“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.” – Isaiah 55:1
‘You who have no money, come buy and eat’ – The first question that comes to my mind when I read this is, how can a person with no money come and buy anything to eat or otherwise? …let alone the fancy and extravagant stuff that is represented by milk and wine in the text? It doesn’t say someone else is buying you food. You, who have no money, Isaiah says, come, buy and eat all of this fancy expensive food. How is that possible?
Earlier this year Sarah-Grace and I went to a Leafs game. (Now it is not my intent here to make fun of the Leafs…). It was a great experience and the Leafs won which was a blessing in and of itself but alongside that something else really stood out to me: How expensive a game is. Not just the tickets to the game (which were pricey enough) but also the concessions. We brought some money for food at the game but not enough, I don’t think. I wasn’t expecting $14 for a hotdog and prices going up from there! Can you imagine if the Leafs owned a fancy black tie restaurant: ‘I’ll have the special please’ ‘That will be $2000 plus a 20% gratuity, would you like something to drink with that?”
Our image in Verse 1 could be of God seeing you at the Maple Leafs game and not buying you food but rather giving you the money to buy a hotdog and a drink or even a side of fries or something more extravagant. And our image is even more than that. Our image in Isaiah is of a country that is very poor, possibly under siege, and about to be (if not already) conquered.[1] When a place is under siege there is almost nothing to eat so everything in the country and the city is REALLY expensive. And God in our text to Israel, He says, ‘come over here. I’ll give you the money to buy and eat.’ God gives you the money so that you – who have nothing, no money, no food, nothing - you can pay for your meal and not just any subsistence meal but God gives you enough money for a fancy meal represented by milk and wine.
Isaiah 55:1 - “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.”
This extravagant generosity reminds me of when I was in elementary school. I was a kid in the 70s. One day I had just gone for a haircut with my dad and I wasn’t too happy about it. I was not a big fan of short hair back then. After the haircut, my dad and I were looking around the mall where the barbershop was; there was a brand new toy store in the mall. We happened to run into my Great Great Aunt Emma. She sees us and, after checking with my dad, she tells me that I can pick out anything in the toy store and she will give me the money to buy it. I walk around the whole store, see a little monkey toy that I like and I pick it up. She tells me to look for something bigger, reminding me that I can have whatever I want. So I walk around the store again and tell her I still want that little toy monkey. My aunt speaks to my father and my father speaks to me – ‘Really Michael you can have anything in the store you want, anything.’ She points to the biggest and the most expensive things in the store and my father assures me that really it is okay, I can get whatever I want... I don’t need to pick the cheapest thing in the store just to be nice; I can pick whatever I want. The dilemma for me was that this monkey which was near the cheapest thing in the store was the toy that I actually wanted; so while everyone thought I was being polite to and self-sacrificing, I really just bought what I wanted with the money she gave me and I still have this monkey to this day and I still remember the generosity of God and my aunt to this day every time I see it.
Now, the rest of the toy store story is that a day or two before seeing my aunt in the store I had actually just spent my own saved up allowance to buy something more expensive from the same store and at some point I remember thinking, as we were walking around the store, ‘where were you last week before I spent my own money on the more expensive item?’ The previous week, I learned the value of working and saving for something you desire and this week I learned to appreciate the extravagance of Grace.
Isaiah 55:1: “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.”
This is great but then we have Verse 2. A picture here could be of God just having given you all the money you need to go buy this great meal – a fancy meal with all of the trimmings. You come back, you sit down at the table with God and you start to share this meal that God has given you the money to buy because you ‘needed it’ and then God says, ‘that’s a nice watch you have; is that a new coat? I don’t think I’ve seen scarf of yours before. How much did those shoes cost?’ Verse 2: ‘Why [do you] spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy?’ Why do you buy all that stuff with your money when you don’t even have enough for food – a nice watch, a fancy cappuccino, a night out at the movies, fancy shoes... ? ‘Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.’ God says, verses 3-4, ‘Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David. See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a ruler and commander of the peoples.” ‘Enjoy your meal. Remember the promises that I made to the people of the world through King David.’ God says, ‘I have given you, Israel, everything, just as I promised.’
But now we wade into some troubling waters. Imagine you, like Israel, were figuratively or even literally starving and you are at this meal that God has given you the money and encouragement to buy and eat, then God draws your attention to all of the other stuff you have spent your money on.[2] Imagine that you are sitting down at this feast that God has provided for you and for the whole world, for that matter, and He starts asking you, ‘why do you buy things other than food when there are people starving in our world? Why are you spending God’s time and money on things you don’t need when there are people starving for the Word of God in our world? And why are you spending our time indulging in stuff you do not need while the person beside you may be perishing?
