Comfort in Christ speaks to the deep solace and joy believers find amid trials, rooted in God's abiding presence as 'Immanuel' (Isaiah 7:14). Christian preaching often uses images of light in darkness and warmth in cold to illustrate how divine comfort surpasses all earthly pleasures (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).
Three glorious shining angels appear, demonstrating heavenly majesty and presence.
”Oh, what have I beheld? Three shining forms stood beside me, whose garments were so bright, and whose countenances were so glorious that I never saw anything to compare with them.”
Christ carrying a boy’s burdens illustrates His willingness to bear our heavy loads.
I like to think of Christ as a burden bearer.
A minister was one day moving his library upstairs. As he was going up with a load of books, his little boy came in, and was very anxious to help his father. So his father just told him to go and get an armful, and bring them upstairs. When the father came back, he met the little fellow about half-way up, tugging away at the biggest book in the library. He couldn’t manage to carry it up. It was too big. So he sat down and cried.
His father found him, and just took him in his arms, book and all, and carried him upstairs. So Christ will carry you and all your burdens, if you will but let Him.
Resting fully on Jesus brings peace amid trials and spiritual struggles.
My heart can have no rest, unless it leans on Jesus Christ wholly, and then it feels his peace. But I am apt to leave my resting-place, and when I ramble from it, my heart will quickly brew up mischief. Some evil temper now begins to boil, or some care would fain perplex me, or some idol wants to please me, or some deadness or some lightness creeps upon my spirit, and communion with my Saviour is withdrawn. When these thorns stick in my flesh, I do not try, as heretofore, to pick them out with my own needle, but carry all complaints to Jesus, casting every care upon him. His office is to save, and mine to look for help.— John Berridge.
Believers can step from life's struggles into God's comforting presence at any moment.
A lady recently related in one of the journals how she went through a veritable blizzard to view a flower-show. With one step she passed out of the wild night, the deep snow, the bitter wind, into a brilliant hall filled with hyacinths, tulips, jonquils, cyclamens, azaleas, roses and orchids.
It is the privilege of godly men, at any time, to pass at a step from the savage conflicts of life right into the sweet fellowship of God, finding grace to help in the time of need.--W. L. WATKINSON, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”
Christ's call offers rest and refuge to the weary, like a safe home for wounded soldiers.
During the South African war a manager of a mine on the lonely veldt did his best to discover and help the wounded British soldiers in the neighborhood of his home. When night came on the manager had to give up his weary search. But he determined to let the soldiers know of the refuge which his house was ready to afford. So he sat down to his little piano and played incessantly, “God Save the Queen.” Through the night, while his fingers were numbed with the cold, he played the British national anthem, risking death at the hands of the enemies if they had heard him. And one by one the wounded soldiers struggled toward the friendly roof and lay down in the safe refuge of his home. It was a beautiful version of the Savior’s call to tired and tempted men and women: “Come unto me, and rest.” (Text.)
True comfort in grief comes from hope in Christ and the promise of reunion.
As I was going along a country road one day, I saw a woman going along with a hoe, and behind her was a man with a burden on his back; and this burden, as we drew closer, we saw to be the form of a baby. It was wrapt up according to the custom. They climbed the hill and put the burden on the ground, and the mother threw herself upon the dead form of the child and cried out her broken heart, while the father began to dig the grave. We tried to comfort her the best we could, but her grief seemed too deep, and she did not understand that Christ was the only one who could comfort her. The following Sunday I saw in our meeting one of our women who had been a Christian only about six months, a woman who had been told by her neighbors that if she became a Christian a very dangerous spirit would haunt her and bring calamity to her. She did not falter, but by and by her only child, a little girl, whom she dearly loved, was taken from her. This Sunday, as she stood with the tears streaming down her face, she told how the beautiful little girl had died, but that she did not grieve so much, because, as she said, “I am going to meet her there with Jesus.” I could not but think of that other woman whom I saw heart-broken on the mountain-side just a few days before.--LULU E. FREY, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.
Christianity offers moral rest and peace to those burdened and heavy laden.
