Waiting for Comfort
Our Old Testament reading for today comes from second Isaiah written during the Babylonian captivity. In fact, these are the opening words of Second Isaiah – a double imperative from God, “Comfort. O comfort my people.” What kind of comfort can there be when you are still captive in a foreign land? Is Isaiah rubbing salt in the wounds of the Israelites by reminding them of their captivity, their sins that they have paid doubly for, and the futility of life? This does not seem to be any comfort at all. At best it might be a call to perseverance and hope. It certainly is not what we would call comfort. Comfort is a pain-free, well financed life where everyone beckons to our whims and desires because we deserve it. At least, that is what the television advertisements we are bombarded by tell us. According to Isaiah that is not the comfort that God offers.
“Cry out,” says the voice. “What shall we cry?” we reply. All life is difficult and soon, before we have finished, we are gone. How can this be comfort? How can this be God’s will? Our lives are like the Israelites. God did not make the Israelites return to the promised land free and easy. In fact, as last week’s text from Isaiah showed, it was hard work and struggle. What God is offering here is to change the rules of the game. God is promising a new way to salvation. No longer was it a strict obedience to the law but the acceptance of love. No longer were they to have a laundry list of what to do and not do. Instead God was calling them into a deeper relationship with God, themselves, and the world. God’s comfort is the promise of salvation. A salvation that frees us – not from worldly pain and struggle but from sin and death. From henceforth God will feed God’s people like a shepherd feeds his sheep and they will stand as heralds of good tiding to all the world inviting them into the sheepfold.
That is our comfort – Jesus the Messiah. Because by his work we stand in God’s care no matter what happens to us and the world. Mark reminds us of that by choosing this text as one to begin his gospel. This clearly is not the comfort the world expects. Instead of the disjointed view of the world and ourselves this view sees all people as God’s children and treating them so. God’s comfort is not living in luxury but sharing what God has given to us with others. God’s comfort is not getting our own way but working with others to build a community of love. Unlike the world that wants it all and wants it now, we know God’s generosity, understanding, and love and wait patiently for our comfort, our salvation, our Messiah to come and make us whole.