Come and Dine (Isa. 55:1-3)

Bible passages are familiar to us for different reasons. We make like Psalm 23 because our granny used to sing it, or we may recall singing Psalm 121 in school. Isaiah 55 is familiar to me because I had to learn it by heart in Sunday School – for a period of several weeks I had to repeat one or two verses from it. At the time, it meant nothing to me, but I am glad today that I learned it because it is still there in my memory whereas other things that I imagined were important at that time – such as the latest pop songs – have disappeared from my memory. So what is this chapter about that I am glad to know its contents.

The divine invitation

Isaiah is acting here as God’s spokesman inviting people to come to a rich feast. Of course, he is using an illustration to depict the provision that is on the gospel table, and we will think of some of them later on. To begin with, we will focus on those whom God invites to his feast.

Two types of people are invited and they are described as the thirsty and the bankrupt. It is possible that an individual could be marked by both features or that he may only have one of them. One detail we should note is that neither type of person is inactive.

In a hot country like Israel, thirst would be very common. It is likely that everyone would be thirsty at some stage of every day. It did not matter who they were – rich or poor, young or old, man or woman, adult or child, beautiful or ugly, healthy or ill, resident or alien – they would be affected by the thirst. When the thirst would come, the individuals would look for relief, and hopefully they would be close to a well or a fountain where water would be found or near to a location where milk or wine would be provided.

There is a thirst of the body, which we have just described, and there is also a thirst of the soul. When the body is thirsty, the only remedy is a liquid; when the soul is thirsty, the only remedy is God. A person became physically thirsty because he or she did not have a liquid to hand – if they had been able to drink regularly, they would not have been thirsty. And a person becomes spiritually thirsty when God is not resorted to in order to relieve the thirst.

Why are we thirsty in a spiritual sense? Why is God not with us? The answer is that we are sinners who don’t want him near us. It is not that he has moved away – after all, he is omnipresent. Yet although he is everywhere, we can find ways of keeping him at a distance. Those ways may vary, but they are effective. There is a distance between us and the omnipresent God. But while we may not wish to speak to him, he likes to speak to us, and here he gives an invitation to the thirsty to come and lose their thirst forever.

Then there is the other illustration, of a person with no resources. In other words, he has become poor because he has spent all that he may have had on the wrong things. And even when he does get some money, he wastes it again, and the process keeps repeating itself. The illustration reminds us that accumulation of everything that the world offers will leave us poor in God’s sight. Spiritual poverty marks every person who has not believed in Jesus. In other ways, they may be regarded as quite wealthy, but they have nothing in the accounts of the Bank of Heaven.

Yet to such comes this amazing invitation to partake of the plenty that is on the table. What are the qualifications for coming to this feast? Strangely, the qualifications are that you are thirsty and bankrupt. These are the only sinners that God will provide a feast for. So the heart of the issue is whether or not we recognise that we are in those categories. It is important that God does not give the invitation to those who are very thirsty or to those who are very bankrupt. Inserting the word ‘very’ makes the description meaningless. A person is either thirsty or he is not; he is either bankrupt or he is not. Some people are under the illusion that they have to feel very bad before they can come to God and be converted. You don’t have to know that you are very bad; all you need to know is that you are bad. It all depends on what you do with your knowledge.

How does a person buy when he has money? He asks the shopkeeper if he can buy the product. How does a person buy if he has no money? He asks the heavenly shopkeeper if he can have for nothing what is available. How does a person who is thirsty get a drink? He asks the person who owns the well or the person who is selling the wine and milk for a drink. The obvious aspect of this is that the way to receive from God is simple and straightforward. God tells you to come and speak to him.

The searching question

Isaiah then describes God as asking for an explanation for the failure of bankrupt people to persist in doing that which keeps them in poverty. In everyday life, a poor person may get temporary employment and spend the little he earns on something inadequate. When he does so, it means that his wage is wasted and his work was a waste of time.

