“COMFORT”
OT Lesson and Sermon
Text: Isaiah 40: 1-11
NT Lesson: 2 Thessalonians 2: 16-17
Dr. Matthew Brown
Did this person go to your high school? It was that student who had an insatiable
appetite for attention, the same student who as a kindergartner was always
saying, “Look at me! Look at me!” It was the same student who had been a bit
too adored by the adults in his or her life and so grew up expecting that
everyone in every time and place would always keep him or her under the
spotlight of praise.
Sooner or later, though, the adults would grow weary of
saying, “Isn’t that cute,” and so the little precious child, so addicted to the
spotlight, would learn that one way to maintain that coveted place under the
light would be the experience of crisis.
If you were in crisis, people would pay attention, and so if you weren’t
actually in crisis you had better manufacture one.
By the time high school rolled around the student had
developed this routine into an art form.
Did you ever know that student?
Now, the student could have been a boy or a girl, but at
It was such a regular experience to round the corner at
school and see this huddled mass around her locker, patting her shoulder,
dabbing her tears, reciting their regular litany of “There, theres” and
“Everything’s going to be
Paula ran on the track team and without fail the same drama
would unfold at the end of her races.
She wasn’t all that fast and so she’d never receive the adulation that
comes with victory. So, ever in search
of the spotlight, when she crossed the finish line she would inevitably
collapse to the track, her entourage rushing in to lift her and hold her up as
the tears flowed and the chest heaved, and I’m standing there, so detached and
callous, with just one thought on my mind:
“Suck it up!”
In a way, it was like watching a bad ballet. Call it, The Tragedy of Phidippides, an
homage to the ancient Greek messenger who collapsed and died after his run from
Do you remember that student at your school? Is it just me, or did she or he get on your
nerves, maybe just a little bit?
But I must say, those students who faithfully kept coming to
her with aid and comfort were certainly loyal and longsuffering. My compassion had “left the building” long
before, but time and again they were there, regular angels of mercy. What sparked cynicism in me sparked a desire
to comfort in them?
Maybe their actions constituted evidence that there remains
within the human spirit some small remnant of the image of God. Do you remember the creation story of Genesis
1? The Lord says, “Let us make humankind
in our image, according to our likeness...”
In seminary, Katie and I read and heard about the unending theological
debates throughout history over the extent to which the infection of sin had
diminished and disfigured this image of God within us.
Well, the actions of Paula’s friends point to the
possibility that there remains within each of us the capacity to care, the
impulse of compassion and a desire to offer comfort.
A toddler cuddles a baby doll. A first grader gets upset over the suffering
of a friend. I am amazed at the capacity
of young children to sense the suffering or the emotions of others. I’ve always tried to remind couples in
conflict that their children are a lot more aware of what is happening than
they may think. The children see and
take in more than you would think is possible.
They sense stress and suffering in others and they yearn to “make it all
better.”
There is within us the capacity to care. Wrapped in our own wants we so often ignore
the suffering of others, that capacity to care becoming hidden or latent,
buried somewhere beneath our selfishness.
Yet, a tsunami, a flood, a troubling news story, the report of an
acquaintance’s illness or death awakens within us the desire to “make things
all better,” and sometimes we even manage to act on it.
Indeed, there are many times when we wish to offer comfort
in the face of suffering. We see the
tears of a friend and we yearn to make them go away. Yet, our attempts at compassion are often
abbreviated by our inability or refusal to comprehend the breadth or depth of
our suffering friend’s situation. You
know, the first thing we say to a hurting friend is the last thing they need to
hear. What do we always say? “Everything’s going to be alright.” First of all, everything is not alright and
you may well not have the power to make everything alright. In fact, “alright” may not be a possibility
for quite some time.
Tell them you love them, if you mean it. Tell them you’ll pray for them, but only if
you’ll actually do it. I had a colleague
who bravely made the confession that we all probably need to make when she
admitted to the many times she’d told people she’d be praying for them and
never actually followed through with it.
Thus, along with the ubiquitous promise that everything’s going to be alright,
we become guilty of offering false comfort that is really no comfort at all.
If there is no substance, no honesty, no acknowledgement of
the depth of one’s despair beneath the wrapping of our words and actions, of
what value are they?
