“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to Me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, My steadfast, sure love for David.” - Isaiah 55: 1 - 3 ESV
Isaiah son of Amoz is often thought of as the greatest of the writing prophets. His name means “The Lord saves.” He was a contemporary of Amos, Hosea and Micah, beginning his ministry in 740 B.C, the year King Uzziah died. Isaiah wrote during the stormy period marking the expansion of the Assyrian empire and the decline of Israel. He warned Judah that her sin would bring captivity at the hands of Babylon. Although the fall of Jerusalem would not take place until 586 B.C, Isaiah forth tells the destruction of Judah and proceeds to predict the restoration of the people from captivity. God would redeem his people from Babylon just as He rescued them from Egypt, a deliverance that prefigured the greater salvation from sin through Christ.
Chapters 55 - 57 of Isaiah are often referred to as the Gospel of Isaiah. Why? Because they bring a message of love. A message of hope. A message promising a future. Even as we ponder on this portion today, I submit to you that there is nothing more misunderstood than the Gospel of Christ. Because the magnanimity of the meaning of the word gospel itself is misunderstood.
You see, we’ve over thousands of years reduced the gospel to be about everything from a mere insurance policy post death to a magic mantra that gives us everything we want in this life. Yet, no matter what we believe the gospel to be, at the heart of our struggles to understand and make sense of the Gospel is one question - what does it take for God to love His people / His creation? The answer I would like to submit to you is - Nothing! You heard me right - it is Nothing!
Let’s examine these verses to understand as to why that is the case. Let’s start with the seeming paradox in these verses.
Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Come buy without cost this verse tells us. What is to buy without cost? I mean if it’s free, it’s there for the taking right? Not exactly. For nothing is ever truly free.
Seneca the Younger, a Roman philosopher who lived during Christ time on earth is known to have said, “Our stupidity may be clearly proven by the fact that we hold that “buying” refers only to the objects for which we pay cash, and we regard as free gifts the things for which we spend our very selves….we are eager to attain them at the cost of anxiety, of danger, and of lost honour, personal freedom, and time; so true it is that each man regards nothing as cheaper than himself.” From this piece of wisdom my dear brothers and sisters stems the modern day idiom - “There is no free lunch!”
You see, Seneca articulated what most of us unwillingly accept in our everyday lives - that we can’t get something for nothing. At the very least we end up giving up ourselves or our souls in return for the thing we would deem free. Yet, from God’s perspective, that is the highest price to pay. Why are we so willing to part with the most significant piece of us? Because we’re trying to fill a gap, a hole in us, a thirst.
We try everything in life to quench our thirst, our longing, to find satisfaction. We try to find it in our careers, our pursuits of knowledge, our personal relationships, our belongings, wealth, power, glory. Yet we feel empty. We feel something missing. We try to immerse ourselves in other ways to fill our emptiness, we try to dissuade our senses with drugs, alcohol, we surround ourselves with people who mean nothing and we only perpetuate our empty condition, if anything, making it worse! We find that through it all Life is Vanity, Not Profitable, Unnecessarily Busy, Vexing the Human Spirit, all ending up in Death. The worst part is despite knowing this truth, we continue to perpetuate this cycle; as if refusing to acknowledge it would somehow change things for us.
It was hence, 350 years after Christ, Augustine wrote, “For Thou hast formed us for Thyselves and our hearts are restless, till they find rest in Thee.”
This bring us to the next part of this scripture portion which reads,
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
One of my favourite books of the Bible is Ecclesiastes. Because, the whole message of Ecclesiastes is to point people back to God. Just like the prophets did. Just like our Lord Jesus did. Jesus used the culture and traditions of His time, of water being used during rituals in the feast of Tabernacles to tell people that If anyone thirsts, they should go to him and drink, referring to John 7: 37. Jesus was in essence giving meaning to the very portion we’re dealing with today.
During the 17th century, Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, scientist and inventor wrote in his book Pensees, “What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.” This statement gave rise to the popular expression, “The God shaped hole in your heart that only God can fill.” He wrote to people who were thirsty, who were empty and whom he knew were struggling with God at an intellectual level, pointing them back to God and telling them that only God could fill their emptiness; very much like Ecclesiastes does.
Which then leads us on to our 3rd verse:
Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.
In verse 3, God tells us what the reality is behind all this imagery in the previous 2 verses.
In verse 1, we’re told to, “Come to the waters . . . come, buy wine and milk.” In verse 3, God explains, “Come to me.” Because God is our living water. God is our nourishing milk. God is our exhilarating wine.
It is hence the Psalmist would write, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25–26; 42:1–2; 63:1–3).