Why does God ask the person who so behaves to think about his actions? The answer is obvious – his actions are exceptionally foolish. This would be the case in everyday life, and it is also the case, but much worse, in our spiritual life. What answers would they give to God in response? One might say that he likes the poor diet he has absorbed and another might say that it is his choice if he wants to waste his working hours. Such answers only confirm that when it comes to our spiritual priorities, we are acting as people who have lost our reason, that we do not know what damage we are doing to ourselves.

Of course, someone might respond by saying that he did not know what was available on God’s table. After all, it does not say very much if all we say is that there is proper food on God’s table. It is a bit like saying ‘come to Jesus’ without saying why or by explaining what ‘coming’ means. Sadly, it is possible to make a gospel statement into a mantra or a cliché. So we can take a look at what is on the gospel table.

What happens at the table?

We can see from the invitation that the table is a place for eating an enjoyable meal and having a stimulating conversation with the Lord. God wants us to eat while he speaks to us about important issues. So what can we eat at this table? We can only mention some of the courses.

Course number one is called the forgiveness of our sins. This should appeal to our taste because we all have things we regret saying or doing, or regret not saying or doing. The theologians call them sins of commission and sins of omission as far as God is concerned, but then we can also be guilty of similar sins against our neighbour. Some people say they dislike skeletons, but most people have skeletons in the cupboards of their minds. How can I get rid of this sense of guilt and regret that I carry round with me?

Course number two is called arriving in heaven when we die. We could say that this is the sweet course because everyone wants it and thinks that it will suit their taste. In our minds, we say to ourselves that we would like to reach that destination because we have heard about it from so different people. And it sounds so much better than the alternative that people speak about it. So we would like to know more about it. Yet we will find that the courses are connected and we will only value this one if we have appreciated the others, especially the one concerning forgiveness. We find as we eat that heaven is only for forgiven people.

Course number three is called discovering likeminded people who love one another and want to be with one another. It is a rather long name, but it does describe an important feature of the diet that God provides. This course appeals to the lonely and the broken-hearted, who have found life to be so very hard, and find that behind the smiles there is a great deal of indifference around. They wonder if there is a community in which no one is regarded as a stranger and an outcast. And there is one such community, the church.

Course number 4 is called the source of secret strength. It is designed to help those who have to face the impossible every day, but who confess that all they have tried so far does not help them with their burdens. While they would like to lose their burdens, they also would say that if it is not possible to lose it, then if only they could have strength from somewhere to go through each day. They look around and those in the church seem to have it.

As they sit at the table, they can see these and other courses, but they all seem unconnected. Then God starts to speak and he tells them to listen intently to what he has to say. He assures them that if they listen to him they will find the key to everything. And what does he speak about? Or should we ask, ‘About whom does he speak?’ He speaks about Jesus, his Son, described here as the descendant of David with whom God made an everlasting covenant. He is the key to understanding the four courses already mentioned.

We can know forgiveness because Jesus died on the cross to provide it for us. He had to endure the wrath of God against those sins, yet he lovingly endured the penalty because he knew that when he did forgiveness would become a reality. In Jesus, we also find the way to heaven – he is the way, the truth and the life, and he is engaged presently in preparing a home for those who reach heaven. It is in Jesus that we find the key for a community of love as he spreads abroad his peace and stimulates loving fellowship among his people. And Jesus provides them with daily strength for whatever they need – in fact, his strength becomes more obvious the weaker we actually are in our needs.

It is obvious from what God says in our text that he is concerned about the quality of our hearing. He tells us to listen diligently and to incline our ear in order to attend to his invitations to the feast and his explanations about his chosen Servant. So, have we been listening to what he has said? The proof that we have will be that we make our way to God and ask for mercy.

As he speaks to us, the Lord wants us to speak back to him. He has told us what he thinks of Jesus and now he wants us to tell him what we think of Jesus. It is the case that he will listen with delight to what we have to say about the Saviour. So, let us take the invitation to heart and go and speak with God.