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Thirsty
The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity – 10/13/2024
Isaiah 55:1-9
Rev. Christopher W. Brademeyer
That portion from God’s holy Word for consideration this morning is our Old Testament lesson from the book of the prophet Isaiah in the fifty-fifth chapter with special emphasis on verse one which reads as follows:
“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.”[1]
Thus far the Scriptures.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The image of a parched, dry soul is one that should be familiar to us. Now, by familiar, I do not mean that there is a place that uses this phrase that I can find in the Bible. But, it is an assumption behind parts of the Bible that is such a thing as a dry soul. For example, we see here in this passage in Isaiah that the Lord says to Israel. But this is not the only place that such language is used. Psalm 42 compares us to a thirsty deer that pants for a steam of water. Psalm 63 describes our condition as a man whose soul is like the desperate, dry, fainting flesh of a person in a dry land. And, of course, our Lord Jesus famously implies that the woman at the well in John chapter four has a dry soul in need of His living water.
So what, then, do we make of this dry soul thing? It seems that across multiple periods of time and from multiple authors there remains a consistent use of this image, that is to say, it serves to describe the same reality in the time of Isaiah, the time of incarnate, local ministry of the Lord Jesus, and today among us as we hear God’s Word. In other words, it gets at something that transcends the specifics of the human experience and is common among us.
The dry soul is one opposed to the soul sated by the living water. The dry soul is thirsty, desiring something to quench its thirst. Doesn’t this sound like us? Do we not in so many ways seek to fulfill our own lives and grant us whatever we think we need to be happy, and satisfied, even righteous and holy? Let me be more specific: there is a longing in the human being to find a stable place to orient one’s self in this world of chaos and change. More still, this comes with the human desire to be good and right and holy in the eyes of those who we respect and look up to. Now these are not bad things to desire. After all, we should have an eye to those things which last forever and are worth our energy to invest ourselves in and we should also seek to do that which is good and pleasing in the sight of God.
But this desire, this longing for these things is like being dried out and thirsty. Have you been thirsty, really thirsty? It occupies your thoughts and actions, even when it is not in the front of your mind it is always looming over you, leading, even coercing, you to find something to sate your thirst. And this is a different thing than wanting food or any other basic necessity. We cannot abuse water unto gluttony like we do food. Nor can we go without it for as long as we can go without food.
And this, then is an accurate description of the human soul in our natural state. We lack what we know we need and nothing on this earth can sate this thirst. There is nothing to quench it. Sure, we can, and do, try many things. After all, there are many people who find lots of reasons to avoid Christ and His Church. To make a potentially very long list manageable, let’s just note a few quick examples. There are those whose lives are given to pleasures of the flesh, addictions, pursuits of distraction, and lusts of every sort. There are those who seek to make their name great in their towns and nations, those who seek fame, and those who look for power and riches. Still others attempt to find enlightenment through discipline – spiritual, physical, or mental –, esoteric doctrines of various false religions, spiritual awakenings of various sorts, and the supposed discoveries that come from mind-altering substances.
But not one of these will quench the thirst of the soul. Indeed, such things are beyond us. Which is why those who pursue such attempts to sate the thirst spend their whole lives chasing the satisfaction of a single cold drink of life-giving water and never find it. Fame makes fools of those who worship it, leading to ever more desperate and destructive attempts to stay in the public eye. Wealth demands ever greater gifts of time and energy. Desperation to keep power leads to paranoia, anxiety, and isolation; just look at the lives and histories of dictators. Discipline is good, but slaving away at it leads to a fanaticism that makes lives shallow and obnoxious to others. And false religious teachings can never give comfort because lasting comfort requires as a basic component truth.
God knows this. This is why, through the prophet Isaiah, He bids us to drink. We who are thirsty and dry, He grants water that wells up to everlasting life. For those who are parched and dried out from evil, suffering, and despair, He sates us with water that lasts unto eternity. And what is this water? None other that our Lord Jesus Himself, as He says of Himself in St. John’s Gospel.[2] So your thirsty soul has found rest and refreshment, a stable place upon which to place its feet and stand firm among chaos and stress and change: our Lord Jesus Himself.
Dear friends in Christ, God is not content to give us only water. Though water is what a desperately dry soul needs, God also bids us to a great feast at no cost to us. He grants wine and milk, rich foods that satisfy and delight. We need water, living water lest we die, but God through His Son Jesus grants us not only that water that we need, but also life-giving food and refreshment of all sorts.
This means something very simple: God is good, generous, and gracious. Generosity is rare enough among us, great generosity even rarer. But think of the joy of a child who receives two cookies from grandma when he asks for one. This unexpected generosity cannot help but produce joy and thanks in the lad. But even greater, dear friends, is the generosity of God. We, who are parched and dry, are not just given a swallow but all the water that one would ever want. More still, God gives you a lavish feast without end or boundary. This is all yours by the shed blood of Jesus and the forgiveness of sins that He has earned on your behalf.
So now you are sated in Christ, given a secure place to stand, and are held there by the generous mercy of our God. Thirsty souls are sated in Christ and none other. You, dear friends, are given every refreshment in God through our suffering Lord, Jesus Christ the Savior.
In the holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1] Isaiah 55:1 English Standard Version
[2] John 7:38-39
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