But we can be even more specific. He goes on to say in verse 3 that when we come to Him, He makes a covenant with us. What kind of covenant? The same kind of covenant that he made with King David in 2 Samuel 7 — a covenant of “steadfast, sure love.” This means that, when you come to God, He binds himself by an unbreakable oath to pursue you with goodness and mercy all your days right into eternity — with ever-refreshing water, and ever-strengthening milk, and ever-exhilarating wine, forever and ever!
Which brings us to a practical question - Is God’s love for us conditional or unconditional? The answer is yes, it is both.
Buddha is famously known to have said to his disciples as he died, to continue ‘Striving without Ceasing.’ Strive for what? For peace, for tranquility, for Nirvana and to reach the ultimate form of life; where one would finally be accepted into the Supreme Consciousness. In stark contrast, Jesus would say, “It is finished!” You see, on the Cross, Jesus fulfilled the conditions for us to have God’s love unconditionally. And hence verse 1 tells us to buy without cost.
Amazing paradox in the imagery in this portion. It is expensive to Jesus, but free to you. Jesus saying, “It is finished!” is to say that He has traversed every inch of the infinite distance between God and us. There’s nothing left for us to do but to admit… that you need what He has done. To admit that we are that sinful, that we’re that lost and yet we can be that loved. You see, our pride won’t admit that free love is possible. Because we innately understand that nothing is free. So, we’re suspicious of even this invitation of free love that God is willing to give us.
Yet, if we realize that, God’s act on the Cross and our admittance in submission is the biggest cost we have to bear, hearing God’s voice then transforms us from slaves into children and our duty becomes a choice. It’s in knowing that this love was expensive for God so that it could be made free for us, that we understand that this love is conditional and yet unconditional. It is therefore that we’re to buy at no cost; for He bought it for us. So now, we continue buying for the cost He has already paid.
And this my dear brothers and sisters is the heart of the gospel. What do I need to attain God’s love? Have Nothing! All we need is need! All we need is nothing! That we have nothing! We need to be willing to accept that we can’t earn God’s love. But therein lies the problem. Most people don’t have nothing. We’re still attempting to buy spiritual blessings with our earthly possessions. We can’t see beyond what we can qualify / quantify and even without realizing it, we try to propagate a gospel that couldn’t be farther away from the heart of what God intended. As a result, we attempt to buy God’s love by doing things or be a particular way.
We come to God with all our baggage, refusing to let go of our pride, our egos, our heads crowded with our thoughts on how our lives should be, what God owes us, our wants, our struggles, our passions, our failures and our disappointments in Him; instead of just coming to Him to enjoy His love. Our hands, our minds and our lives are so full, we have no place to receive the blessings He has to give us.
Though we’re called to just come and enjoy, we find even that task too much to bear, because to start with most times; we fail to even just show up - without nothing!
Reminds me of the words of the beautiful hymn, Just As I Am, Without One Plea:
Stanza 1 reads
Just as I am, without one plea,
but that thy blood was shed for me,
and that thou bidst me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Stanza 3 reads
Just as I am, though tossed about
with many a conflict, many a doubt,
fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Stanza 6 reads
Just as I am, thou wilt receive,
wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve;
because thy promise I believe,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
The gospel my dear brothers and sisters is much more than a post death insurance policy for another world or even a mantra to get all we want in this life. The gospel calls us to seek to live out the gospel daily as local covenanted communities of disciples, make more disciples, and serve our neighbors. In doing so, we confront the kingdom of darkness and extend God’s rule in our lives, communities, and nations. May we take up our cross and imitate our King and make all nations imitate him.
Imagine with me, schools, farms, government, companies, entertainment houses, etc., are filled with disciples who understand and live out the gospel. We are called to serve our King in all spheres of culture and life so that people and the patterns of the former kingdom of darkness are transformed into the patterns of the kingdom of light. (Romans 1:1,2)
Therefore we’re reminded by these scripture portion today to do 4 things:
- Come,
- Buy without Cost,
- Eat and Drink,
- Enjoy.
Now, each of us is somewhere in the space of one of these four steps outlined earlier. In response to what we’re called to do by these verses, we need to examine our hearts and our lives:
- If you don’t know God or are distant from God, you need to come, draw near.
- If you have drawn near in recent days or just this morning, but hold back from any transaction analyzing and appraising, you need to buy. I admit it is a strange transaction: there is no price and you are spiritually bankrupt. But you must take this water and milk and wine, and count it yours just as much as if you had bought it, for there is one who has bought it on your behalf.
- If you have made the transaction and hold the water and milk and wine in your hand, you need to eat. God is a person to be experienced. He is food and life and joy for the soul.
- Finally, if you have eaten, delight yourself in the Lord. And say with the psalmist, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).
Painting Courtesy: Unknown Artist