Comfort: O comfort, my people: says your God.
What a beautiful promise to receive as the first words of today's assigned scriptures. Wait - let me change those words - because these words are not merely put in place for this day of the liturgical calendar - they are more than assigned: they have been gifted to us. They have been carefully selected, wrapped up with care and compassion, and delivered to us: a gift.
And WHAT a gift! Comfort, o Comfort my people, says your God.
So let's think about what our God is indeed saying to us.
COMFORT; it's a simple word with oodles of meanings. Comfort: strengthening, encouragement, support, countenance. It can be a physical refreshment or sustenance.
It's the feeling when you ease your feet into your favourite pair of slippers.
It's the memories that flood back when taste that cookie - just like momma used to make.
It's the descriptor we use when detailing how many can fit into a pew (8, but 5 comfortably).
With Joy, it's an aspirational Christmas song lyric.
It's comfort. We all know what this means, right?
Of course we do.
And I think we also know that it can go deeper. For comfort is more than these:
it's a phone call from a friend when we're feeling a bit down.
It's the relief as medication kicks in, and we feel the easing of sickness in our body and mind.
It's a touch from a loved one, who understands what we're going through even without saying a word.
It's the gift of scripture, that will invite us toward lives of deeper spiritual maturity, deeper expressions of love for God, and deeper connections with those around us.
Comfort: O Comfort, my people, says your God.
It's also, deeper in its history, a component of spiritual protection. There were ancient rules or structures that guided the life of religious folks. They were concerned with the outer life - not being eaten by wolves, for example, and for the inner life - not falling into sin.
So these comforts were supports, assistants, in living a life always aiming toward the divine.
Comfort: O Comfort, my people. Says your God.
Isn't this what we all want? To be comfortable - full of comfort - extending comfort?
To be swimming in all these levels of comfort - a happiness for what we have on earth... a connectedness to one another in ways that transcend time and space.... and to be bolstering ourselves and each other against the assaults of the enemies.
And how do we do that? Well, the answer is right here for us.
Comfort, O Comfort my people, says your God.
It's about providing comfort to others, rather than seeking to be comfortable ourselves.
It's about avoiding the complacency that happens when we look inward to ourselves; we just need to remember Pierre Berton's "The COmfortable Pew" if we think it can't happen in churchland.
It's why in homeletics - the teaching of preaching - we're told that a good sermon will comfort the afflicted - and afflict the comfortable.
So we need to reach out, to extend comfort to God's people.
Not only our families and friends, not only our social circles, but all of God's people. Speak tenderly, cry out that slavery is ended, declare the termination of debts.
And this, friends, is why comfort is hard.
Because it means we put away our egos - our selfishness - our need to be right. We choose to be intentional about how we live our lives, knowing that every decision we make has an impact on others - from what clothes we wear to what food we eat. It means we have to recognise that we keep hold of debts - financial, temporal, emotional, whatever - and then we engage in letting those go. Not easy: but Christian.
And - the spiritual comfort - that God has forgiven sins, even doubling the entirety of sin we can commit here on earth: and has done so without expectation of return, but with delight of engagement.
To be comforted in our afflictions: and to be afflicted in our comfort.
Comfort: O Comfort my people, says your God.
So that's our call today: to comfort God's people. To carry the Word of God to a world that is desperate for Good News.
And we hear this call again and again in today's scriptures: to use our voices to declare the coming of God.
Straighten the highways; lift up the valleys, lower the mountains. Not easy work; definitely not comfortable work: but do-able.
Cry out: assure people of the constancy of God; of the protection of God, of the comfort of God.
And listen: for the voice speaks.
The voice speaks in the voice crying out from the wilderness inviting us to massive landscape reconstruction - the landscapes of our hearts and of our cultures.
The voice speaks from the top of the mountain (interesting given we've just lowered it) - of glad tidings, of good news, of not being afraid.
The voice speaks to the psalmist and poets and authors who declare "you are speaking peace to your faithful people and to those who turn their hearts to you!"
The voice speaks of God's patience, and desire for repentance, and assurance of forgiveness.
The voice speaks - even in the most unlikely of ways: like through the Baptiser coming from the wilderness: a messenger, a bringer of news, a carrier of comfort.
The voice speaks: in the prophets and apostles and martyrs and in every generation those who proclaim the greatness of God, and inspire a receiving and giving of comfort.
The voice speaks comfort. Oh, comfort, my people. Says your God.
And there's the truth of our comfort. It is from God. It is from the word of God (small w); and from the WORD of God (capital W) - in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our comforter. Jesus is the content of all those voices crying out: for a voice without words is silent, it blows away on the wind like the withered grass. But the voice that carries the word and WORD of God: is a powerful voice. A faithful voice. A holy voice. A comforting voice.
So let us listen. Let us seek those voices in our midst! that carry the word of God. For they are here... and they are speaking... and they are comforting.
And be the voice: the voice of God's peace, the voice of God's love, the voice of God's comfort. For we too, with open hearts and open minds, can reach the hearts of those who are afflicted: and offer the comfort of God.
Amen.
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