“Obey your thirst” — Sprite ad.
Buy, Buy, Buy!
Did you know an average American sees between 4,000 and 10,000 ads daily? That’s double the number from 2007. So many voices telling us to buy their product and find happiness. My kids now have a disturbing amount of marketing directed at them. Ten-year-old influencers on YouTube hock toys aiming to send them coveting the shiniest thing, as if it will make everything better.
And I understand why people are so desperate to buy the new widget. Life can be rough. If you can make things a little easier with the right brand, find the sparkle of elusive joy in some product, or even feel like a different person — a better person, a person you like a little more — just by buying the right car or watch or shoes, wow, that’s a pitch! But even if there was such a utopia on the other side of the right shopping spree, who could afford it?
Consider a better offer. God invites you to the source of meaning, joy, purpose, peace, and everlasting life.
Three Invitations
Taken out of context, Isaiah 55 might sound like another promotion. After all, the prophet’s call-to-action includes the words, “Buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk” (Isaiah 55:1), which might work as a Kroger billboard. But a second look reveals a critical difference. God invites “everyone who thirsts” and seeks the one “who has no money.” Alec Motyer helpfully distinguishes the three invitations in the verse (Isaiah 55:1):
Invitation #1: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;”
Invitation #2: “and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!”
Invitation #3: “Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”
The first invitation emphasizes our deep need and longing for what God has to offer. The second shows our utter inability to do anything about that need. And the third offers luxuries beyond just water to survive, all available to purchase without money and without any price! Strangely, you still have to “buy” whatever you eat or drink — the verse states that twice. So how can you buy something when you have no money? How is it that all of this is “without price“?
When Everything Changed
We have to follow the book’s flow to see the whole picture. Everything that follows Isaiah chapter 53 has a different tone, a new dimension of welcome from God, of forgiveness, of life and blessing available to all, as chapter 54 promises “steadfast love” and a “covenant of peace” (54:10) before our text offers its open invitation (55:1). So what happened in Isaiah 53? The Suffering Servant, Jesus, paid for our feast. “But he was pierced for our transgressions” (53:5) because “we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (53:6). Jesus looks at us and essentially says, “It’s okay. I’ve got you, now and always. I’ll pay, you drink.”
100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Yet even with all our needs provided for at high cost by Christ, we often turn elsewhere, forsaking the “fountain of living waters” for a cheap imitation (Jer. 2:13). We can turn from God’s fresh water to the saltwater around us, eating up the regard of others, drinking entertainment and busyness, trying to fill what’s missing with whatever we can find to make it a little easier. So Isaiah asks, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food” (Isaiah 55:2). God offers true satisfaction (Ps. 63:1,5). Where else can we find that? Our thirst isn’t for something he gives; it’s for Him (Ps. 42:1-2).
Jesus invites us to come to Him in faith (John 7:37-38), confessing him as Lord (Rom. 10:10) and turning to him as in water baptism for the forgiveness of our sins, receiving His Spirit (Acts 2:38). Are you thirsty? Will you come?