Come To The Waters

ISAIAH 55:1-2

“Ho! Everyone who thirsts,
Come to the waters;
And you who have no money,
Come, buy and eat.
Yes, come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without price.
Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight itself in abundance.

It used to be a common thing — certainly if you read certain novels of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries — to ‘take the waters’, meaning to visit a spa which had healing thermal waters. Bath in England became renowned as a spa when the Roman baths were constructed and was named Aquae Sulis (the waters of Sulis), although it is thought that the hot springs were considered a shrine by the Britons long before that.

In Jerusalem the Pool of Bethesda was a place thought to heal the sick and the lame.

JOHN 5:2-4
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches.
In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water.
For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had.

Isaiah — in the verses quoted — equates the waters with food and drink. In other words, these waters are for the healing of ‘the inner man’; the healing not merely physical but also spiritual, and it is not just our modern knowledge that the two are interconnected. Our forebears’ understanding was every bit as deep as ours is today, even if the detail now seems to us as quaint, strange or fantastical.

The verses chosen end with let your soul delight itself with abundance, so that your cup overflows.

PSALM 23:5-6
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You have anointed and refreshed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life,
And I shall dwell forever [throughout all my days] in the house and in the presence of the LORD.

Again the analogy suggests water gushing out, overspilling, a dam bursting with more than it could contain. That is what The Lord means with ‘come to the waters’. Come and drink, come and bathe, come and be cleansed, healed, restored. And forgiven. All good things from Him rely on each of us having the thirst to come to the waters. Come to Jesus Christ.

MEDITATE ON THESE THINGS

Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will dwell among them.
They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat;
for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
REVELATION 7:15-17

COME TO THE WATERS — Matthew Zigenis

PRAYER REQUIRES SILENCE

ARE WE MOURNING before God because we have not had an audible response? Mary Magdalene was weeping at the sepulchre — what was she asking for? The dead body of Jesus. Of whom did she ask it? Of Jesus Himself, and she did not know Him! Did Jesus give her what she asked for? He gave her something infinitely grander than she had ever conceived — a risen, living impossible-to-die Lord.
[from ‘If Ye Shall Ask’ by Oswald Chambers]

LISTEN TO THIS MEDITATION HERE

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COMING NEXT … #518 FOR HE WILL ABUNDANTLY PARDON