Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Gospel according to Isaiah, the fifty-fifth chapter:
“Come, everyone 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. 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. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
Thus far the text.
Dear friends in Christ,
In our text today, we hear the call, “Come, come, come!” Come to the waters and drink! Come buy grain and eat! Come buy wine and milk without money! Come buy them all without any labor on your part!” This is like walking into a downtown market, or most big malls today with those annoying little kiosks in the center aisle between the stores, where every vendor is yelling at you and accosting you to come and try and buy their product.
Only, Isaiah today is telling us that the products that are being sold in this marketplace are free to you. Take as much as you need. Take and take and take, because there is no running out of the things that are being sold. They are being given to you for free. And what are these things? Grain. Wine. Milk. Water. Take them. They are your yours.
Isaiah wrote these words today to Israelites who were about to have their land and people ravaged by the Babylonians, Israelites who would be taken into exile for years, Israelites who were facing fierce judgment from God for their disobedience, and Israelites who were promised the Messiah to come to save them from their sins and take their punishment forever. These words were for them, yet I think there is something in them for us today, too, so that we may hear that which Isaiah is saying.
And so, let’s see what’s there. This marketplace call, come, come, come, this marketplace is in Jerusalem, the Holy City of God, where all things are meant to be good, right, and salutary. The bread, the water, the wine, the milk, these are all the products that the Holy City needs and uses, not only to sustain them but also to offer back to God in sacrifice for the atonement of their sins and their offerings of thanksgiving.
Water and grain were used in the first-fruit offerings, to make thin cakes of flour to give thanks to God for all that He has provided. Wine was used along with the death of the animals that were sacrificed to atone for the sins of the people.
All were used to perform the sacrifices. Yet, what of the milk? Nowhere in the Scriptures is milk ever associated with sacrifice. Yet, milk is the sign of a fertile land. You remember the promise of God to Moses, that He would lead His people to a land flowing with milk and honey? Milk of the livestock and honey of the fruit, nectar, juice, show the great fertility of the land the Israelites would inhabit. So milk is not for sacrifice, but it shows the graciousness of God to His people. All these foodstuffs, the Israelites would need.
And so, to the Israelites hearing Isaiah, they would know that Isaiah was telling them that in God’s Holy City, the very things that would be needed to sustain life, were also those things that God would give to perform what He wanted them to do in the sacrifices. And, moreover, they were all free. They didn’t have to work or dip into their savings to get what was required; it had already been bought for them.
And for us, in the fulfillment of the promises of the sacrifices, the sacrifices that always pointed us to Christ and how He would be the Lamb Who Was Slain, we also see for us water, grain, wine, and milk.
We have water, where we are baptized into the One who is the firstfruits of the dead. And we have grain and wine, given to us in the Lord’s Supper, where we find the atonement for our sins. In these we give thanks back to Christ, for He has given us these things freely, without price, without end, and they do as He has promised to do: forgive our sins, strengthen our faith, and join us with Him forever.
But what of milk? Milk, again, being a fertile thing, is made reference to, in one way or another, 50 times throughout the Scriptures. But until we reach the New Testament, we do not have another good definition other than this fertile thing. But Paul uses it in a way that milk means the simple message of Christ and Him crucified. In other words, milk is the Word of God. You’ll notice, at the beginning of the sermon, I called this reading the Gospel according to Isaiah. In Isaiah’s message, his prophetic word is so clearly pointing us to Christ and Him crucified for our sins, that one can simply call this the Gospel, just as we call Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John the writers of the New Testament Gospels. Isaiah for us is milk and much more, too.
This milk that we see being in the marketplace, and the milk we find today in Christ’s Church, is the Word of God. We have the water of baptism, the grain and wine of the Lord’s Supper, and the milk of God’s Word, all necessary to our survival, all things we receive for free, and all things with which we respond joyfully to Christ’s giving of these good gifts.
That’s why, honestly, we should be celebrating these things all the time. We should have them in our presence as often as possible. We should partake every time they’re offered. And that’s why it becomes such a saddening thing when we ourselves fall away from the regular reception of Christ’s gifts. We should always want them. They should always be with us. Can you imagine a Sunday in Church where we didn’t preach the Word of God because we were afraid we’d hear it too much and get too used to it? How awful!
But a question must be asked. If you agree with this, if you agree the Word of God is good and the Sacraments of Christ are good, then do you stay away from His Church, where His gifts are found? Do you despise the gifts?
