This is the third Sunday in Lent. This forty days is traditionally a time of reflection and repentance, a time to acknowledge our own sinfulness and need for God’s grace. And traditionally, too, pastors temporarily drop whatever track they were on and preach a series of special sermons just for Lent, to prepare us for this most holy time in the entire Christian calendar: the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. A classic example is a series on the seven last words of Christ. Another classic subject is the temptations of Christ in the wilderness. But I didn’t shift gears. I stuck with what I was doing.
I didn’t do a special series because you really can’t get much more explicit about our alienation from God and our need for repentance than in the series on the ten commandments which we finished up last week. As Paul says in his letter to the Romans, it is through the law that we become conscious of sin. When we look at what fulfilling the law is really about, when we see how right the Psalmist was to say that “there is no one who does good, not even one.”
Don’t get me wrong.
There are a lot of good people.
Particularly there are a lot of good people right here in this sanctuary, loving, generous, helpful people. But I’m not talking about human standards, as of course you know if you have sat through the last ten weeks.
What Paul meant was that there is no one who meets God’s standards of goodness. And there are only two ways of responding to that uncomfortable fact. Well, three, if you count ignoring God altogether. But let’s stick to those of us who are more inclined than not to believe that God does exist, and that God has an interest in human behavior.
People respond to the idea of the ten commandments most often nowadays by narrowing ‘em down. We’ve - that is, society in general - pretty much cut the list down to four of the originals (that is, murder, adultery, stealing, and lying), and adding a few modern ones like racism, sexism, and intolerance. And then we measure our behavior by our neighbors’ standards, rather than by God’s. Another way of putting it is that we’ve made up our own moral code, one that we can keep. Not to mention that at the same time we’ve also invented a God who grades on the curve. As long as we’re above the midpoint we’ll make it to heaven, right? Isn’t that the way most people seem to see it?
The other way to respond to the commandments is the way Isaiah responded to God. Remember early in his career God gave him a vision:
"In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: 'Holy, holy, holy is YHWH of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.' And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: 'Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, YHWH of hosts!'” [Is 6:1-5]
When Isaiah saw the living God face to face, he saw himself clearly for the first time, and knew his own sinfulness. And he cried out in grief and despair. In much the same way, looking closely and honestly at the 10 commandments, as we have been doing, is enough to make us despair.
There’s an awful sense of shame and unworthiness and guilt that comes with recognizing the extent of our own sinfulness, even if we’re not as poetic about it as Isaiah was. That’s why talking about sin has gone out of fashion. It hurts. It hurts badly enough to paralyze us.
When I was studying evangelism in seminary, most of the people in my class were life-long evangelical Christians, mostly Baptists, of course, since it’s a Baptist seminary. And the classic model of sharing the gospel that most of them used began with the fact of our sin and our need for God’s forgiveness. I’m not sure any of them would have recognized any other way into the kingdom than through the sinner’s prayer, that is, “Jesus, I am a sinner, and I need your forgiveness,” or variations thereof. But I argued for a different approach.
The first point I made was that if people aren’t raised Christian, they mostly haven’t got a clue about sin, unless they’re major offenders. Most of the people out there think they’re pretty good people and that God will credit their good intentions as righteousness.
And the second point I made was that, if people don’t already have a pretty solid confidence in the love of God and the forgiveness freely available in Jesus Christ, the knowledge of their sin might very well crush them altogether.
The knowledge of sin is unbearable without the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
By God’s grace I had been a Christian at least two years before a real understanding of sin began to dawn in me. And my fellow students asked me, “Why did you become a Christian if you didn’t know you were a sinner?” And I answered, “Because I was starving to death.”
What do you suppose would have happened to Isaiah if the angel hadn’t taken his guilt away? Because, remember, that’s how God responded to Isaiah’s cry of despair.
"Then flew one of the seraphim to me, having in his hand a burning coal which he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth, and said: 'Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin forgiven.'” [Is 6:6-7]
If Isaiah’s guilt and shame had not been burned away, he could not have served God as he did. Once we have seen ourselves in the mirror of God’s righteousness, shame weighs us down, guilt drags us down. And seeing himself clearly is what the law did for the Apostle Paul. And his version of Isaiah’s cry was, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
When we finally realize that we cannot earn our way back into God’s good graces, what else is left for us but despair?
Because what can a holy God do, with a people who disobey at every turn?
What can a holy God do, when his creatures turn on him, and ignore him, and curse him?
The obvious solution is to wipe us all out and start over again, right?
But he can’t do that, can he. God promised Noah that he wouldn’t go that route again. So he’s stuck, right? God has to relax his standards so that at least some of us will make it in, right?
Wrong. Bad news for all the people who think they can figure out who God is and what he wants for themselves. YHWH God spoke clearly through Isaiah, “my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says YHWH. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.“ [Is 55:8-9] We cannot, on our own, figure out what God is doing, has done, or is going to do.
And what God does is utterly unexpected. Or, at least, to those who aren’t familiar with the story. We know, and the Jews of Jesus’ time knew too, that what God wanted more than anything else, more even than following all the rules perfectly, was a restored relationship.
