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“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!” (Is 55:1a), God issues His free-for-all invitation in our Old Testament lesson. “Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” The key word is all. Here God bids all who are thirsty and hungry to come to Him, all comers—all those who thirst and hunger after the righteousness no amount of money can buy, which, though costly to God—so costly it cost Him His own self-sacrifice—yet is without cost to the godly seeker, freely given him by God, because God paid the price.
Before you can hold a banquet to invite thirsty and hungry souls to come eat and drink, you must have a banquet hall. In Proverbs 9 Solomon writes of the banquet hall wisdom builds for her guests. Here wisdom is a feminine personification of God, who is all wise and has all wisdom, and especially of His Son, who is Wisdom incarnate.
“Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out its seven pillars” (Prov 9:1). If the supporting members of God’s banquet hall are sevenfold, then the threefold God Himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the load-bearing foundation. Having established His banquet hall, God prepares His sumptuous banquet, His meat and His mixed wine. And His meat is none other than His own flesh and His fine vintage wine is His own blood. “For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink” (Jn 6:55).
Since it is real, it takes a real appetite to appreciate this feast, of which the Host with the most boasts. “He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (v 35b). It takes faith and the eating and drinking which is by faith whereby the faithful eat and drink righteousness, salvation and eternal life unto themselves—the righteousness, salvation and eternal life which the living Bread who came down from heaven explicitly to give His life for the life of the world gives with each morsel of His bread and with every sip of His wine, namely, His body and blood broken and shed for those who hunger and thirst after His righteousness, offered them in His banquet meal, at His banquet table, and in His banquet hall, and whereby they who hunger and thirst for Him will never go hungry or be thirsty again.
So God has built His banquet hall, founded on the threefold God himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He has, furthermore, prepared His meat and mixed His wine. Moreover, He has set His table. But what about His guests? They have been invited well in advance of the banquet. What’s more, they have been reminded, personally, by servants like you and me. Fellow servants like the Apostles and Evangelists have made it easier for us, hand-making the handsome invitations found in the New Testament Scriptures and penned by the Holy Spirit Himself for us to hand deliver to the intended guests.
These invitations read, “Everything is ready. Come to the banquet!” Don’t beg off. Don’t excuse yourself. Don’t be absent without leave, even if it’s your honeymoon. How long would there be a honeymoon if a groom left his new bride, in this case his parish, in the lurch, just because he was attending to business as usual, minding everyone’s business but his own? How long would there be a marriage feast, much less a marriage?
And since this is a sheepfold, how long before the skittery sheep bolted from the sheep pen, looking for greener pastures? Don’t attend to business as usual, not if minding the store means minding everyone’s business but your own and losing the store in the bargain. And speaking of flocks, some other goat is liable to be kicking down the stall while you’re off mending fences. Once the goats are out of the stall, just try to corral them again. It’s like trying to circle the wagons without a team of horses. Once a flock of sheep start to stray, a team of wild horses can’t drag them back.
Come to the wedding banquet. Come at once. Don’t delay. And don’t expect to be dragged in kicking and screaming at the last minute after the door is closed. Close communion, indeed! A little too close for comfort, too close to call! Don’t be like those who don’t deserve an invitation, certainly not as nice as this, “Everything is ready. Come to the banquet! 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.”
Don’t be like those who blow off the gracious welcome and stiff the host. Such ingrates probably stood up their marriage partners too, if they didn’t leave them in the lurch, high and dry at the altar, such as would be late for their own funeral if they could stiff the devil or stand him up, if they didn’t have to give the devil his due.
At that beggar’s banquet there will be no sounds of joy and gladness, no voices of bride and bridegroom, no gracious welcome, no welcome mat, albeit a warm reception, and the furnace stoked. Shown the door, and the door shut, they’ll be shut out in outer darkness, denizens of the deep, where there will be wailing and the gnashing of teeth.
Perhaps that’s why Wisdom, in the Person of God’s Son, issues a general invitation “from the highest point of the city” (Prov 9:3), the apex of the banquet hall, to various and sundry, to high and low alike, such as all can hear and none mistake, “Let all who are simple come in here! . . .Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed” (vv 4-5). Mixed drinks, no less. The drinks are on Him. Highballs and lowballs and aperitifs. Wine on the lees and the feast of fat things.
“Leave your simple ways. . .walk in the way of understanding” (v 6) instead of walking on the wild side, wayward to the last. Eat and drink and live. Come to the banquet. Don’t hesitate. He who hesitates is lost, shut out in outer darkness where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth, albeit the warmest of receptions, a hot time in the old town tonight!
Maybe this is why Isaiah issues the broadest of invitations. “Come, all you who are thirsty”, who thirst after righteousness, that is, “come to the waters.” This Shepherd leads His sheep beside the soul-quieting, life-restoring waters of refreshment which drink from the wells of salvation themselves. “And you who have no money, come, buy and eat!” you who hunger after righteousness, that is.
“Come, buy wine and milk” (Is 55:1b), the wine of His love and the milk of His kindness which, though not without cost to the Host, in that it cost Him His Son, must be had without money, on the part of the guest, by the gift of Him who paid the price, because no amount of money can buy it.
Do you buy that? If you do, take your place in the free lunch line, at the head of the line or the rear, for here as nowhere else the last shall be first. And no pushing or punching in line, no cutting in! Come to the banquet. Don’t lollygag. Don’t meander. There are no greener pastures to be had—anywhere.
“Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?” (Is. 55:2a) Jesus comes to the same conclusion. “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill” (Jn. 6:26), Jesus rebukes the multitudes who wish to make Him their bread king—and that, by force—in lieu of receiving Him freely as the Bread of Life—as humbly as He presents Himself to them for their consumption.
And here is the tie in with Isaiah, the tie that binds: “Do not work for food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life” (v 27), which is no work at all on the part of the recipient since the Giver does all the work Himself. And He is the Son of Man and the living Bread combined—our Bread-and-Butter, our Bread and our Bread King in one, after all!
“On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” His flavor and freshness are locked in. And He won’t expire. And, partaking of Him, neither will we. He unlocks all the flavor and freshness the moment we partake of Him in simple faith. This is the eating and drinking of faith which is by faith. Therein is union and communion. There is none other, for there is no other like Him. He in us and we in him.
And herein is the eating and drinking by faith. It is in the hearing of faith, within earshot of God’s incarnate Word, that Word of God which is the Person of Jesus Christ. See how Isaiah connects this eating and hearing with the partaking of God. “Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare” (Is 55:2b). And here’s the connection between this partaking which is by faith and the partaking of God by the same faith. “Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live” (v 3a).
Accept God’s gracious invitation. Don’t stand Him up. Least of all stiff Him. And in accepting His invitation, extend His warm welcome. This welcome packet of the gospel is the only welcoming brochure we fellow evangelists will need. Be assured of as warm a reception—you and those you invite—from God in return.
And be spared that of Satan, where the furnace is stoked and there’s no welcome mat, and where stiffing him or standing him up, pushing or shoving or cutting in, or punching him out, are out of the question not simply out of line, and where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth, while those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, the lowly at heart and poor in spirit, cozy up to their Host and sink their teeth in the Bread of Heaven. Come to the banquet! Amen.