It was a Morning Like Ths!

For Easter Sunday, here's a reprise of my post from Septeber 17.

Isaiah saw it coming. He saw the morning dew as a fore-shadowing, a sign from the earth that can’t keep its secret, a hint to anyone who is listening between the lines, a promise of resurrection.

Many Biblical scholars maintain that Israel had no theology of life beyond death until shortly before the time of Christ. But eight hundred earlier Isaiah had a vision:

Your dead will live;

their bodies will rise.

You who dwell in the dust,

wake up and shout for joy.

Your dew is like the dew of the morning;

the earth will give birth to her dead.

Isaiah 26:19

Perhaps Isaiah simply foresaw the restoration of Israel after her exile in Babylon. But I have a hunch there was more. In an earlier vision he saw the shroud of Death unraveling.

The LORD Almighty will destroy
the shroud that enfolds all peoples;
he will swallow up death forever,
and wipe away the tears from all faces.
Isaiah 25:7-8

Isaiah had an intuition: if God is almighty, death and disgrace will not have the last word. If God is good and faithful, the unanswered hopes and dreams of the righteous on earth, that those who call out to God in their distress (literally those who “could barely whisper a prayer” (Isaiah 26:16), will eventually be heard. God will listen and the earth will “give birth to her dead.”

It’s a vision that the dead will rise dew-drenched in the freshness of a resurrection morning. What a prospect - but don't just think distant future.

Jesus was the first tremor of this new creation, slipping out of his shroud at sunrise that first Easter. Then a train-load of others stretching farther than the horizon, 'risen with Christ', tasting the fresh dew of Life even in mortal bodies, living by the code of Christ, anticipating the ultimate Awakening!

What a prospect! Shuffle through the early morning grass in a cemetery and the earth will soak your sandals with its secret. The whole creation groans with anticipation of that morning when Life will triumph over Death.

Better yet, let the morning dew awaken in you the joy of Life today.

Happy Easter!