Comfort for the Afflicted
Mark 1:1-8 & Isaiah 40:1-11
10 December 2017 – Redeemer
“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” Who among us doesn’t want and need comfort? We all know affliction. We expect affliction. You get a little pain in your foot. You go online to webMD and before the evening is out you’ve concluded that you have been afflicted by a rare tropical disease (never mind you live in Minnesota and never been in the tropics.) When the phone rings at the Timm house, before we even pick up, someone says, “Uh oh.” Which child’s car broke down? Who needs more money for school? Did one of our parents fall? Is a member in the hospital? Did one of the saints of Redeemer die? Who lost their job? Who found out her husband is committing adultery with the computer? We expect suffering, pain, trouble and loss. We’re afflicted and we long for comfort, for assurance that this will end.
Isaiah’s words are about John the Baptist and they should give us hope, “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare has ended.” Oh, to hear those words – that this battle against sorrow and loss and pain and death is at an end — that peace and quiet and joy are going to break out as when a war is over and enemies are conquered.
This comfort is what John the Baptist preached. Is it any wonder that “all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem” were going out to him? They longed for comfort. They had been waiting over 400 years for God’s comforting Word once again to be spoken. But the comfort John brings is uncomfortable, as Isaiah foretold. What is Jerusalem’s comfort? “her iniquity is pardoned, … she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sin.” Your comfort is God’s forgiveness, but that means your affliction is ultimately your sin. Your affliction is not some politician, or your spouse, or those new and foreign neighbors. Your affliction is not failing eyesight or a collapsing skeleton or cancerous tumors. Every affliction finds its source in your own sin.
That’s a most uncomfortable sermon to hear. But one look at John the Baptist and you would be uncomfortable, even before he started preaching. John the Baptist would never have been admitted to seminary. He hadn’t been to Great Clips in 30 years. His wardrobe made Saver’s look like a fashion boutique. He only showered when it rained and that wasn’t often enough in the wilderness. At his first potluck he brought grasshopper casserole in honey sauce. His sermons were as disturbing as his appearance. John preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
We all need to learn from John the Baptist. You want a normal pastor, with a normal family. You don’t want to be embarrassed by his appearance. Good hygiene is not optional. You want his sermons to be engaging, humorous, winsome, and short. I want to be a comfortable pastor. I don’t want to ruffle your feathers. I want to be liked. I want a peaceful and successful congregation. I struggle with being faithful to God’s Word and risking offense. John the Baptist would tell both of us “repent.”
It doesn’t matter what your pastor looks like, or how he dresses, or even if his diet consists of bugs and honey. You probably should be worried if you find all his sermons soothing. Isaiah never named the preacher he was talking about – even though it was clearly John the Baptist. He simply says “a voice.” That’s all that matters. John the Baptist wasn’t called to be fashionable, normal, winsome or pleasant smelling. He was to be a voice crying out the uncomfortable message of law and Gospel, hell and heaven, death and life, sin and grace, damnation and forgiveness, false gods and Jesus. His sermons afflict, “The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass.” That’s you, because of sin, withering and fading under God’s Law, but then comes the comfort, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” The Word which endures forever is “your sin is pardoned.”
John preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. That’s what you need from me, if I am to be a faithful preacher. Come away from your comforts – your trust in wealth or health, your escape into vice and sin and your screen, your pride as you look down at others, your prejudice against those not like you. Come away from all that fools you into thinking you are good, because you’re not.
Repent and believe the Gospel. Believe that Jesus Christ left the comfort of heaven to be afflicted with your sin. Believe that He who rightly could be proud humbled Himself to be born of a Virgin. Cling to the Mightiest Man who ever walked the earth, but who was weakened by your sin and God’s anger until He laid dead in an earthen tomb. Hang your life on the One Man whose grave is empty to this day because He rose again and showed Himself alive to over 500 people. Believe in Him because He said He would suffer, die, and rise again three days later and He did. Believe Him because He claimed not only to be God, but God for you – His affliction was yours, His cross was yours, His tomb was yours and that means His comfort is yours. His resurrection is yours. His sonship is yours. His place with the Father in the company of angels and archangels for all eternity is your place. All of that is what the Holy Spirit gives you when you hear “your iniquity is pardoned” or as you heard it this morning, “In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins.”
So the uncomfortable sermon of John is repent – your sin is the font, the source of your affliction. Your comfort is the font of Holy Baptism – where your iniquity was pardoned and you were given faith in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Pr. Bruce Timm
9 December 2017 anno Domini