Friday, October 23, 2020
Christ’s Light
Showing us the way to God’s feast
Where everything is free and plentiful
…
for everyone!
Isaiah 55:3
Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.
Hebrews 13:20-21
Now may the God of peace, who brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, make you complete in everything good so that you may do his will, working among us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Words of Grace For Today
May God make us complete in everything good so that we may do God’s will.
Incline our ear, come, listen so that we may live.
This sounds like we must take the initiative to turn to God and listen and obey, and therewith somehow earn our right to live.
But those that proceed this verse put it in a different context:
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have 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 labour for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me; listen ….
God has set a banquet of food and drink: it is free to buy without money or price. Yes, that’s kind of a contradiction. God does not just dump it on us, so that we must eat and drink.
God invites us, and offers to sell to us for nothing. We get to engage, but the price is free. We do not loose our integrity, but God establishes that God gives freely to us all that we need.
And it is not spam or food beyond it’s best buy date, or canned food, or just water or flavoured sugar water called fruit drinks. God offers rich food, milk, and wine!
This is a feast that we get to take home.
This is the nourishment that will sustain us for 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness of life.
So we are fed, and our thirst slaked. We do not just live when we receive God’s generosity. We live well.
When we have feasted and feasted again at Jesus’ table then we are ready. God has work for us. On our own we have no way of knowing what God’s will is or doing it. But after we have feasted and drunk our fill, then God makes us complete in everything good and equips us to do God’s good work on this earth.
This is the work that God created us to do, to love one another and ourselves, and to love even our enemies. This is the work that is pleasing to Jesus the Christ.
What a life!
No one need thirst or hunger again …
…
We, God’s people, are the one’s called to ensure that this is so, working to provide food and drink and invitations, so that all are invited to God’s feast, where the food is rich, the milk and wine does not run out, and blessings abound.
We are not only in this together, God brings us together, to do God’s will more effectively, to provide for every neighbour, with love.