Comfort Ye

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.

²    Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term,

       that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the LORD’S hand double for all her sins.

³    A voice cries out:

     “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

⁴    Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low;

     the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.          Isaiah 40:1-4

¹Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ²And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

     “See, the home of God is among mortals.          He will dwell with them;

     they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

     Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

     for the first things have passed away.”          Revelation 21:1-4

     Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.  God will be with you, and will wipe every tear from

your eyes.  Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.  These are among

the most cherished words of Scripture.  Most powerful.  Most comforting.  For what greater hope can

we have than suffering and grief and even death itself will be no more?

     We Christians often apply Isaiah’s words to the coming of the Messiah – Jesus – whom we

confess is the one the world awaited.  But Isaiah actually wrote these words to an exiled people, a

nation which had been conquered by a foreign power. Isaiah wrote to people who had suffered

much – and had no hope that things would get better. And to such downtrodden people, Isaiah says,

take heart!  Be comforted.  For God promises you, your exile, your pain is ending. 

     John’s words in Revelation are written some 600 years after Isaiah’s. They come near the very end

of his book, which is to say, the very end of the Bible. He writes to Christians living under severe

oppression and persecution for their faith. Christians who knew untimely death as a daily occurrence. 

And to these people, John shares a divinely given vision:  through the church of Jesus Christ the whole

of creation is being renewed, being transformed.  What is coming is a new day, a day of eternal light

and life.  A time when all human hopes will be fulfilled and all human joys will be unending.

     We do not, of course, share the lived context of either Isaiah or the book of Revelation.  But we do

share with those ancient people a hungering for comfort and a thirsting for God’s healing presence. For

today we are gathered in worship and prayer upon the death of a beloved and beautiful sister in Christ,

a sister, wife, mother, and grandmother.  Perhaps we could see Marion’s death coming, but it was a

death we were not ready for today.  And so we grieve our loss. Even Marion’s release from suffering is

not sufficient to soothe our hurting hearts.  We need to be comforted.

     And God’s word comes to us from Isaiah and Revelation, offering us comfort for today and hope

for tomorrow.  Through Isaiah, God promises us the time of our pain will come to an end.  And in

Revelation we read that in God’s coming kingdom, grief and even death will be no more.  Every tear

will be wiped away, Revelation says. That is a hope that brings us comfort here and now.  Yes, we are

awash in grief.  There is no denying that. Yes, the death of a dear sister raises for us anxiety about our

own coming death.  Yes, we know what it means to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

And yes, by God’s word, we have a promise that God is with us in all of the exiles of life. God is with

us in life and in death.  And yes, we know that even the burdens of this day will be lifted.  For as

the apostle Paul wrote, we do not grieve as those who have no hope – for we HAVE HOPE!  In Jesus

Christ God is among us. In Jesus Christ we are given new life in the face of death.  In Jesus Christ we

have the lasting comfort of God.

     We have the promise of God that we will be comforted.  And we have another promise, even more

remarkable than the promise of comfort. It is the promise that a most remarkable new day is coming. 

Revelation says, the former things are passing away and a new day is coming.  A day so glorious, so

beautiful, that it can only be described in superlatives we can barely imagine:  Every valley shall be

lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low;          the uneven ground shall become level, and the

rough places a plain.  This is a vision of God’s kingdom, a kingdom of peace. A kingdom in which all

of God’s creation live in perfect harmony. A kingdom of joy and happiness.  A kingdom in which there

will be no more tears, no more suffering, no more sadness, no more death.  A kingdom waiting, for

those buried in Jesus Christ, so that they may live eternally with God.

     Dear friends:  In Jesus Christ we have strength for today and peace for tomorrow.  In Jesus Christ

we have a living hope that we will be re-united with those whom we love in the Lord.  In Jesus Christ,

God is with us and among now and forever.

     These are the promises of God for you. Now may be you comforted by these words.  AMEN.

R. Charles Grant

March 24, 2007