Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions so that we might be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort by which we ourselves are comforted by God.
It is difficult to improve on Paul’s circular argument of consolation. In the community of Christ we are comforted comforters, consoled ministers of consolation. Following in the way of Christ isn’t always a serene saunter; the places of affliction become hard schools of learning, in which the lessons learned, are transmuted by grace, to become a source of strengthening for others. So any help we can be is as conduits of God’s comfort, making real and present to those struggling with the hard times in life, the faithful compassion of a God who also carries our sorrows. Hard to improve on this – and maybe even harder to live it – but living the love of God, and the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Spirit, is the essence of the obedience that is faith.
Over the past six weeks, a number of those close to me, in our family, the College, personal friends and colleagues in ministry, have been living through the kinds of suffering and anxiety that fill the heart with sorrow and fearfulness. The last week has brought several pieces of what we ominously call ‘bad news’. Recent bereavement, life-threatening illness, major surgery, worry about those we love as part of ourselves- for any one of us such experience tests our faith at the sore places. My own trust in God has seldom been of that anxiety free variety that gives outward shows of serenity. I suppose the urge to live, and to live fully, the need to love and to be loved, the joy and preciousness of all that makes this existence of ours both human and yet precarious, makes it hard to be prepared for those scary interruptions to our well-being; hard not to panic and be afraid; making trust a big ask. It’s then we need the faith and faithfulness of each other, the trust and love of others holding and supporting us, because most of our usual handles on life are broken.
Years ago, Joseph Parker, on the sudden death of his wife, preached on ‘When life crashes in – what then? It was a brave protest sermon against catastrophe – and it was made from the standpoint of faith. Asking hard questions of God – refusing simply to acquiesce as if God was beyond the reach of his most passionate complaints – owning both his sorrow and fearfulness for the future, admitting the need for God’s love and mercy to be translated into the kindness and companionship of others. So that life could go on.
So today Paul’s circular argument of consolation becomes for me a focus of activity and reflection and prayer. Intercession is to love others in the presence of God – it is to comfort with the comfort by which we ourselves have been comforted, it is to look on others from the perspective of the Crucified and Risen Saviour – who has been, and is, where they now are.
Leave a Reply