“Seek YHWH while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to YHWH, that he may have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." [Is 55:6-7]
You see, the goal from the very beginning, the most important thing of all in God’s eyes, is that we put him in the center of things. When Isaiah says, “let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts,” he is referring to both the life-style and the philosophy of life behind it. He’s not referring to the occasional mess-up; he’s referring to the way of life that deliberately leaves God out of the calculation. Remember the first commandment? “I am the Lord your God, you will have no other gods before me.” God wants us. God wants our attention; he wants our allegiance.
Mind you, that’s not to say that reforming our behavior isn’t important. It is. But it’s not the ground of God’s love for us; it comes as a result of the return to God.
That’s why God was so fond of Abraham, remember? “He believed God, and God credited it to him as righteousness.”
And look at David. Remember David saw Bathsheba bathing, seduced her, got her pregnant, and then sent her husband Uriah into the front line of battle to make sure he would be killed. That rivals what’s going on in Washington these days, isn’t it.
But you know the difference? When Nathan the prophet pointed out his sin to him, David went prostrate on the floor with repentance. God expects us to screw up, folks. God knows what we’re like. But part of the deal is owning up when we’re wrong and coming back to get cleaned up and straightened out. It’s when we turn our backs and refuse to listen that God gets mad at us.
“Incline your ear, and come to me;” says the Lord, “hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.”
That’s verse 3 of the passage. (Has anyone noticed yet that I’m working my way backwards up through the text?)
We started at the end, with the unbridgeable gulf between us and God. My favorite Isaiah commentary put it this way: “[These verses] lay open the abyss between God and the community. . . the abyss that startled Isaiah when the holiness of God revealed to him the unholiness of Israel; the deadly abyss between themselves and God.” That made me think of C. S. Lewis' quote about the “chasm that yawns between us and reality...” And what have we been talking about for the last ten weeks but that very thing: the terrible fact of our separation from God. But these verses remind us that we can only get back to God, we can only get that relationship restored, if we follow the instructions. We can’t figure it out by ourselves, or opt for a different route, because God thinks - and plans - and acts - on an entirely different level than we do.
How many of you have heard people say something to the effect that there are many ways to God, and who are we to say which one is right, and which one is wrong? It’s popular to claim that all religions are human attempts to get in touch with the infinite, and all are equally valid. But Isaiah - nor, indeed, any of Scripture - does not give us room for that. The only way back to God is through the way God provided for us.
So the first step is to stop thinking that we can make up our own rules, and the second step is to start listening to God. And then we come to what’s in it for us.
The first reward is meaningful life. Look at verses 4-5.
"Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Behold, you shall call nations that you know not, and nations that knew you not shall run to you, because of YHWH your God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you." [Is 55:4-5]
Who “him”?
Well, first of all, it refers back to verse 3, the covenant with David. And David was a leader and a commander for the peoples. But the covenant with David was that there would be someone of his line that would sit on the throne of Israel forever, and in the book of Isaiah at last we come to the understanding that the fulfillment of David’s covenant, the Messiah, is the Suffering Servant, the one who suffers on behalf of the people and in so doing restores them.
That covenant, with its promise of the sure and steadfast love of God, is ours, too, if we listen. And if we sign up with the Messiah, whom we now know is Jesus, we will take part in that great design, to call nations back to God. It will happen because the glory, the beauty of the Christ will overcome all the old enmities, will make it possible for people to renounce old allegiances, and to come at last into the peaceable kingdom. There is no higher calling than this. If you’re looking for your life to have meaning, if you’re looking for a life of great adventure and noble purpose, this is it.
And the second reward is eternal life. “Listen to me, that your soul may live,” says the Lord. If you listen, you will have everything your soul needs, and have it in abundance. We have seen, over the last few weeks, how even without knowing it people hunger for God, and that nothing is ever enough, because all the things, the amusements, the achievements, all that stuff we have been so desperately scrabbling for isn’t what we crave at all. Why do we do it?
Why, indeed, says the Lord in verse 2. “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.”[Is 55:2] This is a metaphor. But it is also a promise, and a preview.
Remember how I answered my fellow students who didn’t understand how I could become a Christian without any awareness of sin? I said, “Because I was starving to death.” I am a witness to you that that is the only way I can describe the state I was in at the time of my conversion, and that Jesus Christ fed my hunger beyond any dream of fulfillment I had ever imagined. My friends, this promise is not a pious platitude, but truth itself.
Now, finally, for verse 1. “Ho, every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” See, this is only for the hungry, only for the thirsty. This is only for those who need it. It’s not for those who are so busy with their own lives that when the invitations to a great banquet came around they all began to make excuses. One said, “I have bought a piece of land; I must go out and see it.” Another said, “I have bought five yoke of oxen, I am going to try them out.” A third said, “I have just been married, and I cannot come.”
Are you one of those, too busy to respond to the invitation?
Or aren’t you hungry enough? D’you think maybe you’ll drop by a little later?
Or do you think there’s got to be a catch, it’s too good to be true, you’re going to have to pay one way or another? After all, it does say “no money” but it also says, “buy.” There’s no such thing as a free lunch. What’s in the fine print?
It’s true, there is a purchase price, but someone else has paid it. The catch is, that there’s no drive-in window. No eat-and-run allowed. The ticket to the feast is free, but to eat it you must come in and take your place at the table.
