Isaiah 55: 1-9. “Come buy wine and milk, without
money and without price” (V1) implies that there is a cost, but that this cost
is borne by God. A wonderful poetic description of God’s Grace. The final two
verses of our offering this morning describe the thoughts ways and wisdom of
God that far surpass anything humans can conceive. A life lesson for us all.
1 Corinthians 10: 1-13. The message for the Corinthians (and
for us) is that God’s unconditional love can breed indifference, arrogance and
presumptuous ness. We are all subject to being tested and tempted, but we are
assured that we won’t be tested beyond our endurance and God will also provide
a way out.
Luke 13: 1-9. A passage recalling the universality
of sin and the patience of God in waiting for his people to repent and bear
fruit. As I have often said, the essential message of the gospel is that we
should bear fruit in accordance with repentance.
Today’s
readings encapsulate the entire belief system of Christianity – that we are all
flawed and separated from God in our humanity – but God has brought us home to
him through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the route back or “the way” back to God. It
is noteworthy I think that the original name given to followers of Jesus was
not “Christians” – that name (which wasn’t supposed to be altogether
flattering) was applied to us first in Antioch according to the book of Acts. Before
that we were called followers of “the way”, a description I prefer because it
implies motion, an active not passive faith.
The way that
God chose to bring us back to him we call Grace and we have a beautifully poetic
description of Grace in Isaiah today.
“Come buy
wine and milk, without money and without price”.
All the good
things God wants to give us we can have at no cost to ourselves – we just have
to learn to receive as I said last week. But that doesn’t mean there is no cost
at all, but it does mean that this cost is born completely by God.
Isaiah’s
description of God’s Grace is re-stated in much more stark but nonetheless
still beautiful and powerful phrase in John 3:16
“For God so
loved the world, that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in
him may not perish but have eternal life”
The free gift
is eternal life; the motivation is Love; the cost, borne by God was the self-sacrifice
of his son.
You cannot
buy eternal life; it can only be given and gratefully received.
The message
from Paul however is that God’s unconditional love may be received gratefully
at first but in many people the very fact that we haven’t had to do anything to
receive it, to merit it, can breed indifference, arrogance and presumptuousness.
We are
trained in life to value things that cost us a lot of money rather than things
that come free, but take a moment to consider that and you’ll agree that the
most important things in life are free – love, relationships, health, and the
beautiful world we live in.
Grace
presumed upon because it is free has been called by some, cheap grace, but this isn’t a term I like because for God it was
anything but cheap. It cost Him everything – the death of his son.
And don’t
forget Paul’s great description of Christ, “God was in Christ reconciling the
world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19)
So God
Himself in some mysterious way was present in Jesus Christ as He was crucified
that first Good Friday.
Don’t worry
if that is a conundrum that makes your brain hurt. This is a mystery that
Christians have been trying to comprehend for 2000 years. And I use that word “mystery”
in the sense that there is always more to something than we can readily grasp
or understand.
Remember
what the prophet also said today,
“For as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts” (55:9)
We cannot
ever fully understand or comprehend the ways of God.
Going back to
how God’s grace can be treated so lightly. Paul lists how in Israelite history,
they too treated God’s love and care with contempt, and displeased God so
we can learn from their example that God
does care about our response.
We know as
human beings that in life we are always subject to tests and temptations, just
as the Israelites were, but to be reminded of them is to prod us, to give us
strength to resist.
Stories of
how the Israelites were tested, failed, and displeased God are supposed to be good news to us if they act
rather like a smoke alarm warning us about a fire. “Don’t fall away like they
did. Keep to the way of Jesus.”
The message
for us is that God does care how we react to his offer of divine Grace. He
wants us to flourish and have life in all its fullness. The best advert for the
truth of the gospel is a full life where we reach the full potential that God
has given us.
A full life
is one of enhanced horizons, full of hope and expectation, in which our character
and emotions and wisdom grow evermore into the likeness of Christ.