Cosmic Comfort

Theme Verse:

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God…He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep. - Isaiah 40:1; 11

Central Truth:

Comfort is at the center of the universe. This is proven by Christ coming and living among us. God gave us comfort than and when Christ returns God will give us comfort. This is not about divine retribution.

Connections with our society:

Sometimes we forget how removed the history of the bible is from us. Its easy to read passages like this one from Isaiah and reduce the central theme of this scripture, "Comfort, O comfort," to a simple platitude that we mutter to each other when something bad happens. The common way we here this scripture passage today is "God works out all things for those who love the Lord," and the sad thing is that expression is scriptural as well.  Yet we reduce it to a pat on the back that mean little to nothing for our lives today much less offers any real comfort or hope in a time of trial. In order to understand what this text should mean to us today we need to dig deeper into the way the original audience would have understood this text.

The scene of Isaiah 40:1-11 is within the divine counsel. The divine counsel was a counsel meeting of all the divine beings of the universe. That's right here the bible is saying that there are other gods and that they are in a meeting with our God, Yahweh. Doesn't this cause a problem for us? We believe in only one God and that God is the supreme ruler of all the universe. So how can there be other gods?  This is one of those contextual pieces that we don't get if we don't take the time to study the text. God has called a meeting with other divine beings and here’s the kicker, he is in charge. The opening verse in chapter 40 of Isaiah states "Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God." This is a divine command by Yahweh and as the ruler of the divine counsel all other gods must obey.

The idea of the divine counsel was commonly held by all nations that lived around Israel. The divine council was often typified by squabbling god's fighting and bickering among themselves causing harm to all around them, especially the created order. Each nation worshiped one particular God and depended upon that God to protect them, which was difficult when that god was involved in his or her own issues. Here in Isaiah we have God giving a divine command, that all these squabbling gods must follow. This passage sets forth the central command of the universe and that command is comfort.  Our God is working for the comfort of the faithful in all things. This increases the scope of this passage, no longer can this passage just be a pat on the back that says "Don't worry God will be with you," this is a forceful command that is worked out in our world both in ancient times and today.

This is one of the reasons that the Israelite people could look forward to the messiah coming. This is why we can believe that Christ came to bring us salvation, because at the heart of the universe is not retribution, punishment or pain, but comfort, hope and salvation. This should also change our perspective on waiting for Christ second coming. So often we hear about the second coming as a time of judgment and suffering yet here in Isaiah we see that the goal of God is comfort. Christ will come again to comfort us in our distress.  And if Isaiah can be trusted this means not only to comfort us but to comfort all of humanity. 

As Christians we can have a taste of this comfort now in our lives. God is here and now to comfort us. How this may happen, I believe, varies from person to person. Sometimes God comforts us by speaking to us, maybe through scripture, prayer, a sermon, song or vision. Other times God may choose to comfort us with a friend who's been with us through thick and thin or family that comes around in time of crises. God's comfort is there for us when we need it.

We can live in that comfort as well, we can operate in it knowing that God loves us and is working with us to love, comfort and uplift us. Amen

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