Irish Church Missions Director Eddie Coulter describes the pre Christmas rush as “Thoroughly draining the joy of Christmas out of most people by the time Christmas arrives”

We suffer headaches waiting in line for parking spaces, staff at the till, trying to get home:

Children are tormented cruelly by advertising and sometimes well meaning adults who constantly portray the season not as Christmas but as Get-mas, Me-mas, Present-mas.

We’re not very good at waiting.

Into this atmosphere let’s hear the words of the Psalmist: “I waited patiently for the Lord.”

Psalm 40 is a fairly visual psalm, and its theme reminds me a little of the family climbing on the rocks along the North Coast.

Down low, at water’s edge, the rocks are slimy and slippery, you need to hunch down low and keep your hands out , in case you slip and lose balance and tip over: but as you climb higher, getting away from the water, the rocks lose their mud, they shrug off the mire, and they become dry and secure and safe to stand on: you can rise up to your feet and see what is all around you.

When you are a parent you see your child struggle with the slippery stones, and you reach out to grab them: their hands are stretched to yours for they know the danger, and they know that you can help: with your height, you can see the better rocks, the drier stones, and as you lead them from danger so their fear turns to joy and their anxiety to peace: their feet are secure.

The Psalmist sees God as the one who rescues us when the waters are close, our feet are slipping, and panic sets in: are we in that state today? Does the world’s financial uncertainty overwhelm you, or does the threat of reduced employment shake you to the core? What else is making life a slippery path for you today?

Christmas and Comfort? They don’t make a good match! But hear what Isaiah says:

Isaiah 40.1-3 TNIV page 686

Comfort is a command

God speaks to the prophet Isaiah, telling him to “comfort my people”.

How do we obey that?

The church today [handbook] has been seeking a shape and pattern for ministry in the next few years, and one of these is a ministry of listening: to the community, young and old, to identify their needs. There is talk of a Community Outreach Group. If our general “task is to comfort, to strengthen, to encourage God’s people”.[1] Then our broader task is to care for the whole community

The elderly of Skeagh House are in distress: some saying they hope they will die before the threatened closure takes place. Imagine that! Wishing you could die! The community needs to discover ways of comforting these people.

Tenderness is a quality

We can sometimes get carried away with the harshness of the business world we encounter, the brusqueness of manners in the marketplace: we forget the tenderness of God in the Christ-child, the compassion of God in the cross, the gentleness of God in the arms of Mary.

In a desire to be contemporary and show that we mean business we approach people and situations the wrong way.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.

It’s not a very macho thing tenderness. Hard to get an eight year old boy to aspire to being tender!

Speak tenderly [ b] to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her

that her hard service [ c] has been completed, [ d]

that her sin has been paid for, [ e]

that she has received from the Lord’s hand double [ f] for all her sins.[2]

Can we as a church speak tenderly to another church?

The church in Sudan has been waiting for the end of the years of civil war and community genocide at the hands of their enemies: recent years have looked brighter, so we go to bring God’s comfort.

Over £1500 given to the Sudan Project yesterday; some to the travel fund some to the projects in Sudan. PTL

God’s coming is the cause of the comfort

A voice of one calling:

“In the wilderness prepare the way [ g] for the Lord [ 1] ;

make straight [ h] in the desert a highway for our God. [ 2] [ i] [3]

Notice of the arrival of HRH to a community: nervous but excited, anxious but optimistic, fearful but joyful! A double emotion.

We often think of God’s Judgement as being a terrible thing: we have become so preoccupied, perhaps, with our own sinfulness, and hence fear judgement, that we have lost sight of the true joy which God’s Judgment is meant to bring. THY KINGDOM COME is a Prayer for God to rule, to judge, to reign. THY WILL BE DONE is a cry for God’s just purposes to be carried out in state law and in the courts. Why would be praying for something of which we are in dread?

Summary

Waiting patiently: steadying steps: The Lord will lift us up.

Comfort, tenderness, the coming judge.

[1]Watts, J. D. W. 2002. Word Biblical Commentary : Isaiah 34-66. Word Biblical Commentary. Vol. 25 (80). Word, Incorporated: Dallas

[ b] S Ge 34:3; S Isa 35:4

[ c] S Job 7:1

[ d] Isa 41:11–13; 49:25

[ e] S Lev 26:41

[ f] Isa 51:19; 61:7; Jer 16:18; 17:18; Zec 9:12; Rev 18:6

[2]The Holy Bible : Today's New International Version. 2005 (Is 40:2). Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI

[ g] S Isa 11:16; 43:19; Mal 3:1

[ 1] Or A voice of one calling in the wilderness: / “Prepare the way for the Lord

[ h] S Pr 3:5–6

[ 2] Hebrew; Septuagint make straight the paths of our God

[ i] Mt 3:3*; Mk 1:3*; Jn 1:23*

[3]The Holy Bible : Today's New International Version. 2005 (Is 40:3). Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI