I wait in darkness, except for the light emanating from the tree. I lay alone on the couch, swaddled in blankets, anticipating the opening notes of the overture. The strings swell in tempo and volume, foreshadowing the glory to be revealed before surrendering to silence. Then, a solitary tenor announces — “Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people!” As though on cue, the tears appear.
It’s been my private tradition for over a decade to listen through Handel’s Messiah alone at night each Advent season. And every year, every listen, at the first word, I cry.
I can’t pinpoint the source of the tears. It’s seldom so simple. It’s something cumulative, multifarious, and ancient. A longing ache bequeathed to countless progeny by a man and woman clad in animal skins, trembling outside paradise. A lifetime of sins and sufferings poured into the cask of a soul, left to ferment until the pressure threatens to destroy the container and waste its contents.
It’s a little boy with his blankets pulled over his head, praying for the shouting to end. The preteen at his grandfather’s casket, contemplating the cold finality of dust returning to dust. The pressure to perform. The longing to fit in. Rejection. Mockery. The inability to please. Uncertainty. Marital conflict. Miscarried babies. Mental illness. Discontentment. Unshakeable darkness.
It’s the pride that won’t concede fault or extend grace. The salvos of weaponized words unleashed on friends and foes. The angst of knowing an apology, no matter how sincere, cannot heal the wounds you inflicted. The practiced pretense of outer strength that cannot keep the soul from decay. Ending each year feeling no more holy than when you began it.
It’s the brokenness of the world — and the church. Pride, arrogance, boasting — sometimes in the name of Christ. Friendships sacrificed at the altar of the voting booth. Congregations divided over which mortal they should put their hope in. Pastors preying on sheep in the name of the Shepherd. Sheep flocking to wolves because a wolf looks stronger than the slaughtered Lamb. Counsel for shattered souls.
It’s the note that breaks the silence of despair. The clarion call piercing the cacophony of a world gone mad. The promise, the command, the word of the Lord. “‘Comfort my people,’ says your God.” (Isaiah 40:1)
Isaiah spoke to people whose lives had been totally devastated. They suffered the curse brought by their own rebellion. Afflicted by the unspeakable cruelty of ruthless captors. Unable to free themselves. Incapable of rebuilding what was lost. And yet, the Lord says, you are “my people,” and I am “your God.”
My people. Your God. Note those blessed possessive pronouns. This is no generic God casting out lines to an unknown crowd below. Despite their sins and regardless of their regrets, they remained his. They had forsaken him, but he had bound them to himself. He knew their sins, their sufferings, their weakness, their desperation. He saw. He knew. And he cared.
The Lord speaks comfort to the tender, tired hearts of his people. Comfort is what the Lord promised his people in the beginning. Comfort is what the Lord shall provide in the end. Isaiah 40 continues:
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and announce to her
that her time of hard service is over,
her iniquity has been pardoned,
and she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.
Sadly, the Lord’s people would return to sin again and again and again — as do we. But the comfort of the Lord extends even then.
One day, the Lord would send his Servant to save his people. He would be a surprising figure, weak and unimpressive, “like a root out of dry ground,” with “no appearance that we should desire him” (Isa 53:2). He would be “despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was.” If you saw the Servant on the cross, you might mistake him for a man whom God had cursed for his own wickedness. But you would be wrong. Isaiah 53:5–6 says:
He was pierced because of our rebellion,
crushed because of our iniquities;
punishment for our peace was on him,
and we are healed by his wounds.
We all went astray like sheep;
we all have turned to our own way;
and the Lord has punished him
for the iniquity of us all.
But this is not the end, for “after his anguish, he will see light and be satisfied” (53:11). He will rise from the exile of death and bring his people with him, those he has justified by carrying their sins.
We celebrate Christ’s first advent because our waiting is over, and our comfort is accomplished. The full penalty of all our sins is paid and our debts are pardoned.
But it doesn’t always feel that way. Because we are still waiting. Only at Christ’s second advent will we fully enjoy the comfort promised to us. Then, “death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
As another Advent season greets us, let us renew our hope. Let us hear the message of the Messiah again. There is comfort here and comfort to come.
