I get ridiculously excited when I spot my first osprey returning to the Outer Banks after the long winter away. Ospreys are coastal raptors who dive into water to catch fish. They are creatures of habit who return to the same large, stick-nest year after year. My community has erected several tall nest platforms along our waters, and each spring we enjoy watching them return to have their babies. As soon as I spot daffodils popping up in my neighbor’s yards, I begin to listen for their delightful chirps and whistles. I train my eyes upward on my walks to spot their arrival. It is a rite of passage for me to see my first osprey every year, and I tear up every time it happens. The picture below was taken last week at such a first-sighting, when this magnificent fellow swooped down over my head in observant circles before landing on his high perch at the marina. You can see the large stick he carried in his talons for building his nest. Welcome home, dear fellow! I have been waiting and watching for you.

Our beautiful lectionary passage from Isaiah today invites us to come to the water to drink and eat of God’s goodness. Watch for the repetition of the words listen, look, and seek.

Isaiah 55 (Common English Bible)

 All of you who are thirsty, come to the water!
Whoever has no money, come, buy food and eat!
Without money, at no cost, buy wine and milk!
² Why spend money for what isn’t food,
    and your earnings for what doesn’t satisfy?

Listen carefully to me and eat what is good;
    enjoy the richest of feasts.
³ Listen and come to me;
    listen, and you will live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
    my faithful loyalty to David.

We are invited to come and receive God’s blessing of being richly spiritually fed. But if we aren’t thirsty for what God can give us, we will never come. What are you thirsty for? Is it poured out by the Holy Spirit or found in the marketplace of the world? God’s wine, milk, and food are offered at no cost. What price are you paying for the things you consume that are not of God? When we fill ourselves of the empty calories of gossip, anger, hatred, evil, and greed, we starve ourselves of the sustenance that matters.

⁴ Look, I made him a witness to the peoples,
    a prince and commander of peoples.
⁵ Look, you will call a nation you don’t know,
    a nation you don’t know will run to you
    because of the Lord your God,
    the holy one of Israel, who has glorified you.

Look up and see what God is doing. The covenant he made with the shepherd boy David is fulfilled in the Good Shepherd Jesus. Isaiah invites us to seek the Lord in an attitude of worship and repentance. God is generous with forgiveness: We can come to his waters and be cleansed.

⁶ Seek the Lord when he can still be found;
    call him while he is yet near.
⁷ Let the wicked abandon their ways
    and the sinful their schemes.
Let them return to the Lord so that he may have mercy on them,
    to our God, because he is generous with forgiveness.

This last part is a humbling reminder that God’s thoughts, plans, and ways are not the same as ours. We falter and fall when we assume than they are. Instead, we are reminded to bow down to our God who knows way better than we do about what is actually good for us.

⁸ My plans aren’t your plans,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
⁹ Just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways,
    and my plans than your plans.

We are invited this Lent to return to the Lord like the ospreys return to the safety and sure provision of their nests. May we listen, look, and seek God in everything we do.

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