You see, Isaiah has a word of prophecy for this, too. Why do you spend your money on things that are not bread, which will not sustain you, which will not delight you, which will not satisfy you? He might as well be asking: Why do you seek after false teaching and false teachers? Why do you make sports your god, vacation your god, family your god, your mattress your god, you friends your god? Why do you do this? They will not satisfy you forever. In fact, they will tempt you and lead you away from the One True God. They will make you labor for them, and in doing so, you will lean on your own work, your own goodness, and you will fall into the pit of hell.
Christ’s Word and Christ’s Sacraments are better than these, and they are necessary, and they are free. They give life eternal. They are rich in the flesh of Christ. They are instructive to us, giving us the bread of life, Christ Himself, and assuring us that we will be with Him forever.
Yet, when we do not have Word and Sacrament, when we do not have the gifts that Christ has given us, we have no such assurance. This is why Isaiah speaks for God asking why we work so hard for things that will not sustain us. God knows we do not do as we ought to do. God knows that we, His children, the children who have inherited even the faith of Abraham, the children who need to be fed with nothing but small things like 5 loaves and 2 fish for nearly 13,000 people, children who have been created in the sinful image of their forefather, Adam, God knows that we need Him. And so He gives Christ to us, forever, and for always.
Now, I don’t know about you, but in the last few years, I have become an ever-increasing fan of the television shows the British Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC, is putting out and sending over to the US. From seeming comedies like Sherlock, to police procedurals like Luther, I’ve really enjoyed them. But my favorite show from them is the recent reboot of the Doctor Who series.
In Doctor Who, you find a time-traveler who is over 900 years old, traveling around the galaxy, solving mayhem and mysteries with a faithful human companion. And they do all of this traveling in a time machine, called the TARDIS, that is the most powerful ship in all creation. Only, from the outside, it looks like an old 1960s-style English Police Phone Box. It’s small, it’s blue, but it’s bigger on the inside. The most powerful ship in all of creation, and it looks like a box. But, when you step in, it literally goes on forever, it’s nearly infinite, it never runs out of room.
And I tell you that today, because in this text, Christ tells us to come and take from His hands the very gifts we need. And we need not worry about not having enough. Christ’s gifts are greater even than the TARDIS, Christ’s gifts fill up every room and they keep replenishing themselves.
Do you worry that we have too much of the Word of God? Do you worry that we have to much of Christ’s Sacraments?Of course not. In fact, we should want them even more. We need not worry about running out of Christ’s gifts; we need not worry about having too much of Christ’s gifts each Sunday; we need not worry about losing the importance of the gifts of God. For our God is a God who never runs out, and we are a people who should appreciate, and do appreciate that, that which is free from the hand of Christ.
After all, these gifts were bought for you with a price. It was a price that cost God the Father His Son. It was a price that the Son, Jesus Christ, took upon Himself willingly. It was a price that we owed, but Christ paid. It was a price that lead to the very death of Jesus for you, so that you would be with Him forever.
God’s gifts of Word, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper were expensive, but they are given to you for free. They’re gifts to you. You need not buy them. You need not pay for them. You need not work for them. You need not do anything to earn them. Indeed, you cannot. You need only ask.
Our Lord responds to beggars, such as we are. And He gives beggars the richest riches in the kingdom of God. For even Isaiah knew this, water, grain, wine, milk, they are good for your life. Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and God’s Word are necessary for your life, for they continue to cover you in the blood of Christ which He poured out for you from His cross.
And our Lord shall give you these gifts forever, He has given them as an everlasting covenant in His Son, the one true David, Jesus Christ, the leader of the Church, the one who gives order to all people, for He has glorified you in Himself.
Do you sin, as Luther says in his explanation to the third commandment, which is to honor the Sabbath Day and keep it holy? Do you shy away, despise, the preaching of God’s Word, the gathering together? Do you think sometimes it’s good not to come to the Divine Service? Do you really? Or perhaps you’re afraid to come often, for fear of receiving too much? Or perhaps life gets too busy? Or perhaps there are any number of excuses? Are any of these right? No, but I’m here to tell you that Christ does not withhold His gifts even from you. Despite our sin, Christ forgives us, and you can know that He forgives you, for the gifts will be here when you come back.
He has given you gifts that make you more like Him, that turn you to Him, that sustain you in Him, that will bring you to Him even in the resurrection from the dead. Those gifts of Christ, Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and God’s Word, will sustain you unto life everlasting, strengthening you in that one true faith of Jesus Christ. He is here, and so are His gifts, forever, and for always. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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