DRINK UP

 

March 15, 2024

Isaiah 55:1-7

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.
Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know,
and a nation that did not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.
Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

DRINK UP

We end our week of reflections with a reading that is a clear call to come to the spring of living waters. We find in verses 2 and 3 that this water is the word of God. The invitation is to drink deeply: to receive the word, reason with it, delight in it, to listen to it like never  before. “Listen diligently” (v. 2) is literally, “Listen-listen!” a call for undivided and sustained attention. Ultimately, this word is meant to save them (v. 3), transform them (v. 7), and make them a blessing to the entire world (v. 5). They are being called into communion with their compassionate God (v. 7).

What an amazing passage. The story of grace, the word that saves and transforms and blesses. Who would not want in on that?

In these verses, the Holy One of Israel is crying out through Isaiah, pleading with his people on the eve of destruction to return to the true fountain of life. Yet, they refuse to hear him. They are as Isaiah 6:9 says “ever hearing, but never understanding; ever seeing, but never perceiving.”

One of the important focuses of Lent is it is a time for us to admit the same tendencies displayed by Isaiah’s audience. For reasons conscious and less conscious, we are prone to neglect God’s word, and ultimately, God himself. “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,” we admit in the worship song.

I believe in our reading today there is the implication that time apart from the Scriptures results in a kind of “spiritual amnesia”, we forget that God’s word is “more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.” (Psalm 19:10). The period of Lent is an invitation for us to see Jesus as the woman at the well came to see him, as the unlimited satisfaction for our thirsty souls. Lent is our invitation to return to that well and drink deeply.

Remember what Jesus said to the Women by the well? “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:14). So. Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters!!

LET US PRAY

Gracious God, in compassion you call us. By your mercy, open our ears to hear your voice, remove the scales from our eyes and open for us the wonders of your word. Be our delight. Be our satisfaction. We are yours, Lord. In Jesus Name, Amen.