Sermon from the Vigil: Isaiah 55

Alleluia! He is Risen!

We’re going to be in Isaiah 55 this evening, which I encourage you to find, as you try to keep your eyes pried open. I know I’m always saying, That’s my favorite passage in the bible but this one is at the top of my list, right now, because the kids and I have been trying to memorize it for the last ten or so months.

Isaiah begins in verse one with a cry. Its not in your text, in the KJV it is a HO. Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the water.

So, just imagine with me that you’ve been wandering around Binghamton this last week, trying to get ready for Easter, this great celebration that we’re in the middle of right now. You have gone up and down, in and out of your car, searching the various stores we have here. Your feet are tired, you forgot to eat breakfast and lunch. You are thirsty. And, because maybe you’re like me, as you notice that you’re thirsty you realize that you really want a good cry. The dryness of your tongue helps you see and know how utterly sad and empty you are. And, to make it all catastrophic, as you rummage through your wallet, you realize that you’re on the edge of overspending. You basically have spent all your money but you don’t have everything you need.

And as you’re standing there, thirsty, tired, frustrated, poor, sad, a man leans out of a door and shouts at you, HO, HEY YOU! Are you thirsty?!

And you reel back, and think, well, yes I am, but what is that to you. But he carries on. HEY Come Here! You, who have no money, come here, buy and eat, come buy wine and milk without money and without price.

How can that be? How can you buy something without money? Wine and milk cost money, hard earned money these days. The price of milk isn’t usually far off from the price of fuel. And honestly, water costs money. Especially when you’re standing in front of a huge cold case, counting out change, you’re eyes rolling into the back of your head because 1.50 for a fancy plastic bottle that probably just has tap water in seems like kind of a lot. How can you have something that costs money, something expensive? Milk is nourishing and upbuilding for the body. Wine maketh the heart glad and is the thing that makes a feast really a feast. Water, you can’t live without water. Period. All of these require money. How can you have them for free?

Well, if someone has already paid for them. You can have them without money and without price if someone has already paid up.

You’re standing there and the man keeps hounding you. “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread? Your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy?

You look inside all your bags and your heart sinks. I mean, its true. You have just spent all your money on a bunch of stuff you’re going to forget about tomorrow. And you’re out of money. You look up in discouragement. And this guy, he never stops talking. You’re just so tired, will he ever stop talking?

But he is still calling to you. LISTEN! Listen to me!

What! What! you say.

Eat what is good! He says. Delight yourself in rich food, or fatness. In the old version he says, ‘Let your soul delight itself in fatness.’ The word Soul is there for all of you, the totality of who you are, your body, your mind, your heart, everything. Let the whole of you delight, or enjoy, really enjoy, the fat things. The stuff you thought about giving up for Lent. The butter. The sugar. The cream. The carbs. But you didn’t do it. You couldn’t bear to. And so you ate them furtively, guiltily, and they didn’t satisfy you because you didn’t feel like you should be having them and they only illuminated for you how out of control you are. I mean, not you, me, but maybe also you. But the guy won’t leave you alone. Come in here, he says, eat this rich gorgeous food and stop fussing.

Incline, he says, that means lean in, let your ear lean toward me, listen, hear and your soul, that all of you may live. And you do feel, as you stand there with all your bundles and your great increasing thirst, that you are probably going to die. You inch towards him.

Look, he says, I will make an agreement with you. A covenant. A contract. You come in here and eat and drink, and I will love you forever. I will have affection for you, kindness for you, I will do good things for you, Forever, not just for right now but forever, and on your end, you come in and let me love you.

What!

This is crazy.

But he goes on, he won’t leave you alone. His voice is insistent, persistent.

I have a witness for this covenant, he says. I call a witness, so you know I am serious. I call my own sure and everlasting love for David as a witness. He loved me. He understood me. He was a leader. He went out before the people to keep them safe and secure. He protected them and made them sure. He was so strong and true, he was such a good picture of the love and peace that nations, people, ordinary people passing by, like you, stopped and looked up and considered going in.

So what are you going to do? Are you going to go in? Your shoulders ache. You still need that drink. Its just so strange. The agreement is that you go in, and dump all your worthless bundles by the door, and you sit down, and eat and drink.

Do you still need coaxing? Look, he says, Seek The Lord while he wills to be found.

You look around and about but it’s still the man, there isn’t anyone else near by. What, is he talking about himself?

And boy, he’s still talking and talking.

Call upon him, he says, pointing to myself.

Call? Or maybe Cry. Cry Out to him. Like a real cry. Like when you’re completely overwhelmed and you have no way out and can’t fix all the problems and have to face that a lot of the problems are because you did the wrong thing. You let all your bundles and anxiety and stress and failure fall to the ground and let out a cry, a loud shout of exasperation and woe. It doesn’t have to be coherent. It can be the bleating cry of a helpless sheep. It can be the groan of waking up in the morning and seeing how troubled you really are. It can be the cry of despair when you see that your hands and your wallet and your heart are all empty and you should have had something in them, but you didn’t. Call upon him. He is very close, he’s still standing right there, and he can hear you.

