On this mountain the Lord will provide a feast of juicy, rich food
and pure, choice wines.
I once asked a colleague at work named Steve to read this entire passage from Isaiah 25 at a prayer service I organized. A self-proclaimed secular Jew, Steve read the passage with as much gusto as if he were doing a voiceover for an ad for one of New York's finest restaurants. You couldn't get more convincing!
The Advent liturgical readings are full of such passages describing and promising God's awesome, incredible bounty: Old Testament readings such as the above; Gospels about Jesus going into major overtime healing people. We each need to receive this news with as much enthusiasm as Steve when he read this passage. God, the generous Giver of the original "Free Gift." The mountaintop banquet promised by that most beautiful of prophets comes with some incomparable party favors: Death will be destroyed and every tear will be wiped away. Whatever has caused tears in your life--and only you know what that is--will be blotted out. Annihilated. God will come to save you, save all the people who have been looking out for him, and all will rejoice, "for the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain."
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