“Come to the Waters”
Original sermon given on March 23, 2025 written and delivered by Pastor Jeff Leininger at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church
Watch the sermon live.
“Come to the Waters”
Isaiah 55.1-9
Isaiah 55.1-9
In the name of the Living God and the Crucified Christ. Amen.
Ho!” the prophet Isaiah cries out. “Come! All who are thirsty come to the waters! And to all who have no silver, come! Buy! And eat! Come buy wine and milk without money and without price!”
We get no further than the first word in our Old Testament reading, and already we know how different our world and our ways are from the Lord’s. We don’t shout out the word “Ho!” anymore — at least not with this meaning. In Hebrew it’s actually “Hoy!” but that doesn’t help much either.
Imagine a bustling market, with a cacophony of merchants calling out for the multitudes to come to their stall and buy their particular goods. They shout for your attention, to try and get your business… and your money. “Hey!” we might shout. Or even “Yo!” Or if you’re way cooler than me, “Yo! Yo!”
But then, imagine you get to the best stall with the finest goods, and to your surprise it’s all free. Water pure and life-giving. Wine from the finest grapes with the highest alcohol content. You take out your silver shekels to pay what you think will be a premium, but the price is… nothing. For you. Special price today. Nothing.
The prophet speaks of God’s ways above our ways, God’s thoughts high above ours, as far as the heavens from the earth. In this the finest grace freely given to those who deserve it least, Isaiah speaks strange truth into our ears indeed.
That’s not how our world works, is it? Ours is a “What’s the catch?” world. Like, you’re telling me it’s “Free Wi-Fi” but it’s not free. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Ours is a world of reprisals and recriminations and repossessions. Of growing grudges, countless conditions, rising resentments. It all eats away at us from the outside and inside, and what’s worse is that in our honest moments we know we’re part of the problem too.
Isaiah’s call from the Lord breaks into our tit-for-tat, this-for-that world. “Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you.”
They needed a new covenant, the people of God in Isaiah’s day. The biblical context of this passage from Isaiah 55 is the forthcoming Babylonian captivity, which would happen in about 125 years. Because they refused to trust in God, and they listened to other’s voices, went after other loves, forsook his word and his ways, they would be dragged off to bondage. Seventy years far from home. Seventy years of oppression. Seventy years of fear.
But Isaiah’s “Ho!” breaks into their bondage. Here, the prophet takes them forward to a time when the yoke of their captivity would be lifted, their fears silenced, and they would return home.
But it would not be of their own doing, not of their own cost. It would be His work — could only be His gracious and powerful work. Here’s where the metaphor of the marketplace comes in. They are called back to God, but they have nothing to offer him. They need what only he can give but have nothing to offer in return. Yet still he calls, and waters, and freely feeds, and eternally embraces.
This is why God’s ways are so far above ours. God’s grace for his people is forged in an everlasting covenant of his initiative, at his cost, by his power not ours.
That grace is for you today too: no matter how far you’ve wondered from home, how oppressive the slavery of sin, or how great your fear. All the words Isaiah would speak would be finally fulfilled in the work of Jesus, whose blood forges a new covenant which we receive and renew today. Christ is the full, final sacrifice for our sin, the redemption payment for our freedom from oppression. He has brought us home from our exile. In his incarnation, cross, and his resurrection, Jesus calls each of us into an otherworldly relationship of grace.
This new covenant of Jesus, which Isaiah foreshadowed, is 1) for all, 2) for free, and 3) forever.
It is for all. Not just one particular people in one type of bondage, but Christ comes for those of all nations, tribes, peoples, and languages. It is given to rich or poor, those near and those far off, to the old and to the young, even to the little ones, like Catherine who comes to the waters today.
It is for free. Not one of us is good enough, worthy enough of this grace. You’ll notice that Isaiah calls upon the wicked and evil to return to God — not the righteous and worthy. “Let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” It is to those who have nothing to offer God where grace in abundance is found. Christ’s offering of himself has paid it all, and his call to return is precisely for those who could never pay for it.
It is forever. Isaiah speaks of an everlasting covenant of God’s faithful love. This would be far more than a mere earthly deal for an Israeli king ruling a pile of rocks in Jerusalem. Rather, this covenant of grace begins here in time but stretches forth into the light of everlasting life.
In a few minutes, Catherine Anne will come to the waters. This grace which God is working in her through the Holy Sacrament of baptism is 1) for her, 2) for free, 3) and forever.
For her. Although she is pretty cute, she like all of us is borne into the brokenness of a sinful humanity. She can’t do too much damage with it yet, but just you wait, Kyle and Caroline, no one is going to have to teach her to be naughty. But in Holy Baptism, God the Holy Spirit is grabbing onto her heart. Jesus calls her by name. She’s engrafted into Christ the vine.
For free. She can’t earn it. She can’t buy it. She has nothing to offer for it. She doesn’t even understand it… but neither do we. It is what Christ has done for her — for you too — that matters most today.
Forever. Catherine’s name is written in the book of life. Eternal life begins for her today, as Christ promises never to leave her or forsake her. Her whole life, whatever might come, she has this promise one from God that will never be broken.
And so do we.
Come soon Lord Jesus. Amen.