Your Faith Journey - Finding God Through Words, Song And Praise

“Hey there, all who are thirsty, come to the waters!  Are you penniless? Come anyway – buy and eat! Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk. Buy without money – everything’s free!”  In our first reading today, the prophet Isaiah speaks these words to the people of Israel as they experience chasmic dislocation, sorrow, desolation, grief, emptiness, and enormous loss, as they ask the often-unanswerable question, “Why?” The people are in exile, in Babylon.  In 587 BCE, Jerusalem had been burned and the temple destroyed.  The king was exiled, the leading citizens were deported, and the life they had known all had come to an end.  It is into this context that Isaiah speaks words of consolation and hope saying, “Hey there, all who are thirsty, come to the waters!’  Imagine hearing these words, “come, buy and eat, even though you have no money, it is free.”  The prophet addresses the void, the emptiness, the nothingness compared to what once was.  He addresses the dislocation and the sorrow in the lives of the peop