Death Swallowed Up - Isaiah 25:6-9

If you would open your Bibles to Isaiah 25, which will be right in the middle of your Bible.

Easter Sunday was always a very special time of year for me during my growing up years. Even though I was not converted until the age of 14, I always loved the fanfare of Easter, and preferred it over that of Christmas, because to me, Easter finished the story. Christmas was just the beginning. Easter brought everything together.

But is easter really the end of the story?

There is a sense in which we could say that the Resurrection of Christ is just the beginning as well. It all hinges on the resurrection, but the end of the story is not yet.

Is 25 is going to paint a picture for us of where things are headed. With all God’s plans and everything he intends to do. Is 25 anticipates a future. A future where the worst consequences of sin are not just softened, but undone.

It begins in vs 1 with a declaration of praise for the works of God

Isaiah 25:1 LSB

O Yahweh, You are my God; I will exalt You, I will give thanks to Your name; For You have worked wonders, Counsels formed long ago, with perfect faithfulness.

The next four verses declare precisely what God has done, looking forward to the day when the things it speaks of are reality. These verses speak of the conquest of Yahweh when Jesus Christ returns to earth.

It speaks of the victory that Christ achieves.

It speaks of how the Lord vindicates and defends his people.

For the sake of time we are going to jump to vs 6 where we find an incredible prophecy that looks forward to glories unimaginable.

Isaiah 25:6–9 LSB

And Yahweh of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; A banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, And refined, aged wine. And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, Even the veil which is stretched over all nations. He will swallow up death for all time, And Lord Yahweh will wipe tears away from all faces, And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; For Yahweh has spoken. And it will be said in that day, “Behold, this is our God in whom we have hoped that He would save us. This is Yahweh in whom we have hoped; Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.

We are, of course here on Resurrection Sunday. We are celebrating the resurrection of Christ from the dead. What this passage unfolds for us is some of the fullness of what Christ accomplished with his death, burial, and resurrection, and even though we live with the reality of death every day in our lives on this earth, there is a day coming when that will no longer be the case.

The scene as it unfolds for us is only possible if we serve a RISEN savior.

All the things we anticipate can only be true if Jesus lives!

We believe that Jesus Christ is coming back, amen?

He can only do that because he is alive!

And so it is with a resurrection context that we read this text from Is 15. I have framed all of the points of the sermon today in the context of Resurrection hope.

First,

Resurrection Hope Anticipates the Feast for the Faithful

vs 6

Isaiah 25:6 “And Yahweh of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; A banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, And refined, aged wine.”

Every week we observe the Lord’s table. Every week we have a small piece of matza. Every week we have a small cup of grape juice. Every week we remember the death of Christ. Paul says as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup we show his death, until what? Until he comes again!

There is a day coming when we will not longer have tiny samples to remember the Lord. We will see the Lord! He will be on the earth. Every eye will see him, all the nations will come to him. He will separate the sheep and the goats. He will be crowned King of kings and Lord of lords.

A common practice of newly crowned kings would be to invite the nobles and leaders from provinces of their kingdom to come and celebrate the coronation feast with the king as a gesture of his goodwill and their submission to his reign.

Here we have Yahweh preparing a feast for the nations. Notice the global nature of this. Last week we were in Rev 5 which spoke of peoples from every nation, and tribe, and tongue, all proclaiming the worthiness of the Lamb. Here a feast is prepared for all peoples, or all nations.

Here we have one of those OT references that make it clear that, even thought God had made Israel his chosen people, even though he had specific purposes for a specific people, as on author put it, It is because God dealt with a certain people in certain ways that there is now hope for ALL humanity!

And in the feast of feasts, all nations will come before him.

I love the LSB’s translation: a lavish banquet. Any savory dish you can imagine. A banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow.

