Monday 24th April
Read Isaiah 40:1-2
“Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.” (NIVUK)
Two thirds of the way through the fifth gospel, Isaiah is recommissioned (v3-5). He was originally called to proclaim a message of judgement on a people hard of hearing (cf Isaiah 6:9-13). A terrible commission that would ultimately be fulfilled in the destruction and exile of Jerusalem at the hands of Babylon. Now he is called to ‘proclaim’, ‘speak’ and ‘comfort’ a people who have received judgement, whose sentence is served. He is encouraged to speak loudly and often. After all, this people have a reputation for deafness!
A mystery lurks in these verses of comfort though. How exactly has ‘her sin been paid for’? On what basis is his commission changed from judgement to comfort? It is a mystery that is not resolved for another thirteen chapters (Isaiah 53) but it is introduced here. This magnificent overture to the final chapters of Isaiah prepares us to fully understand the Lord with whom we have to deal. We are about to read words that will humble us but not before we are introduced to a God who has humbled himself. He has stooped to comfort his people.
We serve the same God that Isaiah served, the God of all comfort.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-7) (NIVUK).
