Come

“Eternal One: If you are thirsty, come here;
        come, there’s water for all.
    Whoever is poor and penniless can still
        come and buy the food I sell.
    There’s no cost—here, have some food, hearty and delicious,
        and beverages, pure and good.
     I don’t understand why you spend your money for things that don’t nourish
        or work so hard for what leaves you empty.
    Attend to Me and eat what is good;
        enjoy the richest, most delectable of things.
     Listen closely, and come even closer. My words will give life,
        for I will make a covenant with you that cannot be broken, a promise
    Of My enduring presence and support like I gave to David.[a]
     See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander among the nations.
     Now you will issue a call to nations from all over the world
        people whom you do not know and who do not know you.
    They will come running, because of Me, your God
        because the Eternal, the Holy One of Israel, has made you beautiful” (Isaiah 55:1-5, The Voice).

That’s the invitation: come.

It seems like our economy is based on envy and dissatisfaction. Just about every ad promises to fulfill a deep need and satisfy a fundamental urge if only you will buy their product.

You can be truly happy and content if you will only buy shampoo or deodorant or a luxury car or these gins knives (remember them from the informercials?)

God in Jesus offers true and lasting joy and contentment for free.

FOR FREE.

The only requirement is that you come, taste and see that the Lord is good.

You can be one of those radical counter-cultural people who can say when faced with the never ending assault on the senses of commercials, “No thanks. I’m good. I have enough.”

Come, taste, and see that God is enough to satisfy.

 

That Longing Inside

till we have faces

“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back” (C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces).

It’s that longing. If you watch TV at all, you are led to believe that you can fill that longing with a new car or a new kitchen appliance. Or maybe if you drink the right beer or wear the right kind of sweaters. Just about anything and everything from fast food to cologne to mattresses will satisfy that deepest of longings inside of us, or so we’re told.

I think all of us have deep longings that nothing we do or buy or acquire can ever truly satisfy. For most of us, we’re unable to even name what that longing is or even pinpoint what it is that we truly desire.

That C. S. Lewis guy also said that if we have longings that nothing in this world can satisfy, then it means that we were created for another world. I think he was on to something.

I personally find myself longing more and more for a world I’ve never seen before, but one that I have dreamed about. I imagine it will look a whole lot like Mr. Lewis’ Narnia, especially the one described in toward the end of his book, The Last Battle.

“Death opens a door out of a little, dark room (that’s all the life we have known before it) into a great, real place where the true sun shines and we shall meet” (C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces).

 

 

The Not-So-Super Bowl

XLVIII

Yes, I know. Super Bowl XLVIII was two days ago. Yes, I watched it. Well, most of it.

If you watched it, you probably know that it wasn’t exactly a nailbiter. There was no thrilling finish. In fact, you might say the contest was basically over when the Denver center snapped the ball over Peyton Manning’s head. The Broncos never recovered after that.

To be more specific, I watched the game right up to the point where the Seattle Seahawks scored to make it a 36-0 game. At that point, I turned off the game and watched a couple of episodes of Twin Peaks, which were much more dramatic and suspenseful than the game ever thought about being.

I’ve never seen a team play worse than the Broncos did in that game. I’ve never seen a team so demoralized as those players in orange and blue.

Even the commercials (in my opinion) weren’t all that great. There were a few that I liked, but mostly they were like the game– overhyped and underperforming.

I do think it’s better to watch a game like this with friends or family or a combination of both. It’s good to have a few board games handy in case the game gets out of hand (sorta like this one did).

I’m glad I’m not a Denver Broncos fan. I’d be really depressed right about now. I’m not really a Seahawks fan either. I just wanted the game to be close and for both teams to play well. As it turned out, it appears somebody forgot to tell most of those Denver Broncos there was a game that night.

As I get “mature” (a nice way of saying “older”), I find that I prefer a good movie to a sporting event. I don’t know why. I just do.

I do however hope next year’s Super Bowl is a bit more competitive. At least make the commercials fun to watch.