Verse 2: God gives us all this stuff, letting us know that He has and will always provide for us and then asks us why we aren’t sharing the Good News of God and His generosity with others (Dt 31:5-8, Heb 13:5). And many interpreters read the next few verses 5-9, as a real warning that if we, like Israel, do not share this good news of God’s generosity with others we will in essence be standing up and removing ourselves from His banqueting table, even as others notice the feast before us and come to enjoy it in our place (cf. Matt 22:1-14).[3] Isaiah says to Israel:
5 Surely you will summon nations you know not,
and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel,
for he has endowed you with splendour.”
(God’s generosity to Israel will bring other nations to God but then He warns His people :)
6 Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
(Seek the Lord while He is here [cf. Mt 6:33]. The implication is if we do not seek Him, if we do not sit at His table with Him at His eternal feast, then we will not be there.) [4]
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
God has prepared this great banquet for us both for now and forever (cf. Matt 22:1-14). God has provided enough food, water, and everything for all of us in the world. God has provided a real Monday through Friday and Saturday and Sunday Salvation to the world. Temporally speaking, did you know that Canada alone has been given enough resources to feed and clothe the whole world? God has invited all of the nations of the earth to buy the food; He has provided but some people and some countries hoard the wealth God has given us and/or spend it on other things while grain, for one example, that could be exported to hungry people around the world rots on our docks.[5]
This is sad and this is true. But what is even more desperate and even more applicable than temporal starvation is eternal starvation: Canada has been given the Good News of Salvation. Canada was founded upon the Word of God. Our nation’s motto, ‘from Sea to Sea’ taken from Psalm 72:8 declares that in this nation God will have His dominion from sea to sea and that declaration was upheld at the establishment of the Order of Canada declaring, with Hebrews 11:16, of its members, “But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city.” And even more than that, The Constitutional Act itself declares that ‘Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.’
God has invited us collectively to sit at His table and to partake of His eternal covenant. He has paid for our meal, this extravagant feast of salvation, but each day and every generation more of our nation and in every congregation people seem to be standing up from the table and walking away from the feast as we choose to spend God’s money and God’s time on something other than the eternal banquet to which He has invited us (TSA d. 9). It has been 2 millennia since the money for supper was left at the cross; how sad it would be if our country, our community, our church, our family, or ourselves walk away from the eternal meal that God has provided and paid for us. If any of us have pulled away from the table or if we haven’t even arrived yet, I invite us to, like Verse 9 says, turn to God before it is too late - as long as you have breath in your body it is not too late (cf. Eccl 12:1-7)[6] - for as we turn and return to God, Verse 10ff.
10 As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
12 You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
(As we turn and return to God)
13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
that will endure forever.”
This is the love and the extravagant generosity of the Lord.
Isaiah 55:1: “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.”
That is the invitation to each of us today. God is calling all of us who are thirsty to come drink of this water of eternal life that those of us who drink of it will never thirst again (John 4:14). God has made and paid for our meal and He longs to share it with us for now and forever. And this very day God is walking with each and every one of us around the eternal toy store. He has already covered the cost for our salvation all we have to do is accept that gift and enjoy it now and for evermore. So today I invite each and every one of us to come, all you who are thirsty, come to Jesus and live.
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[1] Cf. Geoffrey W. Grogan, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Isaiah/Introduction to Isaiah/Authorship, Unity, and Date of Isaiah/The history of criticism of Isaiah, Book Version: 4.0.2
[2] Cf. Alastair Roberts, "The Politics of God’s Plenty—Isaiah 55:1" Political Theology Today, (Manye Publishing) 2014. http://www.politicaltheology.com/blog/the-politics-of-gods-plenty-isaiah-551-5/
[3] Cf. Christopher R. Seitz, ' The Book of Isaiah 40-66 ', NIB VI, (Abingdon Press: Nashville, Tenn., 2001), 481.
[4] Edouard Kitoko Nsiku , 'Isaiah', Africa Bible Commentary, (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publishers, 2010), 871.
[5] Cf for an American parallel, Walter Brueggemann, 'A Covenant of Neighbourly Justice: Break the Chains of Quid Pro Quo Isaiah 55:1-9' (ON Scripture - The Bible, Feb 28, 2016), on-line: http://www.onscripture.com/covenant-neighborly-justice-break-chains-quid-pro-quo#sthash.VNKENobF.dpuf
[6] Edouard Kitoko Nsiku , 'Isaiah', Africa Bible Commentary, (Nairobi, Kenya: Word Alive Publishers, 2010), 871.
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