Comfort for YOU, God's Beloved
My wife and I rescued a kitten in May. His name is George, and he is all things fluffy and cute all tangled up with totally out of control and wild moments of teeth and claws when he decides your hand is his new favorite toy. There’s been a steep learning curve in kitten disciplining and sometimes it’s all we can do separate ourselves from his tiny kitten wrath with a closed door. It’s not too long though before we re-open that door and George comes running up to us with tiny meows of what I can only imagine is a mixture of protest at his temporary exile, and relief to be reunited with us. The thing is, no matter how rough he can be when his teeth and claws are a wild blur of ferociousness, he still comes to us for comfort when he’s lonely, or scared, or tired, and that’s a beautiful experience. Even after being disciplined with the squirt bottle we keep handy at all times, George still knows that at the end of the day, we are his people who he can trust and rely on. He finds comfort in us.
Comfort is an important part of relationships. When you’re comfortable with people you know you can trust them and it's in those moments of trust and comfort where we practice vulnerability.
The people of Jerusalem have been uncomfortable for a long while during the time of their exile, and today’s text brings a word of comfort, LITERALLY, to them. The prophet Isaiah relays a message from the LORD and declares to them that their waiting is over! They have been released from their captivity. With this proclamation, the LORD draws them close to Her. This comfort is a stark juxtaposition to the decades of punishment and exile they endured, where they probably experienced many feelings that we ourselves are familiar with. Fear, doubt, stress, anxiety, uncertainty. The trauma of all that they had experienced was astonishing. To receive this declaration of liberation and comfort all at once from the God that they’d thought had abandoned them for good? That’s heavy.
The people of Jerusalem have a lot to wrestle with, and a lot of decisions to make. Isaiah sees these people, and for a moment is clouded over with reminders of the things they did to land them in exile in the first place, and he exclaims at their behavior. He cries out in frustration to the LORD saying why these people?? Don’t you know they’re just going to go back and do the same things they’ve always done?
Isn’t it so easy to fall into that same pattern of thought about ourselves? It’s so easy to push away the thought of comfort and hope because why should it be expected now when for so long it’s been nothing but tough breaks and struggle?
And yet. The Word of the LORD is persistent...and in times when everything else feels like it's just never going to get better, the Word of the LORD remains. That still quiet voice proclaiming good news to the poor and release for the captives breaks through.
And we live on that hope. Even when it seems like even that is not enough to sustain us...we cling to that hope. We cling to each other.
Comfort is the word of hope and life spoken to God’s people, the people of Jerusalem. When God says “Comfort, o Comfort MY PEOPLE” She claims the people of Jerusalem as Her beloveds, and gathers them into her bosom - as one might do with a young kitten crying for its mother. To be brought back into God’s embrace when it felt like all hope had been lost is indeed a comfort.
That comfort is for you too - even in the moments when you push God away and when your faith feels like grass that has withered away under the hot sun and strong breeze. You are beloved and cherished by God. You are called good. You are called God’s.
And that is what we wait for during this time of Advent. We wait for the time when the Lord returns and claims as wholly as we are, we wait for a time when there is no more suffering, and when all are liberated from the things that oppress them. In the meantime, we wait for the little reminders of that hope living incarnate among us today; the familiar face of a friend, the loving-kindness of a stranger, and those at work to dismantle the systems that oppress us all. We work, and we wait, and we hope, and we do it all knowing that we are named and claimed and beloved by God whose love we proclaim from the highest mountain, and who gathers us in to comfort us in all times. Amen.