Comfort My People

SERMON BY PASTOR DAVID LAYMAN

December 4, 2005

Isaiah 40:1-11
Mark 1:1-4

When passages from the prophet Isaiah are read, most often, we read
reassuring verses such as those from Isaiah 40, where God says to his
people (through Isaiah) Comfort, O comfort my people. Rarely do we
read the first 39 chapters of Isaiah, many proclaiming Gods judgment
upon his people for turning away from him. Because the children of
Israel had turned away from God, Jerusalem fell in 587 BC to the
Babylonians. Thousands of Judahs citizens were drug off into foreign
captivity, because the people had abandoned the God of Israel. They had
become like all the other peoples of the world, instead of being a
witness to the God of Israel. And so, they suffered exile.

Our actions have consequences. I recall a line from Tom Hanks in a
movie. Hanks says Every time I kill a man, I feel further away from
home. Every time we do something other than what God desires, we drift
further away from our home with God! Perhaps our journey away from God
began when we grew up and left home. We said So long Mom, so long Dad,
and, so long, God. We didnt actually say So long, God, but thats
what happened. We just drifted away. Others may not have drifted away
from God. Perhaps we were never close to God to start out with. Its
happening more and more today! Some people dont need to return to the
God they left behind. They need to discover a God they never knew!

Sooner or later, ones deeds tend to catch up with them. Sooner or
later, the bills have to be paid. If one continuously lives a self
centered life and neglects others, the time will come when a person
wakes up and discovers he or she is a very lonely person. Isaiah the
prophet spoke to a people that felt far from God, who knew they were far
from home. He spoke words of comfort!

Why? Because Isaiah saw that God was doing a new thing. God was going to
reveal his glory to the world. Even though the Israelites had been
exiled by their sins, God proclaimed He would make it possible for them
to return home. John the Baptist began his ministry announcing Jesus
coming into the world by quoting from this very passage from Isaiah.
John said that the glory of the Lord was about to be publicly
revealed. Isaiah said All people are grass, and the grass eventually
withers. But Isaiah added that while the grass withers, and the flower
fades, the word of our God will stand forever. Neither Isaiah nor John
the Baptist could fully see what God was about to do through the life of
Jesus. But it was forseen that God would act through the One that was
coming both in power and gentleness. As Isaiah prophesied, 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. Beyond
Gods judgment lies comfort. And that is very good news!

Hope of the coming, comforting presence of God is what we need today. We
can survive almost anything if we hope and trust in God. Much of our
world lives apart from this hope, and perhaps, much of our lives we have
lived a part from it. But it makes a tremendous difference! At the end
of WW II, the US Army captured Dachau, one of the notorious
concentration camps run by the Nazis. The soldiers who liberated Dachau
were overwhelmed by the human misery of the stunned prisoners, who were
not any more prepared for their liberation than were their liberators.
The freed prisoners were on the verge for rioting. They understandably
wanted revenge upon their captors, immediate medical and welfare
assistance, and a return home, none of which could the unprepared
American army render on the spur of the moment.

Army Commander Wiley sat stunned in a room at the Dachau guard house
tower, overwhelmed with the human misery hed seen, and not sure what to
do about the agitated prisoners. Suddenly an aide burst into the room,
saying a chaplain had appeared out of the blue, asking if he could help.
Commander Wiley responded Show him in! The commander never learned the
chaplains name. He said Padre, what we need now is...a real good
prayer. For us. For the prisoners. For the dead. The chaplain nodded.
Without a further word, Wiley took him up to the top of a guard house
tower, with a view of the whole compound.

For several moments, the chaplain stood facing the throng on the
compound beneath him, his arms spread out as though he were crucified.
Slowly, the prisoners saw the clergyman and began to fall silent. It was
as if little pockets of calm surfaced at different points in the crowd
and then rippled through it until everyone was standing peacefully,
looking up to the tower. Then the chaplain quoted from the prophet
Isaiah through a bullhorn Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith the
Lord your God. Comfort my people. We thank you, O God, for preserving us
to this moment of deliverance. We pray that you return us speedily to
our homes and to the embrace of our loved ones. The prayer was
translated into German and French. A profound calm had settled on the
crowd. Some men were shaking in deep, silent sobs. Some prisoners turned
to neighbors and embraced. Prisoners began to slowly disperse to
different parts of the compound. Gradually, the victims of the Nazi
terror were strengthened and returned to their homes. (Deliverance Day,
pp. 192-3).

The message of Christs birth is likewise a message of comfort and hope
to us. At times in our lives, we may find ourselves far from home.
Perhaps we feel like concentration camp victims, barely hanging on. We
need to lift up our eyes to behold the outstretched arms of Christ on
the cross, showing Gods love for us. We need to stand with wonder
before a manger in Bethlehem, and have the hope of eternal life born
within us. We need to realize that, by Gods grace, beyond the judgment
we bring upon ourselves, lies a comforting God and a hope of new life.

Comfort, comfort my people, says our God!