Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The text on which this morning's message is based comes from our Old Testament lesson (Isaiah 55: 1-5) read earlier.

Once, before Laura and I were dating, when we were still "just friends, we were scheduled to go with a small group of other friends to see a friend who was performing in a play in Wichita. It just so happened that the other people who planned to go with us all canceled and it became just the two of us going. We drove together from Winfield to Wichita, walked up to the box office to purchase our separate tickets when I had a sick realization, one of those pit-of-your stomach sort of feelings. I had forgotten my wallet. I don't know how it happened. I never forget my wallet. I generally have a sense that it is there, that if it's not something is missing. How could I have driven the 40 miles to Wichita and not realized it? I don't know. But there I was, just 3 people between us and the box office, and I have no cash, no credit card, no cash station card, the show starts in about 20 minutes. I was helpless. I looked at Laura and said "I don't have my wallet." She didn't believe me at first, since even before we were dating I was prone to teasing her. But finally I convinced her, and she checked her own purse, and I'm pleased to say she had enough to cover us both, and I'm pleased to say, she was willing to cover the cost for us both. I got to see the play anyway, without money and without cost, at least until we returned to Winfield and I paid her back. Our first "pre-dating date" which really wasn't a date, was one in which I was helpless, a beggar if you will.

From our text: "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost." Everyone loves a banquet! Wedding banquets, family banquets, holiday feasts, and of course, the most wonderful banquet of all – a Lutheran pot-luck dinner. We enjoy dining at fine restaurants and at Mom and Pop diners. We love all you can eat buffets. Then we make a discovery. In a few hours we're hungry again. We eat until we are gorged and sure that we will never eat another bite as long as we live, then a little while later our stomach is growling and snacks are calling. Oh for food that will not fade. Oh for satisfaction that will last and last. (paragraph modified from Bolland, Concordia Pulpit Resource, p. 36, 2002). How much would you pay for a meal that satisfies forever? How much would you spend for a permanent meal?

Isaiah is not really speaking about an earthly banquet here, but speaking with a figure of speech about our spiritual hunger. God has placed in us a spiritual hunger, a desire to know our creator. But our sinful side goes looking for him in all the wrong places. Our own denial and defiance against God leads us into disobedience and division from Him, over and over and over again. Our disobedience leads people to look for Him in places He has not revealed Himself. One human-created religion after another promises spiritual fulfillment apart from Christ and apart from the salvation proclaimed in God's Word in Scripture.

Are you familiar with the term "feral children", children raised by wolves, like Mowgli in the book and Disney movie "Jungle Book." Now in Jungle Book, Mowgli is attracted to human culture and to a little girl at the river he thinks is cute. In reality however, a few children have been found in the past 2 centuries who were truly "feral children." They had no language abilities; they were frightened of other humans and ran away at the sight of them. Only after these feral children were captured and slowly learned that they could trust other humans did they begin to learn how to use language and how to function in society.

In the presence of God's power and righteousness, we humans are all like feral children. When we see him we want to run away in fear. When we hear of God, we know that we are unable to communicate with him on our own. Even after we become Christians, our feral instincts often come out. We want to hold God out at a safe distance. But He comes to us. He came to us in Christ Jesus, God in human flesh. Christ came in our form, to teach us not only of God's righteousness, but also of what we could not know. He came to teach us of God's love, not a gushy, sappy love you might see portrayed in a bad romantic movie. No, Jesus came to show us God's love, God's willingness to sacrifice Himself on Good Friday, a sacrifice that cost Him his life as a ransom for us. In faithful, steadfast love God made an everlasting covenant with King David, promising that His Son would be a leader and commander of the peoples. That Son was Jesus, and now the nations of the world do run to him and will run to him because He shows God's splendor and beauty. That Son was Jesus, who died, but even more was risen from the dead so that we too will rise from our beggarly existence of death.

But to come to understand and trust this Lord, we must hear his language and hear it again and again, and let it slowly change our lives forever. Here our Lord comes to us and invites us to feed our souls from Him and to listen to Him. "Listen, and keep on listening to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David."

Christ's presence in this world and in our lives is always communicated to us in the frail process of human language. Did you ever stop to think that the Son of God could have come to earth and no one would have ever known it? The most amazing miracle of all time, God becoming human flesh, could have occurred and no one would have known. Jesus was only an infant, and apparently just like any other infant, not yet ready to speak for himself. But God chose to use words, human words spoken through angels, first to tell Mary and Joseph who Jesus would be, then to tell the shepherds tending their flock. Those shepherds listened. They gave ear to what was said and they came near to God in a manger. The shepherds were then the first to use their own human language to summon others to know this child. And their words today, recorded for us in the Bible, continue to feed our souls, to assure us that "nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8: 39).

The shepherds were the first to use human language to tell about Jesus, but they were definitely not the last. That generation told the next generation and that generation told the next, and the next and the next. Each generation continued to use and listen to God's Word recorded in Scripture and to receive the sacraments to feed their souls. This afternoon, out at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, we will celebrate the ministry of Pastor Marvin Barz, another generation that has shared that Word. I will be 44 years old soon. Before I was even conceived, Pastor Barz has been sharing this Word of Jesus our Lord as an ordained servant of Christ. For the past 45 years God has gifted him and used his gifts to continue that generational transfer of this greatest of food. Pastor Barz has stood in this pulpit many times and told us of the lavish feast of God's grace (Ephesians 1: 8) that wipes out the debt of our sin. He has proclaimed to us, to you again and again of how our Lord Jesus' suffering and death has made a lavish payment on our behalf. Pastor Barz has spent 45 years lavishly administering God grace through the waters of baptism, lavishly nourishing God's people through the proper administration of our Lord's Supper, his own Body and Blood. His gifts have enlightened us, helped restore peace between us and St. Paul's, and helped us all to reach out to the Junction City community with the message of Christ.

When I ended up in Wichita with Laura, standing in the box office line with no money, I became an embarrassed beggar, helpless to buy my way into the show. But you know what, as soon as we got back to Winfield and I was able to get to the cash station, I paid her back very quickly. But we all stand before God as beggars, helpless and hungry for his presence in our lives, for the life in Christ that only He can give. He gives us all we need saying "Come, buy and eat… without money and without cost." Listen and keep on listening to the words that feed your soul. I paid Laura back after my brief stint as a beggar with her, but we can never pay back our righteous God. But the wondrous Good News is that we don't have to. He has given us more than we need, more than we will ever imagine, in Christ. What we receive is a wondrous supply of his steadfast love, his grace for us that we can only trust and never repay.

"The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" Philippians 4: 7.