Look, he says, let the wicked forsake his way. Let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion, that he may abundantly pardon.

And really, what else can you do? You are wicked, empty, unrighteous, troubled, beleaguered, laden with sin. As you stand there, and now it seems that you have been standing there a long time, what does it mean if you go in? To eat and to live? What are you saying? I mean, its kind of understandable that you would stand there so long, considering, even though you are so very thirsty and tired. Because by going in you are admitting to yourself, and to him, how little you have. You are saying ‘I did over spend. I don’t have anything, literally, to bring to the table.’ You can’t go in and then try to pay. If you go in you know and he knows that you’re accepting the free gift that he’s giving. You are Forsaking, you are turning away from, you are utterly abandoning your way. You’re stopping going where you were planning to go, when you first heard his call, and turning aside to go in and hear, and eat and drink, you won’t be able to go back.You are forsaking everything, even your Thoughts, that’s everything you think you know, the way you understand yourself and your life and the world and everything.

You keep hesitating. He keeps talking.

Look, he says, My thoughts are not your thoughts.

I know, you whisper, and that’s the problem. If your thoughts were like my thoughts then I would already be in there. But its just so strange and insane that I would be invited in to a feast where I bring exactly nothing and in return for that I get everlasting love and mercy. That’s weird. So yes, your thoughts and my thoughts are not the same.

But you don’t mumble that very loud and he’s still talking. Your ways are not my ways. He says.

Yes I know. You aren’t doing anything the way I would do it. I would probably not have created this wretched world and then let it be wrecked. I would not let wicked people do any of the things they are doing. In fact, the totality of human existence is pretty much Not Going the way I would have organized it, you think, quietly, to yourself.

I mean, at the very least, it would not be my way to go in and sit at a table and listen to someone who gives me a free gift for which I can do absolutely nothing, which I have done nothing to earn or deserve. I mean, how bout a small fee? People, like me, need some self respect and dignity. I, at least, would make sure its fair, from my point of view.

That’s the problem, he says, your point of view. Let me make it easy for you, he says.

You wish he wouldn’t be so sarcastic.

Look, he says, the heavens are higher than the earth. You know, like the sky is higher than the land, but also heaven is not here with you, in this thirsty wasteland. Just like that, just like the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways, my actions, higher than your ways, your action, and my thoughts, the things that I know and understand, are higher than the things you know and understand.

You are down here. You are mostly blind. For goodness sake, you’re standing out here holding on to a bunch of junk, poor, cloudy in your thinking, thirsty. You can only measure everything by yourself and that means that your vantage point, your point of view is incredibly limited. You only being able to see out of your own eyes puts you at the lowest possible place of knowledge and understanding.

Look, he says, you should listen to me because I want you to live. I want you to agree to come in and let me love and take care of you forever. And, as I already said, this is not an idle promise. I am trustworthy. I am dependable. And this is kind of a mean example right now, as spring struggles and bashes its way through the horror that has been this never ending winter, BUT, nevertheless, have you noticed how the rain and the snow come down from heaven. And they do not return but they water the earth. They fill lakes and ponds and streams and even your own rivers and many of your own basements. They give life. The water gives life to the seed which sprouts and then the sower can take it and make bread. Just like that, in fact, that was made that way to be a picture of me, Just like that is my word that goes forth from my mouth. Just like that, just like the rain and the snow produce life, Just like that my word goes out and produces life. In fact, it doesn’t fail. It doesn’t. It always accomplishes the purpose for which I sent it.

This is hard for you to understand because a lot of things you set out to do, do fail. And a lot of your words fall to the ground. They don’t produce anything. Just try it. Go outside, in the winter, as I tried a few times, and say, firmly, with faith, STOP SNOWING. And just you see. It doesn’t stop snowing.

But what on earth can your Word purpose? You wonder, still standing there. Why are you still talking?

Look at me, he says, or rather Look at my Word. And there, you look up. Its not just a door in cold gray binghamton, an ugly storefront, a tomb. Its not that you have walk through some kind of door. All these Words, they are one Word, And the Word is Him. And he is the Door. He was the person who paid the price. He is the one, the witness of the covenant. He is the water that will quench your thirst. His blood is the wine that makes your heart glad. His body is the bread that nourishes and strengthens. He himself is the feast, the richness that you are called in to sit down and enjoy. He is right there, alive, in glory, taking the bags and the sin out of your hands, bringing you in to rejoice, to sit in rest and comfort and joy. Go with him, go to him.

Alleluia. He is Risen!

The Lord is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!