Sermon Notes Dec. 4 Is. 40:1-11, Ps. 85

I remember in English class teacher said that religion was a crutch. So, I responded, people need all the help they can get in a hard world.Comfort (where? in the signs of good, new medicines, fall of dictators,in signs of improvement, in education, in technology mapquest or GPS for those of us who get lost or the many men who can;t bear to admit it- in religious seeking,)-Here God turns a page. To the heavenly beings, God says enough of punishment, it is time for you to comfort my people.- In the midst of the transient, God’s word/message endures: do not fear. Perhaps few things require comfort as much as fear. My mother found comfort in the good shepherd image-Calvin said this passage comprehends the gospel in a few words. Comfort food-comfortable shoes-southern comfort-comfort stations-comfort zone-giving comfort (root deals with strength greatly ) Comfort is physical and emotional but it has a sense that when weakened we are strengthened to face tomorrow. Instead of nagging or warning like a prophet, now one is told to speak tenderly, like a parent to a hurt child, like a spouse to another needing some attention and affection.

2 Peter-God’s patience with us for righteousness to be present, to be at home, to be welcomed by us- Bible envisions images to touch on the end times: images not future facts, a way to peer into the future without a crystal ball. this letter finds comfort in God;’s patience, in hope that the world will turn out better than before. Veterans Day was not long ago and Christmas approaches. the Prince of peace must weep at what we do to each other in the name of security and yes, even god. How long must it seem to God that we continue to rely on force and violence to achieve our ends.Ps. 85 righteousness/right relations and peace shall kiss I have long loved this image. As I think about it, it describes the meeting of family long-separated, just as the return from exile. Maybe it describes two lovers seeing each other after a long absence, like the Warren Beatty-Diane Keaton scene in Reds or that wonderful embrace in The Best Years of our Lives. Too long have these good hopes been strangers.they are made for each other, as we used to say of couples.the end of our passage from Isaiah points us to why this psalm has an important ending. Life is too transient, too short, too fragile to waste in “fussing and fightings my friend” as the Beatles sang so long ago. In Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut wrote that on the 11th hour when the guns fell silent, and the butchery had ceased it was in the silence that men rose form the trenches and heard the voice of God.

As I was working on this, I got a rare thing, an important note on facebook. A woman from one of the churches I previously served wrote for prayer for her relative now in hospice care. She was afraid that since he was usually did not darken the door of a church that God would slam the door of heaven. I told her that Jesus came to save the lost, not the found, to save the one, not the 99 in the flock, to heal the sick, not the well. Her relative had her enough condemnation in life, and like so many addicts had condemned himself in the mirror, only to go to the bar and drink the evening meal. If anyone should hear the words of Isaiah to comfort, comfort, to speak tenderly at long last, it was her uncle and a family locked in fear and guilt and grief. In so doing we arrive at long last to the root meaning of comfort to strengthen powerfully to face the next day.