Clouds and the Covering Over

dark cloud cover

Here in the PNW when you look outside in the morning and discover that the clouds have disappeared and the sky is blazing blue, you get such a lift. Suddenly, you are alive, full of energy. 

This happened to me this morning. And then a little later I read this in the Bible: "And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever" (Isaiah 25:7-8).

Death is that covering that is cast over all. And it is going to disappear just like our clouds do. How and why did the covering get there, and how and why will it be removed?

This old earth had a beginning and it will have an end. Death is the result of what happened at the beginning, the turning away from God to go our own way. But God did not wash his hands of us. He came to earth, taking on human identity, met death face to face, and triumphed over it. Because Jesus rose from the dead, all humanity will rise as well—those who love Jesus to everlasting life, those rejecting him to everlasting condemnation. 

​That is what Easter is all about!

"For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.' 'O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?' (I Corinthians 15:52-55)

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