11-4-2012
6On 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. 7And he
will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the
sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. 8Then
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.
9It will be said on that day,
Lo, 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.
All. It is such a simple, yet powerful word. It fills our reading from Isaiah today. Make for All peoples a feast, destroy the
shroud that is cast over all people, the sheet over all nations, wipe away the
tears from all faces, take away the disgrace of his people from all the
earth. All, All, All. I had a professor in seminary who made a
point every tie we came upon this word in the
Bible and he asked the question, “how much of all is all?” ALL!
So
often we may try to limit this. We try
to make enemies not fit into the equation of all. We try to set our own guidelines. But instead we should be celebrating,
celebrating that God does love the world so much, and loves all of His children
so much that He will use everything His power to bring about peace and to take
away sorrow. We should celebrate that
God is so full of love that He will remove the Sin from our very beings and
will take away all of our disgrace. Instead
of serving out justifiable wrath against all of us, God holds all of us in His
arms and loves us and names us as saints.
Are
we worthy of this? Absolutely not, and
yet it is so. Today we celebrate the
lives of those who have come before us, of those whom we have lost over the
past year. Each of them a saint, even
though each of them is also a sinner.
Each of them, and each of us, promised life past this existence, life
eternal with our redeeming lord. Each of
us made pure in the waters of baptism, each of us made new out of those life
giving waters, through the power of God.
With those waters, the shroud of death that covers us is torn to pieces,
never to cover us again. We are free,
free indeed, for there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. This is why today we will also say and ring a
bell for those who were baptized this year, those who have received this
wonderful free gift from God and been formed into new beings. Their Sin is removed and each day are made
anew, each day washed clean.
All
of us are united with all the rest of the people of this world. Each and every person is part of a universal
“us,” because God wills it to be so.
Remember, that Isaiah is pre-Jesus, when all the other nations were seen
as outsiders, if not enemies. Israel was
constantly at war with other peoples, and had been taken as slaves a few
times. And yet there is hope and there
is redemption for all peoples, all people are made into saints and are loved by
God. Whether we like them or not.
Through God, we are united with all peoples, all nations become one and all
peoples become one. We are united with
people in Canada, Mexico, Ethiopia, France, Israel, Afghanistan, China,
Australia, and every other nation of this world. Even though a person may not know it, they
are still a creation of God and still beloved by Him. In our text for the day, the nations might
know have known who God was or could have been actively persecuting His people,
but in the end God still takes each of them and wipes away their tears and
their dishonor and destroys the shroud of death that hangs over them. Because God is the embodiment of love and
loves each part of His creation as a mother cares for their unborn child, as
scripture repeatedly tells us. We don’t
get to judge, but instead God does.
And
we should rejoice in this. After all, if
salvation was given by humans, we would be too clouded by jealousy and
self-righteousness. We would become too
embroiled with our political thoughts, with our cliques and our grudges,
finding it too hard to forgive. No,
instead we are judged by God, who instead of falling into these pits of judging
and making it into a popularity contest, God frees us all from the bindings of
Sin and removes our dishonor and shame, and lifts us up and wipes away our
tears.
Which
is also why when we hear the names of those that we have lost today, we do not
mourn as those who do not have hope. No,
instead we celebrate. We celebrate the
time that we had with them. We celebrate
their faith and their service and their examples that they set for us. And we celebrate that they are now in the
loving arms of God. And we celebrate
that we shall join them again when our day finally comes.
For
we know that we are saved, we know that God will care for us even beyond death. So let us rejoice! Let us sing with joy in our hearts and let us
not see worship as a chore that we have to get checked off a list, but se it
for what it truly is – A celebration of the life that God has given us, of the
mercy that he has shown us, and the unification with all of God’s children into
one family. And it is not just in worship services here in
this space that we are to celebrate, but each and every day. When we are getting baked goods from Hogan’s
we can celebrate that God has unified us with these bakers and that God has
given them the gifts to make delicious donuts and we can celebrate that God has
removed the shroud of death that may cause us to live lives full of fear,
allowing us to enjoy the gifts of others.
We can celebrate each day that we get to see our spouses or our children
or parents, and thank God for bringing them into our lives. Celebration is when Lutheran World Relief
rushes to the aid of the hurricane victims and are on the ground the day after
it happened, bringing aid to those who are in need, giving of themselves to
help God wipe away peoples tears and dishonor.
Each moment of our days can be a celebration of the things that God has
done and the promises that God has made us.
Each day we can see the gifts that God has given us, from the trees, to
our pets and families and friends, and jobs and everything else, and we can
remember our Baptisms each morning in the shower or bath as we are covered in
water again, and each time we eat a meal we can remember the meal that we
gather to eat, and Christ’s sacrifice and love for us. So let us rejoice and let us celebrate that
God is with us and forgives us and unites us!
Amen
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