Age wine speaks of the finest of drinks. Choice pieces with marrow. This is the fatty cuts of the animal, which would have been considered the choicest cuts. Some interpreters look at this and make a connection to the sacrificial system where the best cuts were reserved for the Lord, the fat was offered as a burnt offering. Now, in God’s richness, after all those years of receiving sacrifices, he turns around and serves the nations the best of the best.

This is truly a feast fit for a king!

But make no mistake. Though the lavishness of the banquet is what seems to be noted here, what it represents is truly the main attraction. Though this is a feast of all feasts it is only because of the presence of the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords.

The LORD of hosts will prepare the banquet! The RISEN Lord!

We shall see him. We shall dine with Him. Resurrection hope anticipates the feast of the faithful when we shall dine with the Risen king of kings.

Resurrection Hope Anticipates the Pulling back of the Pall

What is a Pall?

A pall is a covering. Often a veil, or a cloth that is spread over or covers a coffin, hearse, or grave/tomb.

You may be familiar with the word “pallbearer” which is someone who carries the casket of the deceased to the hearse from the funeral home, and then from the hearse to the grave. We might even say shroud, that which was used to cover the face of the deceased.

Resurrection hope anticipates the day when the pall, the covering of sorrow and mourning, is pulled back.

Vs 7.

Isaiah 25:7 LSB

And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering which is over all peoples, Even the veil which is stretched over all nations.

The bible talks about different veils in different places. Some have suggested that this refers to the veil of ignorance that if over the nations. 2 Cor 3 speaks of the veil that is over those who cling to the Mosaic Law.

I don’t think that’s what’s going on here though.

When we pair this with verse 8, we get a larger picture.

The covering and veil of vs 7 speaks of the sorrow of death, whereas vs 8 deals with the reality of death itself.

First, the sorrow of death.

We talk about death as though it’s just part of the natural cycle of the world. Everyone who has ever lived up to this point has also died, Enoch and Elijah excepted.

We don’t know anything except death.

But death is actually very unnatural, and our natural grief response to death demonstrates this reality.

We grieve. We mourn. We wear the veils. We cover the bodies.

But there is a day coming when that will be done. There is a day coming when the sorrow of death will be a thing of the past.

I believe there is even a hint of resurrection hope here in this verse. The covering will be swallowed up, the veil which is stretched out over all the nations that indicates death, that is taken away and completely consumed by the Lord.

The shroud is pulled back because the dead do not remain dead! There is no need for grief. There is no need for sorrow, because not only does the Savior live but brings those who are his to life as well!

That carries us right into vs 8

Resurrection Hope Anticipates the Defeat of Death

Isaiah 25:8 LSB

He will swallow up death for all time, And Lord Yahweh will wipe tears away from all faces, And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; For Yahweh has spoken.

It is not just the sorrow of death that is destroyed, it is not just that those who are dead will be raised only to die again, but Jesus Christ with His own resurrection has sucurred the resurrection of all those who come to Him by faith, and in the end DEATH ITSELF is destroyed.

He will swallow up death for all time!

1 Corinthians 15:26

1 Corinthians 15:26 LSB

The last enemy to be abolished is death.

This is what is described in Is 25.

It’s one thing to be delivered from war. From famine. From enemies. from oppression.

All that is all good and well, but it doesn’t actually mean anything if we still face death in the end!

The sting of death is sin! As long as death remains, it is a constant reminder that sin exists.

But here. all that is undone. Christ rose from the dead. And now death itself is dead. Death is no more.

Think about all the empires that have risen and fallen. Some of them claimed to have conquered all the known world. First it was the Assyrians. Then the Babylonians. Then Persians. The Greeks. The Romans. The Mongols. The Brits. The Ottomons. You name it, they all came, they ruled, the conquered. But no matter how much land they amassed, no matter how many people they subjugated, not matter how often they would proclaim their emperor not just their king, but deify him and worship him as a god....not matter how hard they tried to live, they all. died. one. by. one.

They could not conquer death.

But God can. Not only can he, but He did. Not only did he, but Romans 6 says that even as Jesus was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, even so we too might walk in newness of life, knowing that we will be united with him in the likeness of His resurrection!

