The Comfort of His Coming
We live today in a world short on hope and amply supplied with despair. For most, this has been a rather bleak year. We are all looking for hope in the midst of the pandemic – hope for Covid numbers to improve, hope for life to go back to normal. As Christmas approaches, we hear music in the background reminding us that comfort is on offer. Handel’s “Messiah”, which burst onto the stage in Dublin in 1742, opens with these verses from Isaiah 40, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.” Do these words hold any significance for us today?
Isaiah was a prophet of the 8th century B.C. who was sent by the Lord to announce that God’s people were facing the Lord’s judgment for their sin against Him. They had been unfaithful and would now face His discipline in the form of a 70-year exile in Babylon. Jerusalem would be sacked, the great temple destroyed, and the leaders of the city carried off to the capital of a great pagan empire. At the end of chapter 39, Isaiah gave this stern warning to the King: “Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house…shall be carried off to Babylon.” God’s people were in the very depths of despair—weary and feeling the full weight of the effects of sin. We can resonate with them on some level. Like them, we are feeling today the ramifications of sin in a fallen world – a pandemic is a terrible reminder to us that this is a world that is not as it should be.
Notice what the Lord speaks into the depths of His people’s discouragement: “Comfort, comfort my people” (Is. 40:1). This is sweet music to the ear. But what exactly is the source and substance of this hope? Will it be something superficial (that attempts to shut out the realities of suffering) like sitting by the fire and waiting out the pandemic with Netflix on the screen? Not at all. The Lord offers real and substantial comfort in the very midst of our suffering. That comfort comes with the Lord’s presence. That is the core of the promise in Isaiah 40, and it runs through the entire prophecy. As verse 3 declares, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” God is coming; help will arrive. And verse 9 declares, “Go up on a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news…Behold the Lord God comes with might….”
It is the presence of the Lord – the coming of the Lord – that is the substance of our hope this Christmas. It is a comfort because it tells us that in the midst of the trials of this world, God has not forgotten or abandoned us. But to receive this comfort, we need to accept the offer of forgiveness at the heart of the Lord’s coming. Notice that the pardoning of iniquity was at the heart of the declaration of comfort for the exiles: “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.” (Is. 40:1) This announcement, of course, points us forward in quite a wonderful way to the arrival of God the Son in Bethlehem. His arrival meant forgiveness because Jesus was born, ultimately, to die for our sins. For all who receive the Christ of Christmas, God speaks tenderly – and He declares to us that our guilt is pardoned. Seize this comfort today!