Midweek Message: March 3

As I write this, I’m sitting by a drafty window and the cold air is seeping into my bones. Aren’t we done with winter weather yet? I’m reading Isaiah 55: 1-9, and I can’t get the image of a summer picnic out of my mind: A blanket spread out on green grass, a basket full of food – sweet tea and lemonade, ripe strawberries, fresh bread and cheese – a Frisbee to toss after lunch, a book to read in the shade. Maybe there’s a little brook nearby where we could take off our shoes and wade.

“Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!”

To the exiles in Babylon, Isaiah’s words must have sounded like the promise of a summer picnic after a long, cold winter. They had endured not just a season, but a generation of homelessness and upheaval and weren’t sure if they would ever get back home. Isaiah writes to give them a word of hope, a promise that it would not be this way forever.

Winter – even as harsh as this one has been – is hardly exile. We haven’t been uprooted  from our homes. I glance at today’s paper, with it’s front page story about the overflowing homeless shelters, and I know that I have no room to complain about my drafty windows.

I do wonder, though, if maybe we are a little thirsty and we haven’t even noticed. That water – the cool, fresh, living water of God – sounds pretty good. The invitation to that summer picnic comes with a challenge, of course – it’s a challenge to examine just how we’ve been spending our lives. How did we get so thirsty in the first place?

It’s a call to live a little differently, maybe acknowledge the places where our lives are empty, and turn back to God. It’s a call to take our place in the everlasting covenant that God has made with us. It’s a call to come to the waters.

I am confident that soon, soon, the weather will turn. Crocuses and daffodils will start to make an appearance, and maybe we’ll see the sun again. The ground will thaw and the dull gray will turn green and fresh water will flow.  I the meantime, I’ll pull out another blanket, grateful that I have a warm place to sleep tonight, and dream of strawberries.