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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text for this evening comes from the first reading, the prophet Isaiah. The words, comfort. The same words from which the hymn is based. The theme for this evening, as you remember, is waiting with comfort.
Teachers in school, as well as parents with young children, are constantly teaching them the concept of waiting. Teaching them to raise their hand instead of just blurting it out. Teaching them to stand in line so that they can get a drink of water in an orderly fashion. Teaching them to wait in order to go to the restroom.
But you know what? No matter how well that was drilled into your and my psyche, we still struggle with waiting. We fidget, we get antsy, and we snip at people because it doesn’t seem to come in the manner or fashion that we expect it to come. It seems as if there’s a rule for little ones and a rule for us older folk. The little ones are to do as I say, not as I do. And you know how we are.
Think of all the things you’ve had to wait for. You had to wait to find that husband or wife that God brought into your life. You had to wait to have a newborn child. You had to wait to finish school and graduate. You have to wait as your children learn to potty train. You have to wait every phase of your and my life.
When we pray while we’re waiting and we cry out to God, as we read in the psalm, we have an expectation of God. We have an expectation of God of how he is to fulfill our prayers during our waiting. And God has his own desire of how he wishes to fulfill the very prayer that you’re praying. And most of the time, as you have found and I have found, it is diametrically opposed to your and my expectations.
The people of Israel to whom Isaiah wrote this, none of the people who first heard it proclaimed ever saw it fulfilled. Not just one generation passed, or two, or three. Dozens of generations passed. 700 years passed from the time that Isaiah said, “Comfort, comfort.” And for those 700 years, you know, in their mind, they had to say, “Really, Lord? Where’s the comfort?”
And then when comfort came, “Behold your God!” Wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. A helpless baby. A helpless baby. Helpless and cannot feed itself except nursing from Mary’s breast. And yet God in flesh gives Mary the ability to give himself life.
Comfort is wrapped up in your and my expectation of what defines comfort. The cessation of struggle is not necessarily comfort. Although that is what you and I expect, isn’t it, when we pray? Remember Paul prayed three times the Lord would remove the thorn in his side. And God said, “No, my power is made perfect in your weakness.”
We wish to see an answer and a result. And God gives us such an answer and result. It’s just not packaged in the manner or form in which we desire. “Behold your God,” he said. The Lord comes with might. And he looks like an infant, helpless, helpless. He comes with his rule of his arm, and yet his hand can’t even hold on to objects because he’s just a baby.
His reward is with him and his recompense with him, and yet he has nothing to offer. Seemingly, when you and I wait for many things in your and my life, God answers them. Answers them bigger than you and I can imagine, and in a manner that it’s not according to our definition.
And Satan loves to get us to go chasing down this rabbit trail looking for that magic silver lining when it’s really over here all the time. So this baby who is God in the flesh, they waited 700 years for comfort to be given. And what did comfort come as? A baby?
There was all that expectation placed upon Christ in his life. And what kind of great power and might and recompense did he bring? But a shattered death upon the cross. There’s comfort, but it sure doesn’t look like it.
There’s recompense, and there’s the power of God’s great right arm before all people, and yet it looks pathetic and paltry without any hope. Now we’re in the waiting game, aren’t we? We wait to see our loved ones again, and we will have to wait until God decides for that time to come.
We wait for reconciliations in relationships, and we may wait until we die and never see those reconciliations. We may wait for this great church to change, and God may have other plans. And God’s people wait on His Word.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of the Lord stands forever. And that word is promise, and that word is power, and that word accomplishes everything that he sends it to accomplish. It’s just not packaged in the manner and means by which we wish.
They were waiting for comfort, and it came in a baby, and they ignored it, except by God’s grace a few didn’t and believed. They were waiting for a Messiah to come with power and might, and he came, and most ignored it. But a few by God’s grace believed and received such recompense and power.
You and I wait, and it has come and it has gone in many forms and fashions, but God’s words of promise will sustain you and me during this waiting. For his comfort comes with mere words, but words of power and might, of forgiveness and mercy, of hope and of peace.
In the name of him who sustains us with his word during our waiting, Jesus himself, the word made flesh. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.