https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20261015dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.” Isaiah 25:9 Relief At the Johnson Space Center in Houston, you can see one of the most famous rooms of the 20th Century. “Mission Control” is the room where row after row of engineers and specialists worked day and night to support the Apollo moon landings. It’s also the site of one of the greatest moments of pure relief in American history. On April 17, 1970, the three astronauts of Apollo 13 were about to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. Their spacecraft had suffered catastrophic damage four days earlier, and Mission Control worked around the clock to do what needed to be done to bring them home. Everyone in the room understood that there would be a four-and-a-half-minute blackout in communication with the astronauts during re-entry. Everyone also understood that if the astronauts did not respond after four and a half minutes, their spacecraft had probably burned up and they had perished. The blackout began. One minute. Two minutes. Three and then four. Four and a half. Silence. Five minutes. Five and a half. Nothing. Six minutes. Then, crackling on the radio static, an astronaut’s cheerful voice. At the sound of that voice, all the pent-up anxiety and stress and grief and fear melted away in an explosion of relief and joy. In Isaiah chapter 25, God’s people are hurting. Life has left them feeling bruised, broken, fearful, anxious—and guilt-ridden because of their sin. And so, God points them to his promises. He points them to the full forgiveness he will secure on their behalf. And he points them to the relief and joy they will one day savor with him forever. In our day-to-day lives, you and I feel the wounds, scars, burdens, and cuts of living in this fallen world. Our sins haunt us. Our failures vex us. When they do, remember why Jesus came. Our forgiveness is secure. He has already done what had to be done to bring us safely home. And when that day comes, the relief and joy we savor with him will last forever. Prayer: Remind me, Lord, of the eternal relief and joy that await. Remind me that, in you, all is well. Amen.   Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20261014dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces. Isaiah 25:8 The Tears Tears of grief are an extraordinary gift of God. The more researchers have studied tears of grief, the more extraordinary we recognize them to be. When someone close to you dies, your brain undergoes trauma. After all, up to this moment the wiring of your brain has included this person in the very fabric of your life. Death tears that piece of fabric away. To help deal with such trauma, God equipped your body to shed tears of grief. These tears arise for a very different reason from the tears you shed when, for instance, you get a bit of sawdust in your eye. Scientists are still learning exactly how emotional crying affects the body, but it appears to be connected with the body’s natural response to stress and emotional pain. Crying can be part of the process by which the body gradually settles after intense distress. It’s no accident, therefore, that individuals grappling with grief often report feeling calmer or experiencing a measure of relief after they’ve had “a good cry.” As helpful as tears of grief are, however, the Lord gives us far more than a temporary fix. He addresses death itself – the cause of our grief. He points us ahead to the moment when there will be “no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain” (Revelation 21:4). Enter Jesus. He is the one who, according to Isaiah, “has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). God the Son became one of us. He lived among us. He wept with us. And through it all, he lived a life of perfect faithfulness on our behalf. Then he set his sights on the very cause of death. He set his sights on our sin. He took up our sin. He carried our sin to the cross. And through his suffering and death, he paid for our sin in full. And now he lives. And because he does, the tears of our grief are temporary. Eternal life awaits. The tears of grief will soon give way to the tears of joy. Prayer: In my tears of grief, Lord, remind me that they will not last. Eternal joy awaits. Amen.   Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/daily-devotions/20261013dev.mp3 Listen to Devotion On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations. Isaiah 25:7 The Shroud For thousands of years, people have used a shroud to bury their dead. A shroud is a type of cloth that covers the body. There are practical reasons for using a shroud. Wrapping a body in one helps stabilize it, making it easier to carry. A shrouded body is more sanitary to handle. Most important, however, is that the shroud is a way by which family members could give the body of their loved one a level of dignity and respect. From time immemorial, therefore, the shroud has been a symbol for death. In paintings, literature, poetry, and song, artists have used the word “shroud” to describe things that are dark, foreboding, tragic, inevitable. But then along comes the Lord Almighty, through the prophet Isaiah. He sees our world—the world our sin has ruined. He sees our world of decay, our world of disease, our world of injury and broken bones and violence and accidents and natural disasters and old age and decline and death. He sees it all. Then he makes a stunning promise. He promises to destroy the shroud. He promises to ensure that the shroud of death does not have the final word. Seven centuries after Isaiah’s words, God himself came to this earth in the person of Jesus Christ. He came to destroy the power of death. To do so, he lived a sinless life on our behalf. Then he took the cause of death—our sin—and paid for it on the cross. Then he died. After his death, loving hands covered his body in a shroud and placed it in a tomb. But the cross, the tomb, and the shroud did not have the final word. Three days later, the tomb was empty, and so was the shroud. And so let the world around us continue to speak of the finality of the shroud, the casket, and the cremation urn. You and I know better. Jesus lives. And in him, we will too. Prayer: Lord Jesus, you are the death of death. Praise be to your holy name. Amen.   Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.