In Isaiah 40:1-5, we read Jehovah’s promise of comfort for His people. The need for comfort is the abundance of brokenness and adversity. The basis for comfort is God breaking into human history. The means of comfort is that God gives grace – He invests Himself – to the humble. The aim of comfort is that the glory of the LORD shall be revealed!
With much in our human experience to alarm us, we should remember that the greatest powers of humanity are as transient as weeds. They are no more to be feared or trusted than a blade of grass. As Simon Tugwell reflects on the Beatitudes, he writes, “It is the desire for God which is the most fundamental appetite of all, and it is an appetite we can never eliminate. We may seek to disown it, but it will not go away. If we deny that it is there, we shall in fact only divert it to some other object or range of objects. And that will mean that we invest some creature or creatures with the full burden of our need for God, a burden which no creature can carry.”
The Good news is that God in Christ has stepped into our reality with a guarantee of comfort. The one enduring Reality is God – the infinite, immutable, self-existent One. His Word and purpose will stand forever.
From this emerges the comforting truth. Humanity cannot save itself, and it cannot stop the One who determines to save. Indeed, the Word became flesh. The one enduring Reality entered our broken, transient reality as the One who can make all things new – we see the evidence of that in His miracles. He will make all things new based on His cross and resurrection.
This is why that angel proclaimed to the shepherds in the field, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.” Christ Jesus is the Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing. God makes Himself known to us in person – Immanuel, God with us. O come, let us adore Him! To adore takes time…quietness…contemplation. May you invest the time, purpose the quietness, and contemplate the Son of God who came for you, and in Him find comfort.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
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