We're rightly skeptical today whenever someone tells us that something is free. We're sure there are conditions, that strings must be attached. We brace ourselves for an endless, exhausting sales pitch.
This suspicion may explain some of our innate resistance to the claims of the Gospel -- that God offers not only to freely pardon and forgive us, but to grace us with the lavish gift of new life in Christ.
We see a memorable image of this offer in Isaiah 55 -- God invites his people to a sumptuous banquet at his table, cajoling them to quit snacking on spiritual junk food. He is about to do a new thing among them -- to bring them home from their exile in Babylon. Not because of their own goodness or moral striving, but as a free gift from his good heart.
Like the Israelites, God offers to bring us home from our self-imposed spiritual exile of sin and displacement from him. Not because we are trying to be really good, but because he is really good.
And though the offer truly is free -- for us, at least -- it wasn't free for the Suffering Servant that Isaiah described in brutal detail just two chapters earlier, the One who "was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities." (Isaiah 53:5)
May we receive God's free offer of pardon today and "seek him while he may be found." (Isaiah 55:6)