Comfort, Comfort Ye My People
Lyrics by Johann Olearius, Translated by Catherine Winkworth
When I was a small child and I did something wrong, I would cry, feeling awful not only because I had done wrong but because I was being punished for it! Yet, in contrast to say, my later teen years, what I most wanted then was comfort from the very people who had meted out the punishment. I wanted to climb into my mother’s or father’s lap until my crying shook away. Often it didn’t happen immediately, but, after a while, when I had had a long enough time out, I would be welcomed back into my mother’s arms with a hug and a kiss.
In much the same way, Isaiah 40:1-11, upon which this hymn is based, is telling us that our “time out” is over. God is ready to welcome his people Israel back. Centuries later, John the Baptist quotes from this passage when he explains that he is “a voice of one that crieth in the desert”.
Likewise, God is always willing to take us back no matter what wrong we have done and no matter what toll “our warfare” has taken on our bodies, minds, and souls. We are reminded that the “kingdom now is here”, and that God calls us, now not later, to make, that which is in our hearts, “straight what long was crooked”. Moreover, those of us who “sit in darkness” because of sadness, disease, pain, loneliness, and heartache can know that the “peace that waits” for us is available in Christ.
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