Daily Manna · Day 363 · December 29
Death Swallowed in Victory
“He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.”
Henry Lyte, an English minister, preached his last sermon to his church at Brixham in September 1847. He was already very ill, and he died that November. He left behind a hymn, "Abide with Me." One of its verses says: "I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless; ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness. Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?"
Lyte was not asking that question just for effect. He was quoting the Bible, and he knew exactly where the question came from.
To see it, look at what Isaiah is describing, because the setting is a meal. "The LORD of hosts" makes "a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees," and He makes it "unto all people." At that table, the first thing God destroys is a covering: "he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations." Many readers see a burial shroud here, the cloth wrapped around the dead. The picture is of that cloth being lifted off the whole human race in the middle of a banquet.
Then look at the verbs. "He will swallow up death in victory." That is a strong, physical way to say it. Death is not bargained with or explained away. It is swallowed, the way it has swallowed everyone else. The Hebrew says it is swallowed up for ever, and Paul, quoting the line in Greek, says "in victory"; both are true. Centuries later Paul reaches for this very line when he writes about the resurrection, and the question Lyte sang comes right after it: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Next, "the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces." That admits the tears are real and still falling, and it puts the wiping in God's own hand instead of leaving it to time. Last of all, "the rebuke of his people shall he take away." The rebuke is the shame and disgrace God's people have carried, the kind that nobody quite says out loud.
All of this is still in the future. Pretending otherwise helps nobody who is sitting beside an empty chair.
What is settled already is whose hand will do the wiping. The God who prepares the feast will wipe your tears Himself, and you can count on it, "for the LORD hath spoken it."
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 363 is A New Song (Psalm 98:1).