Weekly Bible Study - Isaiah 25:6-10

12 October 2014

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

These days, celebrations are usually focused around the consumption of food. There’s no denying that we all love a good repast! Long after everyone has gone home, what do we remember best: the connections and conversations or the delightful delicacies?

The prophet Isaiah sets the table of our imagination with a tangible reality: the rich and sumptuous banquet the Lord will provide for all people. This imagery offers hope to a downtrodden people. The hope Israel needed is cast in a powerful image to free at least their hearts from bondage. Isaiah is assured in the depths of his heart that God will deliver Israel from “the veil of death” and the people will celebrate with feasting and thanksgiving!

We have that same assurance as we approach the eucharistic table. In the mystery we celebrate, Jesus removes the veil of death and gives us the hope of eternal life.

Wow! Read that last sentence again, and think about it for a moment. More than any birthday or holiday, isn’t eternal life something to CELEBRATE?

And as we, as Body of Christ, gather around the eucharistic table celebrating our deliverance from death, is our gathering a joyful celebration, as described by Isaiah? Do we truly rejoice when we gather to "celebrate" our release from sin and separation?

For the Israelites, the banquet was a powerful image of rejoicing in hope of deliverance from oppression. For us, the eucharistic banquet is that, but more. Our banquet is a powerful reality, a sacrament that brings about the very thing we celebrate: Christ breaking forever the bonds of sin and death.

This is the Lord to whom we looked; let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!

The author, Ms. Barbara Gawle, leads Bible studies at her parish, Incarnation Church of Wethersfield, CT. She is a CBS graduate and the 2012 recipient of the Biblical School's highest award, the Lawrence Boadt Memorial Medal.