Sermon - Isaiah 55.1-9

Isaiah 55.1-9

• Thank God for hunger and thirst (and the pleasurable sensations of eating and drinking). Without the MESSAGES of hunger and thirst we would die – neglecting to give our bodies enough fuel for vital functions, including the growth of new cells to replace those which die every day.

• When we hunger and thirst, we recognize our need for food/drink and we actively seek food/drink.

• In Isaiah 55 God calls on the hungry and thirsty to come to Him and be fed and satisfied. God is certainly concerned with people’s physical needs but here of course he is primarily talking about spiritual hunger and thirst. We know from Deut 8.3 that people do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. The Jews in exile in Babylon recognized their spiritual hunger/thirst and received Isaiah’s (God’s) message gladly.

• The scope of God’s offer may have surprised them, also the lack of conditions attached to it (v1, 4-7). The promise is open to all nations and peoples and even to God’s enemies (the wicked). This may not have been noticed at the time Isaiah wrote, but came strongly to the fore when Jesus came to fulfil God’s promise.

• This is the context of vv8-9 (often used wrongly). God is far more generous, forgiving and merciful than we are.

• Problem with spiritual hunger/thirst. Not easily recognized. People (including Christians) often try to satisfy it with the wrong kind of food.

• Connected with this, it is hard to notice our spiritual thirst/hunger when our lives are full of other stuff. Evil powers play a part in maintaining this illusion (warning of v2 and v7). We need to live simpler, less cluttered lives & learn to thirst for God like the psalmist (Ps 42.1-2).

• Jesus often expressed his gospel message in the language of Is 55, especially in John (4.13-14, 6.26-35 and 7.37-38). The link is clearest in 6.27, 6.35, 7.37-38.

• Jesus IS the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. 55.6 says Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. God has come near in Jesus. God has made himself available to us in Jesus, God has opened his heart and his arms to us in Jesus. We need to hunger for God in Jesus and feed on him in word and sacrament.

• The quote from John 7 fits with the wider vision of Isa 55 because our spiritual nourishment is not just for us but is to flow from within us to others and to transform society, freeing it from the grip of evil, if we are truly Jesus’s followers. We are what we eat and drink and we give to others from the spring inside us – a spring of selfishness and evil or the spring of the Holy Spirit, the life of Christ.

• SOME PRACTICAL EXAMPLES

• I regret sometimes meeting my children’s or friends’ spiritual hunger/thirst with something which did not feed the need e.g. giving child a computer game or a chocolate biscuit when they needed a hug or a walk in the countryside with their dad… what’s the answer?

• We all sometimes eat carelessly or hurriedly, rushing our good food or eating junk. We do the same spiritually and so we are not spiritually healthy or nourished… what’s the answer?

Close by reading Isaiah 55.10-11 and the following poem by Jane Upchurch.

As the rain and snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my WORD that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Jesus, the bread of life

Because I believe,
you are my bread.
You are my food,
my diet of heaven.

You are the manna in my mornings,
the fleeting flakes
that feed me with your life,
with the honey-sweet taste of your love
that will never lose me.

You see me as gift to you
as you are gift to me
and God is the giver.

You are my life,
you are my way in this world
and my path beyond;
eternity is the meadow
in which we can run.

I need never hunger or thirst
for you are my portion,
your flesh is my bread
and I am filled
with you.