I wonder, sometimes, at the limits of my capacity to give comfort.
I know, I know, there are folks who say the task of the prophet is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, but mostly what I see in the world is suffering. Hurt and loss, fear and trembling, those things are everywhere and a near universal. I ache at the inescapable ubiquity of the world's pain.
The pastor's task is primarily to give solace, but there's a boundary to that calling.
That boundary lies in the unique needs of every soul I encounter. What gives comfort to one person will be of no use to another, and words that are bright with grace to one ear might be gibberish to another.
Almost all of my own resilience in the face of loss and sorrow lies in my trust in the reality of God. I know, from my faith, that nothing that has occurred in our time and space is ever forgotten. It's all there in the mind of God, and that includes the reality and personhood of everyone I've lost. I am blessed with the knowledge that they are completed, and that their completeness is a blessing.
I also trust, in my understanding of the infinite creative power of God, that everything that could possibly be is as real to my Creator as that which is. All of the universe as we can see it is not the limit of God's work. So the loved one who was taken from us too soon, where we feel the loss of all that they could have been? Where we lament that we never reconciled, and there are parts of us we never shared with them? All of those lost moments may be beyond us, but they are not beyond our Maker. In God, nothing of what they could have been is gone. In that, I find comfort.
I also know, from the heart of my faith, that our seasons of suffering aren't something God inflicts upon us, as if the Lord were some distant, demanding and monstrous tyrant. God participates in the fullness of our struggles, knows them round about and within. Everything we experience is known and felt by our Creator. Being Itself bears the weight of our sorrow, and I am comforted by that.
But if Jesus is not shared between you and I, how can I share that comfort?
If you believe the universe is a blind trampling machine, a churning murderous thrum of quantum cogs and mindless algorithms, I will struggle to reach you with my words of grace. You will hear my words as delusion, as foolishness, as the prattle of a fanciful, willful child.
I could, in that knowledge, simply withdraw. Coil back into my own bedrock certainty, leaving you infidel and alone.
What an ugly and selfish act that would be.
If you suffer, now, and do not find purpose and solace in Jesus as I do, then my task is to walk with you.
To hear you. To celebrate with you. To weep with you. To offer you food and warmth and encouragement.
To be your friend, even in our difference.
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