The joy set before him
For as all die in Adam,
So all will be made alive in Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:22
Read Isaiah 25:1—8
On this mountain. I imagine the prophet standing there, on the spot. Mt Zion. Jerusalem. Scene of of much rejoicing, of brilliant praise, of psalms and festivals, holy meals and milling gatherings, happy worshippers. Scene of destruction, too, of bloodshed and lamentation. Where the forces and events of history wrecked themselves, and still would into the future. The screams. The wailing of terror. He knew all about the ruin and waste of tribes and nations, and their misled arrogance. And death. Now I hear him say far more, I believe, than he knows he is saying. Here on this place a mighty historic act will take place that will end all this dreaded history, will be the death that swallows up death, the rejection that takes into itself all shame, all disgrace. It will be the funeral of the human race before the sumptuous feast of its resurrection and the return of banquet and song.
Dear Lord, my own life is like every life. It is like a battlefield of history. I seem to be run over by forces of destruction, threatened by death and decay, yet called to a final victorious party that I cannot win for myself. And my life feels like this, I suppose, because I am part of all human stories, in a nation that is part of all human nations. I thank you that on that spot, on the mountain where the prophet stood and saw the vision of death swallowed up, there came the Son of God, hung on the cross, and there my death was swallowed up because I am not only in the human race, I am in him. And I see, especially in the communion, the joyful celebration, some happy, happy taste of the joy that was set before him.