Devouring Death

October 12, 2014
Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
First Reading: Isaiah 25:6-10a
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/101214.cfm

The Second Coming often inspires fear, awe, or curiosity. The judgment of God, the punishment of his enemies, the vindication of the righteous and the final outworking of his plan of salvation sound like a big show that will be fun to watch. But focusing on the cinematic aspects of the end of time can cause us to lose sight of the real endgame. After the battle is won and the dust settles, what is left? Isaiah depicts the victory of God over death as a meal. It turns out that Harry Potter’s villains, the “Death Eaters,” chose the wrong name. God himself is the real death-eater.

Context

The first reading for this Sunday, Isaiah 25:6-10a, falls in the middle of the so-called “Little Apocalypse” of Isaiah 24–27. These chapters envision a universal judgment (chap. 24), God’s victory over death (25), the peace he establishes (26), and the redemption of his people (27). Here in our reading, God sets out the banquet for his friends to enjoy. The celebration takes the upside-down form of a funeral banquet for death itself.

Mountain-Top Feast

At this end-of-time meal, the Lord plays host and invites all peoples to dine with him at Mount Zion, the hill on which Jerusalem sits. The site of his kingdom, his Temple, his city, makes for a perfect location. It is the theological center of the world, God’s dwelling place. Now, the newer translations obscure the tastiness of the feast, but the RSV gets it right: “a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees well refined” (Isa 25:6 RSV). The “lees,” in case you are wondering, are the dregs at the bottom of the wine. This is fine wine, aged to perfection, and served up at just the right moment with a proper pairing of fat, marrow-filled foods. If your mouth isn’t watering, it should be! Isaiah wants us to imagine the most sumptuous feast possible.

Swallowing Death

While the guests are dining on fat foods and fine wines, the Lord chooses a less delicious morsel for himself: death. Yes, God eats death. Again, translations render the word for “swallowing,” bala‘, using other ideas such as “destroying.” But the prophet uses the word twice to emphasize its finality and in between the two uses, he offers a double metaphor for the death God eats: a covering and a veil. The first metaphor is hard to translate. Literally, it is “the face of the covering, the covering over all the nations.” While Isaiah might not have this in mind, these ideas remind me of a pall, a sheet placed over a dead body. He is highlighting the ubiquity of death. All of us succumb eventually to its dark shadow. Everything has been placed under his feet (see 1 Cor 15:23-27). Isaiah says “all peoples” and “all nations” (lit., all the Gentiles) are under the veil of death.

The very universality of death makes God’s decisive swallow climactic. The one entity that “eats” everyone is now himself eaten. Ancient Near Eastern mythology often pictured death as a hungry being looking for more people to devour. Now the one who devoured others is himself devoured. The high point of the eschatological banquet is God’s eating of death.

Victory

St. Paul cites this Isaiah passage when he talks about the general resurrection: “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?’” (1 Cor 15:54-5 RSV citing both Isa 25:8 and Hos 13:14). The dark threat of death has been neutralized. Jesus, at Jerusalem, theologically on Mt. Zion (though not literally), comes face to face with death at the Cross. It seems that death “eats” him, but in reality, he swallows up death. The intentions of death are reversed and Jesus rises from the dead, not as a lone, miraculous anomaly, but as “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:20). Those who have been “buried with him in baptism” (Col 2:12) will be raised from the dead as well. The resurrection of Jesus ushers in the era of Death’s death, of the triumph of life over death, of the victory indicated in the banquet of Isaiah 25.

Eyes for Salvation

The aftermath of God’s devouring of death takes on two eye-related dimensions. In the first place, God wipes away the tears from all eyes. We all know that human life is not easy and that the horror and finality of death provoke us to legitimate weeping. The Salve Regina prayer even refers to our world as a “valley of tears.” But in the end, when life finally triumphs over the grave, God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away” (Rev 21:4 RSV). He will eliminate the sorrow, separation and pain of this world and fill us with an unending joy. In the second place, the eyes of those who have joined in the victorious banquet will look to God: “Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us!”  (Isa 25:9 NAB) For Isaiah, looking toward God expresses our conversion to him and it is the way in which we obtain his saving help (cf. Isa 45:22). The tears of this world are wiped from our eyes and we look upon God and rejoice.

While the judgment of God plays an important role in sorting out the rights and wrongs of our world at the end of time, the time beyond the judgment is where the real glory lies. Our destiny is not to merely witness God’s decisions or learn more details of his truth, but to eat “fat foods” with him and to celebrate his victory forever. Our eyes will no longer run with tears, but be fully filled with the overwhelming vision of Him Who Is.

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Mark Giszczak (“geese-check”) was born and raised in Ann Arbor, MI. He studied philosophy and theology at Ave Maria College in Ypsilanti, MI and Sacred Scripture at the Augustine Institute of Denver, CO. He recently received his Ph. D. in Biblical Studies at the Catholic University of America. He currently teaches courses in Scripture at the Augustine Institute, where he has been on faculty since 2010. Dr. Giszczak has participated in many evangelization projects and is the author of the CatholicBibleStudent.com blog. He has written introductions to every book of the Bible that are hosted at CatholicNewsAgency.com. Dr. Giszczak, his wife and their daughter, live in Colorado where they enjoy camping and hiking in the Rocky Mountains.

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