In the book of Job, Job’s friends and acquaintances seek to
placate him after he has lost everything and everyone dear to him. Yet their words fail to acknowledge the depth
of his loss and their encouragement comes across as prosaic, even patronizing. Their comfort is superficial and so their
words do more damage than good. Job
laments, “How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing
left of your answers but falsehood."
What makes the words of Isaiah 40 so poignant and powerful
is its honesty.
“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to
The word here does not seek to ignore or gloss over the
extent of their plight. The people had
lost their homes and their homeland because they had messed up. They were in exile, at the mercy of a foreign
power and maybe suffering through the experience of enslavement. And even in the best of circumstances life
itself was precarious.
“...All people are grass,” Isaiah proclaims, “Their
constancy is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows
upon it; surely the people are grass...”
You can’t truly offer someone comfort if you can’t be honest
with them. “Everything’s gonna be
alright.” Well, how do you know? You can’t help people in pain if you’re not
willing to acknowledge the pain.
Isaiah’s word stands in contrast to the empty words of the
false prophets who in the face of the impending collapse of
The great Anglican scholar N.T. Wright alluding to the
Isaiah text said, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God; but telling
someone there isn’t really a
problem is not comfort. Standing with them in their grief; weeping with those who weep;
helping them through and out the other
side to the slow but deep comfort of [the promise of resurrection hope];
that is our task as Christians when faced with death, chaos, crisis and exile.”
Life is precarious.
Surely the people are grass, and grass withers, flowers fade. “...But the word of our God will stand
forever.”
The word of the Lord for the Israelites in exile, for all
who would be entrapped in some captivity or crisis is a word of comfort, of
hope. It is not a false comfort inspired
by false promises, but a comfort sustained by a word that would not and shall
not fail.
“...Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort
me...” I was privileged to be at a
memorial service this week where these words from the 23rd Psalm were read,
just as they have been read at almost every memorial service or funeral I have
attended or led. Now, I’ll be honest
with you, there have been times when that psalm has been read because when I
asked the family if there were any scriptures they would want to include as
part of the service, this was the only scripture they had any recollection of,
and that’s a tragedy. It is a tragedy
when I have worked with families who are completely at a loss, without any bearings
in the face of death. The faith of the
faith community is completely foreign to them, and you look at them and know
exactly what Jesus was talking about when he spoke of the sheep who were
harassed and helpless, without a shepherd.
But time and again, as it was this week, the 23rd Psalm is
brought forth because it is a sustaining and sustainable word. It does not gloss over our pain or tragedy,
but gives us a rock to hold onto in the midst of the storm. “Even though I walk through the valley of death,
I shall not fear, for thou art with me.”
In the darkness, in the shadows, God is there. When we just don’t know if everything is
going to be alright, God is there.
“The grass withers, the flower fades,” but that Word will
stand forever. It is not false
comfort. It is our true hope.
Many times in ministry I am left speechless. The doctor gives you bad news at a most
inopportune time, though there is no opportune time for news of that
magnitude. The parent, the spouse, the
friend, the soul mate is suddenly taken from your presence. We sit together but my mind offers no words
that could possibly make any difference.
I can’t say everything’s going to be okay, because it isn’t. I can’t say, “Look on the bright side,”
because there is no bright side. I just
sit in awkward silence, comforting myself with some silly notion that I am
offering a ministry of presence.
Yet, in the midst of our deepest pain, the power of God’s
word remains. When we circle the bed in
the hospital, when we enter the tent at the graveside, we know what word we
need to hear. “The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want...” (We need to hear
that.) “I lift up mine eyes to the
hills, from whence does my help come? My
help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth...” (We need to hear that.) “If God is for us, who is against us...”
When you enter the room of a nursing home patient whose mind
has grown weary of remembering and putting together the information of this
world, their todays and yesterdays becoming inextricably confused, it is
amazing how these brief verses of scripture bring sudden clarity of mind,
evoking powerful memories and hopes.
They may not remember your name, but they remember those
life-sustaining, life-giving words, their lips moving along with yours as you
read.
The half-life of my word is very brief. However, I do take comfort in the possibility
that though my ministry will be long forgotten an my quirks and faults
blessedly faded from memory in a few short years, one practice of my ministry
will remain fresh in the memories or those who endured my sermons and pardoned
my blunders.
If you are here fifty years hence, there may be one thing
you remember from our time together.
This possibility struck me a few years ago when I was
invited to preach at the Homecoming
service down the road at
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