Death is as good as dead!

And so we have this vivid imagery of the Lord wiping away the tears from all faces. The sorrow of sin and death completely finished as we live with our Lord forever.

There is a verse in the Psalms that says the Lord preserves all of our tears in a bottle. striking imagry meant to communicate that the Lord sees every tear we shed, every drop that falls from our eyes. He sees. He knows. And now here personally wipes them away. The time for tears is over. The time for rejoicing has begun.

The second half of the verse says he will remove the reproach from His people from all the earth. This is a reference to the restoration of Israel, which we read about in Rom 11.

Finally peace for Israel.

And then it says “For Yahweh has spoken”

There is certainty about all of this. There is a settledness here. This isn’t wishful thinking, this isn’t vain platitudes, this isn’t some pie in the sky ideal that that can never hope to be reached. This is the promise of the covenant keeping God.

And that leads us to vs 9.

Resurrection Hope Leads us to Praises the Promise-Keeper

Isaiah 25:9 LSB

And it will be said in that day, “Behold, this is our God in whom we have hoped that He would save us. This is Yahweh in whom we have hoped; Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”

Brothers and sisters, this is our God! He who has spoken will do it!

He will prepare us a feast! He will swallow up the shroud of death, He will raise to life to who are His own, He will finally and completely destroy death once and for all!

This is our God in whom we have hoped that He would save us.

This is Yahweh in whom we have hoped.

Is your hope in the Lord today?

Is this your hope? Is this your joy? Do you know it can be?

This week we have had such a heavy emphasis on the Work of Christ. It is good to remind ourselves of what he has done. On thursday we were reminded of what occured at the Last supper. We were reminded of the deliverance God brought about through the Passover meal and how there is greater deliverance for those who trust in Christ.

On Friday we reflected on the actual crucifixion of Christ. We contemplated why we could ever call such a dark day good. Today we rejoice in the resurrection of Christ because it is in HIS life that we can have life, it is in HIS life that we have hope.

Is your hope in that today?

Have you, personally placed your faith and trust in this great God today? He promises to destroy death once and for all, and he can do that because he defeated death in the resurrection of Christ.

If not, I plead with you to be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ. Do not delay. Today is the day of salvation.

If you are trusting in Christ today, rejoice. REJOICE!

Christ is risen from the dead, he has trampled over sin and death!

Our God is not dead, He Alive!

Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation!

I close with this.

It began in the shadow of a garden. It did not arrive as a birth, but as a breach.

No one remembers the precise hour it arrived—only that it came uninvited, threading its own shadow through leaves that once sang with life. It followed a whisper, a bite, a broken trust. And from that moment, it never left.

It walked with Adam outside the gates, stood beside Abel in the field, and haunted every cradle since. It became a silent heirloom passed from generation to generation—unseen, yet intimately known.

It crept into tents in Egypt, rode with chariots in Babylon, and stalked empires as they rose and fell.

Its presence was felt in wars and funerals, in hospital rooms and battlefields, in whispered goodbyes and hollow silences. It made poets weep and tyrants tremble. It spoke in elegies, in headlines, in eulogies half-finished.

Entire philosophies bent themselves around it. Artists painted it. Poets personified it. Religions feared it. It became the great unspoken certainty—the punctuation mark on every story.

Even the faithful wept before it. Even the Son of God wept beside it.

Over centuries it ruled without rival, fed by fear, sustained by sorrow. Prophets spoke of its end, yet few dared believe it.

A promise had been made, ancient and improbable. That One would come—not to delay it, not to soften it, but to undo it.

It once thought it had gained its greatest victory, until one Sunday morning.

The ground trembled. A stone rolled, and a tomb stood empty.

From that morning forward, it was only a matter of time.

When the end of all things has come, it will be no more. Already it has lost is voice, it’s breath, its sting.

Death is Death.

It will not be missed.