Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Today’s text is from the Old Testament Lesson. “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. 2 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. 3 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. 4 Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. 5 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.
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Several weeks ago, we had the annual Arts Festival here in Brookings. At the festival, there were hundreds of different booths, some selling paintings, some selling wood carvings, and the ones that I really enjoyed, some selling food. There were booths selling roasted ears of corn. There were booths selling smoked turkey legs. There were booths selling… the absolute best apple crisp ever with SDSU ice cream.
At each of these booths there were people yelling out what they were selling, trying to get people to come in. Calls of “Hot onion rings, right here,” or “World’s best apple crisp” could be heard throughout the entire park. It was a wonderful place to be, but there was one problem. None of the food from any of the booths was free. All of it had a cost of some kind. Be it apple crisp and ice cream at $3 or a root beer floats for 2, all the foods had a price. Being a person on a budget, this sort of limits how many of the booths you can visit.
Today’s text is similar. God is the one who is calling out to all who hear, “Come if you’re Thirsty, and drink, come if you are hungry and eat.” And God’s invitation is not for junk food like funnel cakes or even fried cheese curds and doughnuts. Instead, He invites us to participate in the marriage feast of the Lamb. This meal comes complete with the best milk, the best bread and (my favorite) the best wine, followed by a dessert of life everlasting. Yes, the feast that God invites us to lasts for eternity, and will satisfy you beyond belief. As hard as it is to believe, it will even be better than Mount Calvary Apple Crisp and SDSU ice cream.
Once again, there is just one catch; as there is with the booths at the Arts Festival, there is a cost for admittance, and it is not a cheap price. To pay for the meal, you have to live an absolutely perfect life. That is the payment for participating in God’s feast. There is no way around it, perfection is demanded at the door. Without the required payment, entrance is denied, and you are forced to wait outside while those who can afford the price feast. The question I have for you is this, can you afford to pay the cost?
No of course not. The fact of the matter is that we cannot pay the price, it is too expensive for us to afford. We have not lived a perfect life, but instead have been infested with sin from birth. Each and every one of us is sinful, as Paul tells us in the book of Romans chapter 3 “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” There is not one who is righteous, not one.
But we don’t believe this either. The voice in our head says, “How can I be sinful if I am so nice? How can I be sinful if I do so many good things? At the very least I am better than some other people; I haven’t done as many bad things as they have. That has to count for something. That will get me in.” We trust that we can earn our own way in. That we can do enough good things to cancel out the bad things that we have done.
And that is how the sinful world tells us things work. How often have you heard the idea that if you are “good” that you will get into heaven? And we want to believe that. We want to think, “I can do it,” or “If I try hard enough, I can do whatever I want.” But we know that is not the case. We know that our works do not earn us a place in heaven. Nothing we can do can actually earn us a seat at the heavenly banquet. As St. Paul tells the Ephesians, it is not by works that you have been saved. but by faith. In fact, in a different place, Isaiah himself tells us that “all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”
What can we afford with our good works? Today’s text tells us we spend our money on that which is not bread, and labor for that which does not satisfy. The things that we labor for with our works cannot really satisfy us. They cannot feed us the same way that the eternal feast of God can. Why not? Because they are not things that last forever. The best meal you can buy will only feed you for one day. The very best car you could afford will break someday. The things we earn for ourselves last only as long as we last. Some day we will die because of sin, some day we will be unable to take our works with us. Who then will provide for you?
We see that we cannot earn ourselves a place at the heavenly banquet. We cannot pay for an entrance into the heavenly feast. We are left outside longing to get in. If it doesn’t seem like a big deal being on the outside, we need to look at what Christ says about those not in the heavenly feast. In Matthew 22:13, Jesus says that the one not included in the feast will be bound and thrown outside where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. There are two options, the feast, or the fires of hell. And we cannot pay to get into the feast.
But thankfully for us, the text tells us more about entering the kingdom. “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.” The invitation is there, come with out cost. It is not that the banquet is free, the cost is still the same, but someone else has paid for it. Some one else has footed the bill for our entrance to the heavenly feast.
Several years ago, my wife and I were eating with my parents at a nice Italian restaurant called Vincenzo’s in Lincoln, NE. We had enjoyed an excellent bottle of wine, and some of the best Italian food in the City. It was a pricey meal, it was going to cost a lot. Shortly after we had finished eating, the waiter came over and pointed at a table across the room saying “Those people over there paid for your meal.” We looked, and sure enough some friends of my parents were over there. We had eaten the best food, and had the best wine, and they had paid the price, and we had done nothing to deserve it.
This is the same thing that is being described in our text today. We are invited to come and participate in the heavenly feast, and Christ pays the bill. We could not afford the bill of being perfect, we have sinned and sinned in life, but Christ had not. Christ pays for your entrance. He foots the bill which you have earned in your sin. Every little tiny thing you have done has been paid for. Perhaps the Catechism says it best when it says, “He has redeemed me, not with gold or silver, but with His precious blood, and with His holy innocent suffering and death.”
The debt of your sin, the guilt that would keep you out of the heavenly kingdom has been paid for on a bloody cross. Baptism has attached you to Christ. In baptism you share now in Christ’s perfection, not on your own, but in Christ. Now when Christ comes into the heavenly feast, he ushers you in as a dear friend. In fact, scripture describes the relationship not as just a dear friend, but as a dear brother. Now you will be able to come in, “buy and eat the finest breads, the freshest milk, and my favorite, the finest wines.
This promise is one that is not just reserved for the time when we will finally come to our heavenly rest. This very morning we will participate in the marriage feast of the Lamb. It is not a far off event that we are waiting and waiting for.
You see the meal that Isaiah invites all to come to, the heavenly feast, is the same feast that has been shared throughout history. The Israelite Passover meal was a sharing in the heavenly feast of life. The feast in the 23rd psalm is the heavenly feast of life. The Lord’s Supper is the heavenly feast of life. And you are invited, here today, you can participate in the same feast that you will participate in for all eternity.
Today, Christ himself invites you to the altar, saying “Take eat, this is my body, given for you. Take Drink, this is my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Here today we have a foretaste of the marriage feast of the lamb. The book of Revelation says “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” Today’s text is that invitation, “Come and eat.”
What’s more, as today’s text says, today’s participation in the Lord’s Supper is a satisfying meal. The Lord’s Supper is not a feast where we leave and grow hungry all over again. This feast is Satisfying. It will strengthen us to life everlasting. That means we eat it, and we are filled.
We can “eat what is good, and delight ourselves in the rich food.” This rich food is Christ. In the book of John, Jesus says “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever” This is the food of the heavenly kingdom, right here before you today. This food is the free gift of God given to us, for Life and Salvation. It is a free feast of all the best you can imagine.
Christ’s voice calls now, “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. Come I have paid the price. Come and I will give to you to eat. Amen.
