The Comfortable Need No Comfort

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. -- Hebrews 5:8

Yesterday we talked about recognizing and accepting God’s “higher definition” of us as His children while refusing to allow ourselves to be limited, constrained and condemned by the accuser and his agents.  This verse today is the other side of that reality.  Sonship was the rightful position of the Lord Jesus, but it was necessary, for our sakes, that He discover experientially the suffering of humanity in order that He might be an effective and eternal High Priest on our behalf. 

We confess the vicarious and substitutionary suffering and death of Christ atoning for the sin of humanity.  Hebrews reveals a deeper truth.   God Himself, though knowing all things, could not fully understand and identify with us until He, too, took on flesh, walked among us, felt the pain of loss, and faced the black abyss of death for Himself. 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 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 (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).  When Jesus was preparing His disciples for what was to come as He went to the Cross, He said, And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever … (John 14:16).  The Holy Spirit is that Helper, the Paracletos, the One called alongside, the Comforter. 

As strange as it sounds, suffering introduces us to comfort.  The Comforter is revealed to us most expressly in the pains and losses of life.  Why do we think it strange that we must suffer as Christ Himself suffered?  How can one who has never been comforted possess the power to comfort another?  When was God ever comforted?  When He suffered and died in separation from His Father.   

During the Feast of Tabernacles, on the last day of the Feast, Jesus stood up and invited everyone who was thirsty to come to Him and drink.  He said from the innermost being of those who would believe on Him there would flow rivers of living water.  John adds this:  Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:39). 

Jesus could not yet give the Comforter for He Himself had not yet experienced the need for comfort that His ultimate suffering brought Him into. 

Every loss is an emptying.  Every pain is a wound into which the balm of the Holy Spirit may be poured.  We will never suffer the full measure of loss and pain which Jesus endured, but what we do experience opens us to receive more of the Comforter’s presence and power.  The more that is poured into us, filling the void that suffering has created, relieving the agony of thirst we experience for meaning in the midst of our pain, the more we will have to pour out to those around us as they hurt and need an advocate and a helper. 

Prayer and Plows

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. -- Psalms 34:18

The Lord, I want to say, is near to us all.  I look at a statement like this and think about how we are drawn to comfort a friend or family member who is physically ill, going through trials, or suffering in some other way.  Jesus called the One whom the Father would send the Paracletos -- our Comforter or our Helper (John 14:16).  Our God does comfort and sustain the afflicted. 

Yesterday, I talked about being broken through prayer that we might bring the Light of Christ into the world’s darkness.  I can’t say that brokenness must always precede blessings, but it certainly seems that way sometimes.  As long as I can handle things, God steps back and allows me to find my limits.  “God helps those who help themselves” is not a direct quote from the Bible though a similar concept may be found.  We can do what we know to do.  Pray for the Lord to bless your garden with rain and sun in season, but you are still going to need to plant the seeds and pull the weeds.

As Christians, we should cultivate brokenness:  For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.  Circumcise yourselves to the LORD; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem … (Jeremiah 4:3-4).  This is the opposite of resignation, lethargy, sloth, or apathy.  We are, if anything, hypersensitive about our own disobedience and stumblings, quick to admit our faults and careful to turn from anything that might grieve the Spirit.  Prayer is the plowshare for heart soil.

While it is essential that I remove the beam from my own eye first, when I can see clearly, with the humility that comes with the knowledge of my own imperfections, I also must be grieved by the sin around me in the world.  Revival ought to begin in my own heart, but it ought not end there.  Salvation is good news.  Christ is hope and deliverance, healing and wholeness, light and life and joy and peace.  Like the bread He multiplied when He broke it, He will always be more than enough to meet the need.

Checking the Barcode on the Revelation Wristband

… who are being protected by God's power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. … You love Him, though you have not seen Him. And though not seeing Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. … Therefore, get your minds ready for action, being self-disciplined, and set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance but, as the One who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy. -- 1 Peter 1:5,8-9,13-16 (HCSB, emphasis added)

I was reading through First Peter chapter 1 recently. It’s not that I haven’t read it before, but we all know that insight from any holy book, and especially from the Bible, is inexhaustible. As I’ve highlighted above, Peter seems to be talking about something future, not yet revealed. That something is contrasted with the fact that the recipients of his letter are not now seeing Jesus Christ, though they believe in Him. It is easy to pass this off as being about the Second Coming or even about our dying and going to heaven – “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” and all that realm of thought. Undoubtedly that is applicable, but what if Peter is not limiting us to death or Rapture?

