Isaiah 55:1-13: a reflection

1“Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness. 3Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. 4Behold, I have given him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander to the peoples. 5Behold, you shall call a nation that you don’t know; and a nation that didn’t know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he has glorified you.” 6Seek the LORD while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. 7Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, to our God, for he will freely pardon. 8“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways,” says the LORD. 9“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10For as the rain comes down and the snow from the sky, and doesn’t return there, but waters the earth, and makes it grow and bud, and gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater; 11so is my word that goes out of my mouth: it will not return to me void, but it will accomplish that which I please, and it will prosper in the thing I sent it to do. 12For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace. The mountains and the hills will break out before you into singing; and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands. 13Instead of the thorn the cypress tree will come up; and instead of the brier the myrtle tree will come up. It will make a name for the LORD, for an everlasting sign that will not be cut off.”

God calls out with a generous invitation: Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. And then a searching question: Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? God offers freely what truly satisfies, and asks why we exhaust ourselves on what cannot.

Notice both the offer and the question. The offer is astonishing: what truly satisfies the soul is offered freely, without money, without price; God invites the thirsty to come and receive it as a gift. And the question is searching: why do we spend our money and our labor on what is not bread, on what does not satisfy? We wear ourselves out pursuing things that cannot fill the soul, while God offers freely the very thing we need. We are working and paying for what leaves us empty, when satisfaction is offered as a gift.

That invitation and question are for us. We often spend our resources and our energy chasing what we think will satisfy, only to remain thirsty; we labor for what does not fill the soul. And all the while God calls, come, everyone who thirsts; buy without money what truly satisfies. Stop spending yourself on what cannot satisfy. Come to God, who offers freely the water your soul thirsts for; receive from him, without price, the satisfaction you have been laboring for in vain elsewhere. Why spend on what does not satisfy? Come to the God who satisfies the thirsty soul, and receive freely from him what all your labor could never buy. He gives, without money and without price, what your soul truly needs.

Lord, you call out generously: come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters; you who have no money, come, buy and eat without price; and you ask, why do you spend your money for what is not bread, and your labor for what does not satisfy? Speak that offer and that question to me. What truly satisfies the soul, you offer freely, without money, without price, inviting the thirsty to come and receive it as a gift. And your question searches me: why do I spend my money and my labor on what does not satisfy? I wear myself out pursuing things that cannot fill the soul, while you offer freely the very thing I need. Help me stop spending myself on what cannot satisfy. Help me come to you, who offer freely the water my soul thirsts for; help me receive from you, without price, the satisfaction I have been laboring for in vain elsewhere. Why spend on what does not satisfy? Help me come to you, who satisfy the thirsty soul, and receive freely from you what all my labor could never buy. Satisfy my soul with yourself, Lord.