Is It Too Good to Be True?

“Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink; even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine or milk; it’s all free! Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good? Listen to Me and you will eat what is good. You will enjoy the finest food. Come to Me with your ears wide open. Listen and you will find life. I will make an everlasting covenant with you. I will give you all the unfailing love I promised to David. See how I used him to display My power among the peoples. I made him a leader among the nations. You also will command nations you do not know and peoples unknown to you will come running to obey, because I, the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, have made you glorious. Seek the Lord while you can find Him. Call on Him now while He is near. Let the wicked change their ways and banish the very thought of doing wrong. Let them turn to the Lord that He may have mercy on them. Yes, turn to our God, for He will forgive generously. My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord. And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:1-9) (Also read Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 and Luke 13:1-9)

Embedded in us is a warning that has been placed there by our corporate and individual experience: “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” That maxim has staying power. Unfortunately, it usually comes to us after we have accepted an invitation that turned out to lead to great disappointment. You live your adult life without ever coming close to owning your own home. In a city dominated by a “rent not buy” reality, you give up the dream. Then suddenly there is a miracle: loans are available to buy a home you thought you could not afford. It is almost too good... Wanting the best for your family, you now work harder for the “bread” to support them. Others of us, with the same motive of providing for our families, have been more successful. I know a couple who worked to build a business that would give their children opportunities. They were able to move to a “better” neighbourhood and school district. They had spent their energies and resources on good things, yet the family seemed to be falling apart. It is through such experiences that we learn, as if for the first time, that we do not live by bread alone. A young man from the Midwest had spent his intellectual energies excelling academically in an Ivy League college. Yet he described a yearning for a spiritual centre and motivation that he had missed in his education. There was a group that came to his campus to recruit the “brightest and best.” They seemed so spiritual and self - disciplined. It was just too good to be true; he was sure that it couldn’t be a cult. Can it be that we can spend the material, social, spiritual capital of our lives on that which does not nourish or satisfy us?

I.) These vignettes are not about real estate, family security or religious cults. They are a part of a larger story. We of all ages and socio-economic levels, “labour for that which does not satisfy.” If that last phrase sounds familiar, it is because it is from Isaiah 55:2 and was a part of our Old Testament Scripture in this teaching. These words come not from the morning newspaper but from a prophet speaking to the Jewish people in exile. The setting seems to be late in the Babylonian captivity. Almost fifty years had passed since the leaders of Judah were detained in Babylon. Many of that original group had died in that strange land. Now their children found it, perhaps not so strange. They had not known the Holy Temple of Jerusalem, except through the stories of their parents. They had become quite well adjusted to the culture of Babylon. Some of them had fared well in this new land. Others were living on the fringes of this alien society as virtual slaves. The prophetic word of Adonai uncovers a thirst and a hunger that goes deeper than their economic standing.
More than their bodies were captive. How had Adonai our YAHVEH allowed this to happen? Should they believe the songs and poems of their captors? Had YAHVEH met His match in the god Marduk? Had the sins of Judah and Israel brought to an end YAHVEH’s everlasting covenant with David?

II.) “Ho, everyone who thirsts come to the waters and you that have no money come buy and eat! Come buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1). This is a call to something more than the junk food of the false gods who sell their wares today as shamelessly as in the Babylonian captivity. We have been disappointed by the lures of fame, security and prosperity. We believe there is nothing that truly satisfies. Those who had been in Babylon for so long must have doubted this invitation spoken through Isaiah. Yet the offer is from our YAHVEH who has not been defeated and has not lost interest in those who hunger and thirst for that which lasts. Our thirst that is spoken of here refers to our most basic human need. We are created in the image of YAHVEH (Genesis 1:27) and nourished by being in a right relationship with YAHVEH. The Bible uses the metaphor of thirst to describe our built - in longing for that relationship.

III.) “Incline your ear and come to Me, listen so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, My steadfast sure love for David” (Isaiah 55:3). This is a call to live. It can be offered only by Adonai, the giver of life. It was easier to believe when there was no captivity of Israel’s brightest and best. Oh, how they longed for the glory days of King David’s reign. Then they could walk proudly in the might of YAHVEH’s promise to be their God and they would be YAHVEH’s people. So it seemed, looking back on the halcyon days of the covenant with David. For now they knew captivity and the apparent victory of Marduk. Are they endlessly separated from YAHVEH by their sin? Has YAHVEH lost the power to give freedom in the midst of captivity? Is the best they can do to look wistfully at the days when they had “a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples” (verse 4)? How this word of Adonai, from approximately 550 BC, speaks to our time and place. We despair at the reality of living in an exile from the power and purpose of the God who once walked our land. In our sacred memories, billboards and electronic media boldly proclaimed through public service announcements that the nation should be in church. Further bolstered by the support of public schools and even “piety along the Potomac,” we were Christian nations or so we remember. Those were the days, my friends. Princes of Zion walked the land. Those were halcyon days indeed, especially when we compare them to today. Landmark churches and historic denominations no longer have great stature in the public eye or clout in courthouses or state houses. We ask the question of the exile: “Has YAHVEH abandoned us?” The sons and daughters of Judah must have kept alive the glories of Jerusalem and the throne of David before all was destroyed. Those glories must have grown larger with the passing years. YAHVEH’s people must have sung of the annual royal banquet that was for all the people of Israel, rich and poor. This glimpse back is a shadow of what YAHVEH is doing in the future, beginning now. The nations will come and be fed. We who have looked down because of our sins are invited. We who have looked back “to a better day” are invited.

IV.) “Seek Adonai while He may be found.” We who hunger and thirst are invited to the table of Adonai. The Lion of Judah has become the Lamb who gave Himself up for our sins. We feast on Him. No labour could buy this grace - filled meal. Who of us can understand the ways of Adonai (verse 8 – 9)? We come hungering and thirsting after a mystery. Its truth is known in our receiving. It is too good not to be true.