whom this good word is addressed. We are the ones who experience the shroud and the sheet which is spread over the nations.  We are the ones who rejoice in the salvation of our God.

4.  What, if any, call to obedience is there in this text?  The last phrase is our call:  "Let us rejoice and be glad in [God's] deliverance."  We are called to point to the deliverance of our God and give God all praise and thanks.

5.  What Law/Gospel couplet is suggested by this text?  Some of the most classic couplets are appropriate for this text:  defeat/victory; death/life; mourning/rejoicing.  They are all here.

6.  Exegetical work:  The Lutheran Study Bible does a nice job of pointing out how Isaiah 24:1-27:13 contain a combination of prophecy and apocalyptic literature.  While Biblical prophecy is "generally linked with historical times and places," apocalyptic literature "moves to cosmic themes and often refers to things seemingly impossible in history as we know it."  Such are the verses we encounter in this text.  Clearly announcing the annihilation of death is beyond history as we know it.  So what we have is an apocalyptic text revealing an end to the world as it stands.  A translation of this brief text reveals an ongoing use of the Piel and Pual forms of verbs. These forms are intensifiers.  So a word which could be translated "swallow" could more aptly be translated "devour". And a word which is translated "waiting" could more accurately be translated "looked eagerly."  These verbs reveal the intensity of this passage.

7.  How does the Crossings Community model work with this text?  Paul Jaster uses the language of this text well in offering his analysis.  He works off of the "swallowing" of death by the death of Christ.  He follows that with more swallowing as he witnesses to the great feast "of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines" which is to come.  Bon Appetit!  See crossings.org/text-study for the entire analysis.

Blessings on your proclamation!