I think I wait all year, every year to hear this scripture. Comfort, comfort, my people! I won’t say anymore as you can probably sing most of the rest of it. What wonderful words! They are so, well, comforting.

Maybe in a hectic world like ours, these words are particularly welcome. We get so caught up in the business, the tasks to do, the running from here to there, that a word of comfort is a welcome word. As I was getting ready to write this sermon, my mind kept wandering off to lists somewhere hanging around my brain. There are the many lists with the various kinds of Christmas preparations on them, the lists of things to do for the things I am responsible for here at the church, and the lists of things to finish up at the church. Whoops, while I was thinking of my lists, I remembered I need to be somewhere in an hour! And what was I doing when I started, O yes, my sermon! Comfort is indeed a welcome word right now!

Comfort takes on another particular significance during Advent and Christmas time, for this is a time of memories. It is a time when we think back to past Christmases. If those are happy memories, we may enter the season with great anticipation and joy. Or, if some of our dear loved ones are no longer with us, It can be a time of deep sadness, pain and even loneliness. If past Christmases were not filled with love and delight, we may dread that time of year, or we may be determined to set things right and do things differently. In recent years, we have become more aware that this season may be very difficult for some. And the commercial emphasis on cheeriness and enthusiasm makes things worse. In that case, comfort and love coming from understanding compassion and caring become treasured gifts.

As I look back at my own childhood, I am very aware that I had two very different lives. Until I was 10 years old, I was a coal miners daughter, living in a small house with no central heat, in a small town in the hills of W. VA. We lived near my Father’s parents, and his siblings who had kindly provided us with a few cousins near in age to my brother and I. After I was 10, we moved to this area, and we essentially changed families. Now we were not only near my mother’s parents, we lived with them. I was older that most of these cousins, and they were not nearby. The small town was gone, as were the hills, and most of the traditions. In many ways my life was better. But I found Christmas to be very difficult. I felt like an outsider. And so, at Christmas time, I wanted things to be the way they were before the move. As I look back now, I realize that when I became an adult and had Christmas in our own home, I gathered in all those who were alone and might have felt like outsiders. Over the years, those people became a part of our family and were included in everything else during the year. Those gathered ones became my comfort and perhaps they received some comfort also. They are no longer with us, but when our family gathers, we always remember them. Now my daughter has picked up the tradition, and we are growing new family members.

After September 11, 2001, or as we now say, 9-11, we in this country and many abroad desperately sought comfort in almost any form it could be found. The question that came to all of us was: "Where is God in all this suffering?" And so, people flocked to churches, and gathered with loved ones. Our thoughts and emotions careened back and forth between sense of loss, grief, anger, pain, depression, loss of control and power, the need for retribution and punishment, and wondering what we did to deserve that. We also somehow knew that the world had changed. The experience brought many responses from within each one of us. At the same time, people were offering help and comfort any way they could.  They risked their own lives. They came nearby and from long distances and stayed for long times. They did both physically and emotionally demanding tasks.

Maybe after 9-11 we have a better understanding of this scripture, the people who wrote it down and saved it for us, and for the situation they were in. They too, had suffered a catastrophic change in their lives and existence. Their longed for small country had been captured by another, their temple destroyed, the killing and suffering was great and then they were taken to a foreign land to live in exile. Surely, there must have been much help offered. And we know that they wondered where God was at that time. The suffering gave voice to here-to-fore unheard from prophets, who tried to answer that very question. While they were not imprisoned but lived among the people in this new land, they longed for their homeland, their temple, and the promises that they held dear. As they looked back they remembered other times and longed for comfort. As we look back to past Christmases and the time before 9-11, they looked back to the time of David and the Kingdom. Much of the oral history was written down and saved. And the hope for a Messiah, the remembrance of God’s comforting promise, took on new shape and meaning.

Not surprising, this promise of comfort comes with three aspects. First, before God’s promise of comfort comes about, the prophet is to offer comfort to the people. So first, God’s people are to offer comfort to those in pain and suffering by providing care, comfort and compassion, as they also tell the people of what God will do. Second, the promise of comfort is connected with repentance, just as John the Baptist tells us. But in Isaiah, the people are told that they have suffered, and I read into it, repented enough, so that true comfort can come. And third, comfort is inextricably linked with peace. It is as if there is not comfort with out peace. There are some painful parts of my childhood, so that I must use care in who I tell what, and when. But I can remember those stories, easily and actually enjoy most of them, because I have made peace with them. We can accept other people who are very different from us when we hear their stories and walk that journey a bit with them. Then comfort often comes as a gift to both persons.

There was an article in the paper recently about a man who, after experiencing the wretched situation of orphans in Haiti found no personal peace. He and his wife worked to found an orphanage there. Now there is food, shelter and love for the orphans and comfort and peace for all those involved.

During this Advent waiting and hoping time, as Christmas approaches, may you find comfort and peace. Let us joyously seek to give those gifts to one another trusting that the holy Spirit will so empower our intentions that what is received is far more than is given. And may those gifts come even more powerfully to us as we rest in the knowledge of God’s promise of comfort, peace and love, which has come, and will come in the birth of a baby, become a man who moved mountains of helplessness and hopelessness. Amen