Day 27 Comfort for the Weary

Day 27 Comfort for the Weary

1Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned… Isaiah 40:1-2a English Standard Version

Life can be tough. Anyone who’s lived through a few years knows this. Sometimes life throws unexpected challenges our way. Sickness, financial failure, familial fracture, betrayal, and the list goes on. When I was in Iraq my work area was next to the office of the General Officer that exercised field-grade courts-martial authority for the entire corps. One evening a week he held court. On that day the waiting area would fill up with senior officers and senior non-commissioned officers awaiting their fate. They all sat there looking extremely dejected. They all knew that their careers were over. Oh, they might escape discharge, but they would not escape the disgrace that accompanied their misdeeds. Their lives were in a shambles, a shambles of their own making. So, there they sat alone and hurting with no one to help. After their appearance before the General, they left his office, shoulders slumped and shuffled off into an ignominious oblivion. They needed comfort and there was none to give. Their iniquities had born fruit.

We think of the Isaiah passage as providing comfort for a people beset by enemies around them. But look again. Their pain is for their own iniquities, things they did wrong. When we fail, we feel the weight of our indiscretion. Jesus came to set us free from that crushing burden. The old prophet cries out, “Comfort, comfort my people. Jesus endured the incarnation to bring comfort and freedom from the guilt of our own intransigence. Yes, in Him I find surcease from pain others inflict upon me; however, I also find the greater gift of release from the guilt inflicted pain of my own creation. Jesus came so that we might enjoy a life free from the burden of our own mistakes. The babe in the manger extends comfort, comfort for His people.