If we go back to John 14:19, we read that Jesus said, “… the world will see Me no longer, but you will see Me.” All right, then, He is certainly talking about His post-resurrection appearances to the disciples, but He doesn’t stop at that statement. In verse 21, the Lord continues, “… And the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father. I also will love him and will reveal Myself to him.” Revealing is more than a sighting. Revealing connotes intimacy and relationship. Jesus is not merely back in town. He’s getting Himself a cup of coffee and sitting down face to face with the one who loves Him.

Many there are today wandering the world, thinking if only they could have lived when Jesus lived, met Him, walked and talked with Him, seen Him after He rose from the dead, then they would believe big-time. They would live and walk in the Spirit with power daily. Yet one who walked with Him betrayed Him. Another denied Him. A third refused to believe the words of his friends that He had risen. Even after the Resurrection, Peter was so uncertain about the future and his calling that he thought the inner circle of disciples needed to go back to fishing for a living (see John 21).

If seeing Jesus in person is not a revelation of Him, what would be?

Reading on through John 14-16, we can find frequent references to the Holy Spirit. He is called by Jesus, at one point, “another Comforter”, and what Jesus is telling us is that the Comforter is another one – not different but just like Himself. He also said that it is Holy Spirit’s business to guide us into all truth.

The men who followed Christ during His Incarnation were, clearly, believers. They believed, as Peter stated so boldly, that He was the Messiah. No one can see Jesus in the revelatory sense who does not already believe in Him. Believing is the first step to revelation, but faith, which must, by its nature, involve a degree of revelation, is not all that is necessary. Once we begin to believe, we are on the right path but we are not at the end. We’re like the Slinky that gets pushed off the landing at the top of the stairs onto that first step – except we’re a Slinky that can go uphill (what’s the plural for Slinky? Slinkies? Slinkys? Slinks? Slinkii?).

Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness – without it no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14). As Peter has told us already, there is a grace for which we should hope, a grace brought to us through revelation. Now, the writer of Hebrews tells us that revelation is a function of holiness. The call to holiness is a call to receive the grace of revelation that comes only when we set ourselves apart to the Lord. And He is called the Holy Spirit, as well as the Spirit of Truth.

Faith should move us to holiness leading to revelation which in turn leads to faith. There are challenges at every point – challenges to our belief, our surrender, our holiness, and even to our personal revelation.

I used to think it was a bad thing that, if God shows us something, others should question the validity of it or even mock us for it. I no longer think that way for I have come to understand that sentimentality has no real place in Christianity. It’s not that a Christian has to stop being sentimental. He just has to stop thinking that sentimentally is an element of religion or necessarily a religious feeling given by the Spirit. My thinking that something is “touching” does not make it true – not even if it makes me weep. I think it’s good that I can be touched by pathos – the heart should be kept soft, not the head. Revelation may cause an overwhelming emotional response. An emotional response is not a guarantee of revelation.

Some Christians say that we should live holy lives out of concern for our brothers and sisters and the unbelievers around us. I agree. Holy, consistent, self-disciplined living is a powerful testimony to the non-believer. Many find fault with Christ in the behavior of His followers. That we should be careful how we live out of concern for others is confirmed by numerous statements in Scripture. Love for our brothers is vital and is expressed in part through holiness.

If that is our only motivation for holiness, however, it can lead to a degree of superficiality. I know a good church deacon and Sunday School teacher. Looking at his life, most of us would say he is a devout man trying to follow Christ. I know two things about him that most people don’t. He was an exacting father with his two sons, especially the elder. He didn’t abuse the boys except in the fact that he thought they did not need toys and such. He begrudged them their childhood in a sense. The second thing I know from a reliable source is that when his wife is out of town, he rents videos rated X. I can’t really find it in my heart to condemn him for that, as I know his wife quite well, and if I were married to her, I’d probably rent them when she was home. I’m not saying the deacon isn’t a believer, that he’s a hypocrite, or even that he isn’t a holy man. I am merely pointing out that holiness is about other people secondarily and God primarily.

If we are seeking Jesus, we are seeking revelation – direct spiritual knowledge -- gnosis in the coon-0-sphere. Without holiness, no one will see God. Holiness is being set apart to the Lord. Each of us in seeking Him will realize some things have to be put aside: attitudes, thought patterns, and habits, things that absorb too much of our time, counterproductive relationships, anything that holds us back, darkens or distracts. It’s the Pearl -- this grace that comes through revelation, I cannot haggle over the Great Price.