April 1, 2018 “God’s Joke” – Isaiah 25:6-9

Isaiah 25:6-9
“God’s Joke”
April 1, 2018 – Easter

[Only a small portion, at the end, of the audio for this sermon, with translation, was recorded.]

Two fishermen went to a lake, rented a boat and went fishing. They found a place on the lake where the fish were really biting well. So one of them took a marker and made a big “X” on the bottom of the boat.

“Why did you do that?” his friend asked.

“So we can find this same spot when we come back,” said the first fisherman.

“That’s stupid!” replied the other. “What if we don’t get the same boat next time?”

You might ask, “Why is the pastor telling a dumb joke on Easter Sunday?” The answer is partly that it is April Fools’ day, a day for jokes. But the bigger answer is that Easter is God’s joke, His greatest joke. When God planted the Cross of Jesus, God’s great “X,” upon the mountain of Calvary, He set up a joke which fooled everyone. It especially fooled our worst enemy. The Cross and Resurrection of Christ our Lord fooled Satan.

For our friends here from Mexico, you may remember a day like April Fools’ Day on December 28, Santos Inocentes. It’s very similar. People play tricks and pranks on each other and sometimes tell or write silly stories, like the one I put in the bulletin today about having to find your brunch food in hidden Easter eggs. In both countries this fooling around is mostly all in good fun and should not be mean. But God’s joke on Easter is serious. His great trick was to take something terrible, Jesus dying on a mountaintop, and make it something wonderful, our eternal salvation.

That’s why Isaiah 25:6 says that God is going to make a great feast for everyone on top of a mountain. He took a mountain where death and sadness happened and made it into a place of life and joy for all people. That’s why we come to worship and then eat a wonderful feast of Mexican and American food today. God has turned death into life and sadness into joy through what Jesus did on the mountain for us.

Isaiah 25:7 tells us that on that mountain God will destroy the shroud, the sheet that covers all people on earth. That shroud is a burial cloth, the cloud of death that hangs over everyone. And that is what Jesus did. When He died on the Cross and was wrapped in His own burial clothing, Jesus was destroying death. Jesus killed death by dying and then rising again. Death was dead when Jesus stepped out of those burial cloths. That’s why we heard John tell us today that he and Peter found those cloths just lying there, left behind.

It was God’s great joke, the greatest trick the world has ever seen. As we also read in John 20, Mary thought the trick was on her. When she came and found Jesus’ tomb empty, she thought the gardener or someone else had taken His body. She thought somebody had fooled her by moving the body of Jesus and not telling her where. So she cried.

But Isaiah 25:8 says that “the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces.” And that’s just what He did for Mary. She was crying there in the garden when Jesus found her and could not resist having a little fun with her. He asked her whom she was looking for. But when she thought Jesus was the gardener and she asked Him where the body was, Jesus quit fooling around. He said her name, “Mary,” and suddenly all her tears were gone. She was filled joy.

That’s the trick Jesus wants to play for all of us. He wants to take our death and turn it into life. He wants to take our sadness and turn it into joy. He wants to take away the shroud that keeps us in darkness and bring us out into His wonderful light. So Jesus Christ the Son of God died on the Cross and rose again on the third day to make this great trick happen, to bring happiness and laughter to the whole world, to everyone who believes in Him. That’s God’s joke.

I like to fish. That’s another reason why I started with a fishing joke today. So I really like how ancient Christians used to say that the trick of the Cross was like God going fishing, with Jesus as the bait. Jesus came into the world looking like an ordinary man, a human being who would die like everyone else. That was the bait. Satan grabbed the bait when he got evil people to try and kill Jesus, to crucify Him. But when Jesus did not stay dead, when He rose again, Satan was hooked. The devil was caught and his power over us was destroyed forever.

The end of Isaiah 25:7 says that “he will swallow up death forever.” God’s great joke is that when the devil and death took the bait of Jesus, when they tried to swallow Him, God swallowed up them. Jesus is alive and death is dead.

Yes, we still struggle. We still sin. We still die. But in the end, those things no longer have any power over us. When you believe that Jesus died and rose again for you, you are no longer under that dark shroud. It was Satan that got caught by God’s great joke through Jesus and you are set free.

I tried to find some jokes in Spanish for today, but I only remember one. I imagine some of you learned it when you were children. It goes, “What does a fish do?” The answer in Spanish is “Nada.” Those of you don’t speak Spanish may know that nada means “nothing,” but the joke is that it also means “it swims.” It’s a cute children’s joke, but it’s also a really good joke for getting the point I’m trying to make.

When God played His joke on Satan, when He hooked the devil by offering His Son Jesus as bait on the Cross, God made the devil and He made death into fish that can do nada. When you trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, Satan can do nothing that will harm you in the long run. When you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, there is nothing death can do to you that will last. God raised Jesus and God will raise you up with Him, setting you free from sin and death. There is nothing to fear any longer in this world because Christ is risen.

That’s why verse 9 of Isaiah 25 tells us, “It will be said on that day, ‘Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited.’” God’s people in Israel waited for Him. They waited for Jesus. He came and then He died on the Cross and they waited a little while longer, until the third day. Then Jesus rose from the dead and His disciples said, “Lo, this is our God.” We heard Mary recognize Him there in the garden. Read on in John and you will hear how the other disciples, especially Thomas, recognized Him and said “My Lord and my God!”

Isaiah concludes verse 9 with what to do when we recognize that Jesus is the Lord for whom we have waited, for whom everyone has waited, “let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” Christ is risen! He has hooked the devil and destroyed death. You and I will live forever with Him. So it’s time to rejoice. It’s time to laugh with joy at God’s marvelous joke. Like Psalm 118:24 said, “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

So I hope you will rejoice and laugh a little today, not just because it is April Fools’ day, but because it is the day of resurrection, the day God played the best joke of all on the whole world and brought us life and salvation. As we sit around tables with lots of food, like that rich feast Isaiah saw on the mountain, be glad and laugh with each other. Maybe tell some jokes. Christ is risen and it really is a laughing matter, a time to be filled with deep and everlasting joy.

Please don’t forget, though, as you rejoice and laugh, and celebrate life and salvation in Jesus, that there are many people in the world who are not laughing yet. That shroud of death and darkness and sin still covers them. They still need to hear what you have heard, that Christ is risen and there is life and joy in Him. Please remember to pray for them and tell them, if you have the chance, the best joke of all, the joke at which everyone can laugh because God made it happen for them too. Tell them about Jesus.

Right now, let us thank Jesus for dying and rising so that we can die and rise with Him and bring that good news to others. Let us praise Him with all our hearts. Let us rejoice and be glad. Let us enjoy God’s joke.

Amen.