A meditation on Isaiah 55:1-3a
Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live.
From Genesis to Revelation, God constantly invites his people to something greater then themselves. He invites Abraham to leave his father’s household and journey to an unknown land. He calls an aged Moses from a burning bush and instructs him to lead his people to freedom from an oppressive nation. He calls Samuel when he was a boy and made him a prophet to his generation. He took David from tending a flock of sheep and appointed him as king over his people.
The invitation is different in Isaiah 55. It is not a summons to journey to a foreign country or call to a rescue mission. Neither is it a call to kingship or prophet-hood. Rather it beckons us with a simple plea: “Come.”
The recipients of this summons are the thirsty. They are invited to “come to the waters.” Imagine for a moment that you are in a desert wasteland. The sun glowers over you with burning hatred, your clothes are ragged and torn, your lips are chapped and your mouth, dry. For you, water is scarce, precious, life sustaining and giving. As soon as you sight an oasis from afar, you run and gulp it down in great draughts. Your body is refreshed from the weariness of travel and the sun’s unrelenting oppression. Your mind relaxes from the strenuous worries and anxieties of death by dehydration. Your heart renews from its dry and barren state and thoughts of hope return. All this happens because you quenched your thirst at the waters.
“Come…you who have no money, come, buy and eat!” These other recipients are classified as the poor. They are familiar with empty bellies. Their meager meals of stale bread and gravy do not satisfy their gnawing hunger pains. Perhaps they even scavenge for food in a nearby garbage can. Any invitation for food is welcomed, especially when it goes beyond their stale diet of bland, staple foods. Here God summons them to buy ‘wine and milk,’ symbolic of delight and nourishment. Here their bellies will be filled with the ‘richest of fare,’ a feast like none other.
Remember, they have no money. This feast is on God’s account, not theirs. He flips the proverbial bill for the ‘wine and milk.’ All he requires of you and I is found in the word, ‘Come.’ Come, just as we are, thirsty and poor, to drink and delight in Him.
Yet there is a question He asks to our hearts in this passage: “Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy?” This is better illustrated. Imagine you are poor. Every night you and your family crave a solid meal, something beyond your thin diet. Then one evening, someone slips a hundred dollars under your door. You take the money to the store but instead of buying bread and meat, a meal that will satisfy you and your family, you spend it on a new outfit or a video game. A new outfit is good but it will not satisfy your hunger. A video game can relieve stress but it will not stave off starvation.
Perhaps the problem in 21st century America is not that we are in a desert wasteland searching for water or on the streets of an inner city scavenging for food. No, we are far more vulnerable to drink from the shallow, muddy and barren wells to quench our thirst, then to visit the spring of living water. We would rather spend our money on potato chips and candy, things that only temporarily relieve our spiritual hunger pains, rather then a feast that satisfies. Such is our greatest problem.
Looking beyond water and food, it is very clear that the question asks, “Why do you go somewhere else to satisfy your deepest needs, other then God?” Facebook, friends, fashion, video games, entertainment with music, movies and movie stars all promise satisfaction but fail to fulfill.
Yet God is different. His promises are never shallow or empty.
His invitation summons us to ‘listen’ to him and ‘come’ to him. “Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good…listen that you may live” (2-3). God’s spoken word produces fruit in us. “Blessed is the one…whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates on his law day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season” (Psalm 1). His word strengthens us, even in our sorrows: “My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word” (Psalm 119:28). His word refreshes us: “The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul” (Psalm 19:7). His word sanctifies us. “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).
Listening to his word equals life: “They are not just idle words to you—they are your life” (Deuteronomy 32:47). His word imparts life. Jesus said, “The Spirit gives life…the words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life” (John 6:63). Peter assures us that God’s word brings rebirth, new life: “For you have been born again…through the living and enduring word of God.” Refusing his word only means death. A quick perusal of the Bible illustrates this: Pharaoh rejecting God’s command through Moses, the Israelites disobeying him again and again until they were finally exiled and the world in Revelation that refuses to repent of their ways.
God’s invitation is a summons to ‘listen’ and to ‘come.’ “Give ear and come to me.” He is the feast that fully satisfies. He is the water that quenches our terrible thirst. He alone satisfies. He refreshes and nourishes. He fulfills and fills us. God and nobody or no one else can or ever will. The Son of God emphasizes this when he says, “I am the Bread of life” (John 6:48) and “Let everyone who is thirsty come to me and drink” (7:37). Don’t go over there. Come to me. Don’t feast over there. Come to me. Don’t drink in a broken well. Come to me.
“Come.” It happens to be the final invitation at the end of the Bible: “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life” (Revelation 22:17).
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