Covenant With Death

SCRIPTURE: You boast, “We have entered into a covenant with death, with the realm of the dead we have made an agreement. When an overwhelming scourge sweeps by, it cannot touch us, for we have made a lie our refuge and falsehood our hiding place.” So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic. I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line; hail will sweep away your refuge, the lie, and water will overflow your hiding place. Your covenant with death will be annulled; your agreement with the realm of the dead will not stand. Isaiah 28:15-18 NIV

THOUGHT: One mighty change I have witnessed over my lifetime is the degrading of October 31. The fun, homemade costumes. The friendly neighborhoods where you knew the adults and the adults knew you and met you at the door with a smile, a treat, and sometimes a trick. Then came the razor blade scares. Then came the neighborhoods where people didn’t know each other and the cars full of children whose parents drove them around the city. Then came the scarier and scarier costumes (not to mention expensive), available because entire enterprises were spawned for only that. Along the way, Halloween began to slowly bleed away from October 31 into the rest of the year – horror and the occult as a genre of entertainment through movies, games, books, music and reality TV  that became consumables. Now, go into any big box retailer and find the human skull used as decoration. Kids’ pajamas. A planter for your ivy. A bumper sticker (or 6,000) for your truck. A conversation piece for your living room. A coloring book. A board game. Fabric for your next project. Just search Amazon for “skull” and the results number over 100,000, half that number come up for home décor alone.

And so, Isaiah 28 and God are speaking to me about a covenant with death that seems much more recent than ancient Israel. Do people believe an agreement with death will somehow save them? Are they buying into a lie, making agreements with the realm of the dead that God says he will sweep away?

What we have been given to treasure is a covenant with life. Hallelujah! Forget Halloween in its current state – I’m moving on to Easter.

PRAYER: Oh God, thank you for your offer of a covenant at all. Your promise of life to sinful, broken humanity. Your cornerstone, our sure foundation.