"Overflowing Comfort"
March 11, 2009
2 Corinthians 1:3-5 - 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. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
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In my grief-counseling group, there was an elderly woman who came with all of her friends who had recently lost a loved one, usually a spouse. This sweet Christian lady had already completed the grief-counseling workshop three years earlier, but she kept coming back every year to go through the whole thing again. She was there to lend support to her friends because she knew the pain they were experiencing first hand.
There are few things more comforting than knowing that someone else really does know what you are going through. In this Bible verse, Paul speaks of sharing in suffering in this life so that we may be able to comfort others with the comfort we have received from God. That comfort is, of course, the comfort of Jesus who died and rose again for us. It is the comfort of knowing that God knows what it feels like to be a person and to suffer all the pain you and I face in our lives.
How different this comfort is than what we might find in the world! Here is comfort that goes beyond painful and sometimes inexplicable circumstances to see that our God is the Father of all mercies. He is the Father that showed mercy to you and me in the cross of Christ. And this Father teaches all Christians to comfort others through the sufferings we endure.
This endurance is given us by God as another way of sharing with each other in Christ. This is the way of the cross. Suffering passes for the Christian, and all that is left is comfort, not only for us, but for all those who are in need of the comfort of Christ.
THE PRAYER: Lord Jesus, as You have been my comfort in suffering, make me a comfort to others in Your Name. Amen.
Written by Pastor William D. Miller
Grace Lutheran Church - Knoxville, Tennessee
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