Home

Music: 
Home by Luke Parker
Morning Prayer by Simon Wester 
Home a place where you are accepted, a place where you belong. A place where the outside pain and frustration should be held at bay in the safety of those who love and care for you.
As we have explored the preliminary prophetic poems of Isaiah, a theme began to show itself. The kingdom of God has no room for those who place themselves as more valuable than those who are broken and hurting.
After this long series of poems pronouncing God’s judgment on the enemies of Judah, Isaiah aims for something different. Isaiah takes aim at death itself.
Isaiah tells us of the destruction of the burial shroud that has been engulfing the people of Israel.
This burial cloth has been turned from a cloak of death to a tablecloth for a great feast.
Today’s reading comes from Isiah 25:6-9
In Jerusalem,[a] the Lord of Heaven’s Armies
 will spread a wonderful feast
 for all the people of the world.
It will be a delicious banquet
 with clear, well-aged wine and choice meat.
7 There he will remove the cloud of gloom,
 the shadow of death that hangs over the earth.
8 He will swallow up death forever!
 The Sovereign Lord will wipe away all tears.
He will remove forever all insults and mockery
 against his land and people.
 The Lord has spoken!
9 In that day the people will proclaim,
“This is our God!
 We trusted in him, and he saved us!
This is the Lord, in whom we trusted.
 Let us rejoice in the salvation he brings!”
The funeral has become a feast! Isaiah’s stunning eschatological hope proclaims that when death has been swallowed up forever, God will wipe away the tears from all faces.
John the Revelator incorporates Isaiah’s poem in the culmination of his grand vision:
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. (Revelation 21:4)
In this poem, Isaiah anticipates a day when death will be destroyed by God and the heirs of salvation will rejoice and say, “This is what we’ve been waiting for!” And that’s what Advent is all about—anticipating and waiting.
But as those who believe that the anticipated Christ has arrived in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, we are invited to live in the joyful tension of the “now and not yet.” While we await the final redemption of all things in Christ, we celebrate the fact that the feast has already begun.
As Christians, we are invited into this great feast whenever we participate in communion. When Jesus first sat down with the disciples in the upper room, he began the eternal participation of the feast that celebrates the end of death!
This Christmas, we are home. We are invited to take the hand of the one who conquered death and come home and sit at the table of the one who loves and accepts us.
Isaiah 41:13
For I hold you by your right hand—
 I, the Lord your God.
And I say to you,
 ‘Don’t be afraid. I am here to help you.

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