“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines. On this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face; the reproach of his people he will remove from the whole earth; for the Lord has spoken. On that day it will be said: ‘Behold our God, to whom we looked to save us! This is the Lord for whom we looked; let us rejoice and be glad that he has saved us!’ For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain.”
I was reviewing this reading which was the first reading at Mass this weekend. I didn’t get to listen very well during Mass. I had both of my grandsons at church with me. They can be quite a handful. I did get to hear the sermon though and I was all about that.
But I took the worship aid home with me and thought I would take the opportunity to re-read the scriptures when I had a chance.
I had a chance to read the scriptures today. The first reading was from Isaiah, the psalm was twenty-third, the second reading was Philippians, and the Gospel was from Matthew. The sermon centered around Psalm 23 but I centered around the reading from Isaiah. You see, it was late in the day and I didn’t have any lunch. I was starving.
The rich food and choice wines got my mouth watering. I had laid out steaks for supper and I just couldn’t wait to get home and get those out on the grill or under the broiler. I had about a glass of wine left over in a bottle and that was going to taste awfully good with that steak. Yes, my mouth began to water. But then I read the rest of the scripture and I thought that this was a celebration after quite a bit of hard work. I mean, you know that it has to be hard work to destroy all the veils of all people, to destroy death forever, wipe away every tear from every face and change the minds of everyone on the whole earth. But when that happens, oh the celebration that would be. Bring on the steaks!
In general we all hide behind something. It makes life so much easier. But what would it be like if we “shed” all of those masks and veils and showed the world who we truly were. I mean it would be so nice if we took everyone at their face value and not have to peel away the layers of masks to get to the core person. What a celebration that would be if we could truly celebrate together, as we are, and not worry what someone thinks about us.
The Lord promised to destroy death forever. He did that with the sacrifice of His Son. Not to get into other readings but the Gospel of Matthew talked about the king who gave a wedding feast for his son. When he invited those that he knew and they basically turned their back on him then he sent his servants out and told them to invite anybody and everybody. Nothing is worse than to have a party to introduce the world to something you have, whether it’s a birthday or a graduation or whatever and nobody comes. I’ve been at those parties before. Personally, I’m fine with people not showing up. I cleaned my house in preparation for company and I cooked and cooked and cooked. That means I won’t have to cook for a week. But when the Lord gave us His Son and then we crucified Him, I have always thought that was the worst. And yes, I know that Jesus had to die so that we might live, but give me a break. I mean, who did we think we were. And I’m using “we” collectively because just like slavery, we didn’t do that, it was our ancestors. But just like with Adam and Eve, we sometimes have to pay for the sins of those who came before us. Yeah, if I was the Lord God, I’d be pissed. Personally, I feel blessed that I wasn’t around at that time. I have a tendency to go along with a crowd so I’d probably have been there the entire time of the crucifixion. I would denounce it later but I’d be right in the middle of it I’m sure. Or I would be home saying something like “that doesn’t pertain to me”. I’m bad that way. If I was invited to the celebration though I would show up with bells on. Hopefully I would end up redeeming myself in some way. For this I pray.
Wiping away tears is hard work. Trying to appease a hysterical child, or adult even, is very hard. My 9 month old grandson is teething. This weekend he was really teething. No, he still doesn’t have a tooth but you can just tell that he is miserable. And when he gets overtired he is so fussy. Saturday night I had to stand and rock him back and forth for almost an hour to get him to sleep. At one point I felt a tear roll down his cheek onto my arm and I wanted to cry too. I wanted to cry for him. He was so miserable and there was nothing I could do. But the Lord having to wipe every tear that is being shed would be a huge a challenge. The problem with tears though is sometimes they don’t turn themselves off. As someone who cries on occasion, I do love having someone acknowledging my pain and holding me in their arms and allowing me to cry. But since crying cleanses the soul I am sure a celebration after that would be worth having.
I’ll not lie, I had to look up the meaning of “reproach of His people he will remove from the whole earth”. I will tell you that it’s not easy to change the minds and attitudes of a small group of people much less everyone on the face of the earth. But we do know that nothing is impossible with God. But, everyone has an opinion. Everyone has an attitude. Everyone has a timeline in which they come into their faith. This piece does not give a timeline. When the Lord is ready then He will make it happen. When Jesus walked the earth there was a lot of discourse. I’m sure there were those who followed Him for awhile but when they went home they heard the discourse, they heard the ‘tude. They might have talked about how wonderful it was to their neighbors and friends but in the end they acted like they didn’t believe in Christ. Those are the people who put Christ to death. Those are the ones who reproach the Lord.
I do believe that when it’s all said and done that there will be peace. If the Lord has to rid the earth of sinners and non-believers, like he did in Noah’s time, I can see that happening. I’m sure that there are some people who lived through or didn’t live through natural disasters this year, whether it was hurricanes or earthquakes or devastating fires. I can imagine some of those people feeling as though the end of the world was upon them. I can see that. But I can also see believing that the Lord would take care of all of this. He would be the one veering that hurricane a few degrees east (or west). He would be the one allowing one house to stand among all that perished in the fires. He would be the one who miraculously allowed someone to survive for days in a pile of rubble.
The Lord is high on the mountaintop and He watches over all of us, in every way. The sooner we come to believe that the sooner that we are sitting at the banquet table with a ribeye steak right off of the fire, sipping on a glass of wine. Today I know that is where my Lord is and I hope to see Him there again tomorrow. Tomorrow I would like to have chicken.