Wednesday night, 1st week of Easter
April 15, 2020
2 Corinthians 1:3-11
This evening’s theme is comfort. It’s easy to talk about
comfort when considering an infant. To soothe a baby, you pick her up, hold her
close, maybe rock her. She might be comforted by a familiar blanket or stuffed
animal or a pacifier. Part of what children have to learn is how to self-soothe
– how to reach for that favorite blankie on their own, how to calm themselves
down without adult intervention. By the time we’re adults, we have to know how
to self-soothe, how to calm ourselves down, and what comforts us. It’s not just
a coping mechanism but a survival skill. So, as an adult, what comforts you? Is
there a particular item, like a little kid has? A familiar feel or touch? A
hug? Is there an activity that you do that soothes you and calms you down?
Maybe you listen to music. Maybe you cook. Maybe you read the Bible or pray.
Let’s see what answers you all have typed in the comments. [Before beginning
this evening, I asked “What comforts you?” I’ll now read the answers out loud.]
These are all different things that bring us comfort. Now, which of these
things have you been doing more of during this time apart? I expect we have all
needed more than the usual amount of comforting and reassuring during this pandemic.
What have you been doing to calm your anxieties? Have you been self-soothing in
healthy, life-giving ways?
Psalm 94:17-19 says, “If the Lord hadn’t helped me, I
would live in the silence of death. Whenever I feel my foot slipping, your
faithful love steadies me, Lord. When my anxieties multiply, your comforting
calms me down.” When my anxieties multiply, your comforting, O Lord, calms me
down. When your anxieties multiply, do you turn to the Lord? If you’ve had
panic attacks, do you remember to start taking deep breaths? How does the Lord
comfort you? Through music, the voice of a friend, a word in Scripture, a
hand-held cross, the small stone you picked up when you remembered your baptism
in January; the possibilities are almost endless as to how the Lord might
comfort you.
Part of this passage from 2 Corinthians was in my
devotional two weeks ago and I reread it and read it out loud to my husband and
circled it in my journal because it feels perfect for what we’re going through.
We definitely need a word of comfort. This comes at the very beginning of
Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. Just after he finishes his greeting to
the church, he offers a blessing. It begins, “Praise be to the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.”
God is the God of all comfort. Isn’t that reassuring? This week I’ve been
looking at the Christmas carol, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” because there’s a
version of it we’ve sung for Holy Humor Sunday, which is this Sunday coming up.
The Holy Humor version refrain is about “tidings of Easter peace and joy.” The
original Christmas version is “tidings of comfort and joy.” I’m inclined to
think we need to go back to that comfort and joy combo, although, when you
think about it, when you have peace in your heart, it means you’ve accepted
God’s comfort. The blessing continues, “…the God of all comfort, who comforts
us in all our troubles.” Nobody knows the troubles you’ve seen, nobody knows
but God. There is no trouble you’ve been through, not storm, not death, not
disease, not pandemic, no trouble you’ve been through where God has not offered
you comfort. Isn’t that good news!
Furthermore,
God “…comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any
trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” This goes back to that
idea from Abraham in the Genesis of blessed to be a blessing. We have freely
received and so we freely share. We pass on the blessing we have been given.
Sometimes, this blessing is comfort. We pass on to those in trouble the comfort
that we’ve received. And, the good news is that the comfort doesn’t run out.
It’s not a finite amount of comfort. There’s no limit to it. “For just as we
share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds
through Christ.” This goes back to that overflowing cup, too. God isn’t going
to give you 10 units of comfort and that’s it, you gotta spread it around and
keep some for yourself. No, if you use all ten units of comfort God will give
you more. In fact, God while God counts your tears[1]
and knows the number of hairs on your head,[2]
I don’t think God keeps track of the number of times he’s comforted you. You
don’t keep track of how often you comfort a friend, do you? Neither does God.
Paul
writes, “If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are
comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the
same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that
just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.” I think
this is very much true in this pandemic. The whole world is sharing in the same
sufferings and the whole world is looking to share in comfort. Do you know that
49% of all churches, in every church size, are growing right now?[3]
We’re looking to share in comfort. That’s why you all are joining me here this
evening. That’s why our Facebook videos are getting hundreds of views each. And
the videos that I’ve “boosted,” as in paid Facebook a small amount to
advertise, have each hit 1,000 views. We’re sharing in suffering and we’re
looking to share in comfort from the God of all comfort, whose comforting knows
no bounds.
The next line that Paul writes is my husband’s favorite,
because it’s literally true with COVID-19, “…about the troubles we experienced
in the province of Asia.” Asia, of course, is the origin of this particular
virus. So, yes, lots of troubles there and spread throughout the world. Paul
describes the trouble, “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to
endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received
the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves
but on God, who raises the dead.” We felt like we had received a death
sentence. If we were in person, I’d ask you to raise your hand if you have ever
felt like you’ve received a death sentence, whether from the Coronavirus,
cancer, or something else. I expect at least a few of you have. How do you live
with what feels like a death sentence? One option, of course, is to give up.
I’m reminded of the time when I was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis
(which is not a death sentence, just to be clear). I went on medical leave and
spent most of it with my mom’s best friend Pat. I learned a lot about how to live
with chronic disease from Pat, who had a rare hereditary blood vessel disorder
called HHT. One night we were watching some crime TV show and the killer’s
sister said, “You don’t know what it’s like to live with a death sentence (due
to a terminal illness.” Pat piped up next to me and said, “I do, and you don’t
have to go around killing people!” When she died two years ago, she had already
outlived every doctor’s best guess of her life expectancy by over ten years.
How’d she do it? How’d she do it? Modern medicine and a strong, unwavering
faith. She was a true prayer warrior. She knew about depending on God and not
on herself. She knew she could not save herself. She knew Jesus, and she knew
that she was not Jesus. We rely not on ourselves but on God, who raises the
dead.
Finally, Paul writes at the end of this blessing, “God
has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him
we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by
your prayers.” God has delivered us from many things over the course of our
lives. I’m sure each of you could name several troubles that God has brought
you through: disease, accidents, injuries, divorce, abuse, there are so many
kinds of troubles. Yet God has “brought us safe thus far, and God will lead us
home.” That’s from “Amazing Grace,” in case your memory recall is stuck, like
mine has been on occasion through this time. Or, to translate a line from a
song we used to sing at the Hispanic church I pastored, “God has not brought us
this far to abandon us now.” God has delivered us before and God will deliver
us again. “On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as
you help us by your prayers.” Prayer is so important, as is hope. In the psych
grand rounds I got to listen to at Johns Hopkins last week as part of my CPE,
the speaker said that the most dangerous person in the world is the person
without hope. Our “hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’s blood and
righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus’
name.”[4]
Our hope is firmly set on God who in Jesus has saved us and delivered us and
will deliver us again. Isn’t that the most comforting thing you might hear!
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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