Peter Carruthers
Today is the Fourth Sunday in Advent and Christmas Eve, and this is the fourth and last article in my series to mark the season.
It is likely that you have or will listen to, or sing in, Handel’s Messiah at this time of year. The great oratorio opens with words from the first verse of Isaiah 40.
Comfort ye Comfort ye my people Saith your God Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem And cry unto her, That her warfare Her warfare is accomplished That her iniquity is pardoned.
This tone of comfort runs right through the biblical story of the Nativity and our celebration of it. Traditionally read as one of the ‘nine lessons’, Isaiah 9 announces the coming of the “child who is born” as good news to those who were “heavily oppressed .. and walked in darkness” (Isaiah 9:1-7). Reiterating this theme, the angels announce to the shepherds that the birth of a child who is Saviour, Messiah and Lord is “good tidings of great joy” to them (and those they represent) and to “all people” (Luke 2:10-11). The songs of Mary (Luke 1:46-55) and Zechariah (Luke 1:67-79) speak of the Lord’s tender mercy and His coming to the help of His (oppressed) people. On seeing the infant Jesus, Simeon is comforted after years of waiting because he has ‘seen God’s salvation’ and is able to “depart in peace” (Luke 2:29-32).
I imagine that most of us have at some time comforted someone, from a crying baby or a child who has lost her teddy to the man who has lost his job or the woman who has lost her husband.
Words of comfort are much more effective if you can also fix the problem, or you know someone who can. Feeding or changing the baby is (fairly) easy; comforting the bereaved is much more difficult.
The people for whom these words of Isaiah were most likely originally intended were deeply bereaved. They had lost everything that made them a nation - the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem, the Temple and priesthood, and the line of kings from David. And they were exiles in a foreign land.
To such people, the prophet brings words of comfort, of good news. And they are comforting, they are good news, because the Lord has fixed the problem. The exile is over, because the thing that had landed them there to start with, their national sin, the breaking of their side of their special relationship with God, had been paid for.
The tone of comfort continues in the chapters that follow, which reveal an appointed one, a Messiah, who will come to rescue and regather His people.
They are words of comfort, good news, to us also. They announce the fixing not only of Israel’s problem, but also of the problem of all humanity. Our exile from God, our broken relationship with Him, is ended because our sins have been paid for. The One who will come will not only “restore the preserved ones of Israel”. He will also be “a light to the Gentiles” - God’s “salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6). Significantly, Simeon, on meeting the new-born Jesus, re-iterates these words, but reverses the order (Luke 2:29-32).
These words are also a call to action.
The Jewish exiles had to believe the words of comfort, pack their bags, turn their backs on Babylon and head back to Jerusalem. Many did not. Likewise, we need to believe the comforting words, the good news of sins forgiven, of relationship restored, turn from our own ways and the ways of the world, and follow the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ - not just as a first-time, one-off event, but as a way of life.
In another sense, however, for the time being, we are to continue ‘living in Babylon’, but retain our identity as God’s people. Jesus, the Messiah of the Jews and the Saviour of the world, both has come and will come again. As we wait and prepare for His coming, we, His followers, His Church, are to both announce and embody His comfort - to one another and to the world (and, indeed, to the people of Israel).
Christians may not have always been a comfort to one another or the world, and ‘organised Christianity’ has not always been good news. Our celebrations of Christmas may have owed more to the world’s ‘festive season’ than to the miracle of the Incarnation and message of salvation at its heart. We may not always have turned aside to see and hear the meaning behind the signs, stories, songs and scenes of Jesus advent, nor taken off our sandals in worship (Exodus 3:1-6).
But, as we remember both Messiah’s first coming and His coming again, and as we look forward to another New Year, let us resolve to ‘stop, look and listen’, to be comforted by God’s “good and comforting words” (Zechariah 1:13) and to comfort others with the "‘good news of great joy for all people’.
Have a very Happy Christmas!
Peter, thank you for your thoughtful notes on the 4 Sundays of Advent. Very helpful.
Regarding the Exile & Babylon- I've just started reading Layard of Nineveh by Gordon Warterfield.
Pub. John Murry. 1963. I'll tell you if I learn anything relevant to the Exile . My thought is that I'd rather be a subsistence farmer on the Nineveh plains than near barren Jerusalem with its water problems..... John Fowler, Bexhill,