Mr. Robert E. Speer says:
When I was in the city of Tokyo, I went to the house of a missionary to meet half a dozen of the leading native Christian men of Japan. They were thoughtful, well-read, thoroughly educated, keen students. There was scarcely a school of Christian thought with which they were not familiar. I asked them what it was in Christianity that had most appealed to them. I supposed, of course, they would answer that they were glad of their faith because it had thrown light on the dark, perplexing problems of life which Buddhism and Shintoism were unable to solve. Instead, every one said that what they valued most in Christianity was the moral rest that they had found there. The intellectual satisfaction was little compared with the sweet voice that was now sounding in their hearts, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
A sparrow's visit illustrates God's care and encourages trust in Him.
When pastor of Park Avenue Church, Brooklyn, New York, I was preaching one Sunday morning to a languid audience, for it was a hot, sultry day in summer. The windows were all open for ventilation, but scarcely a breath of air was felt. The atmosphere was oppressive, and the service dragged. When about half way through my sermon, a sparrow flew through one of the open windows, and startled the drowsy audience by flying round the church, at times threatening to light on one or other of the ladies’ bonnets. At length it lighted on the communion-rail, directly in front of the pulpit and in full view of the audience, and there settled down quietly. All eyes were intent upon it. My discourse had been rudely interrupted, but as if by inspiration I was seized with the thought to change my theme, speak of God’s care for His children, and use the little bird as an object-lesson. This I did, quoting the Savior’s words in Matthew 6:26: “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?” The audience was intensely interested, every mind was alert, every soul thirsty for the comforting truth. The little creature remained perfectly quiet, and seemed as interested as any of the rest of us. Just before I closed he flew out of one of the windows, having left a message of hope and comfort to tired hearts. I have felt a warmer place in my heart ever since for “God’s sparrows.”--ELIJAH HUMPHRIES, _Our Dumb Animals_.
True solitude intensifies spiritual light, revealing presence even in loneliness.
My safety (from madness) lay, as I found, in compressing my thoughts to the smallest compass of mental existence, and no sooner did worldly visions or memories intrude themselves, as they necessarily would, than I immediately and resolutely shut them out as one draws the blind to exclude the light. But this exclusion of the world created a dark background which served only to intensify the light that shone upon me from realms unseen of mortal eyes. Lonely I was, yet I was never alone. (Text.)--Mrs. MAYBRICK, “My Fifteen Lost Years.”
God's presence brings peace and strength through the darkness of night.
James Church Alvord writes these prayerful verses:
Not for to-morrow, Lord, I lift my eyes Up through the darkness which between us lies; Not ’gainst to-morrow’s terror, toil or woe; Not for to-morrow’s joy or glad surprize-- Just for to-night.
When the day breaks and far the shadows flee Strength for the conflict still shall come from Thee, I all Thy grace shall prove, Thy comfort know. O, let me feel this deep security-- Just for to-night.
Peace--’tis the gift Thou givest, peace and rest. Come, bid me droop my head upon Thy breast! Speak to me, Master, murmur soft and low, Flood all my soul with Thy communion blest-- Just for to-night.
Nay, I’ll not shun to-morrow’s wild alarms: Storms when Thou sendest, I’ll not ask for calms. Yet, I grow weary on the way I go: Put underneath the everlasting arms-- Just for to-night. (Text.)
Knowing God in life makes death a peaceful rest with Him, not something to fear.
The more you are acquainted with God while you live, the more willing you will be to die, to go to him; for death, to a child of God, is nothing else but a resting with God, in whose bosom he hath often been by holy meditation, when he was alive. Dr. Preston, when he was dying, used these words: "Blessed be God, though I change my place I shall not change my company; for I have walked with God while living, and now I go to rest with God."
Near death, the experience can be peaceful and filled with light, not darkness.
When Mrs. Hervey was very near death, she said: “If this is the dark valley, it has not a dark spot in it; all is light.”
Christianity offers brave hope about life while fully acknowledging the reality of death.
Prof. G. Currie Martin points out the difference between the Christian and the unchristian views of death.
In the old days, when the plague swept over Italy, the ladies and gentlemen of fashion used sometimes to withdraw into some beautiful country residence, with its surrounding park, and behind its high walls shut themselves off from all thought of the misery and sorrow that surrounded them. Death, they imagined, could no longer reach them, until suddenly the spectral figure stalked into their midst, no one knew whence, and the false safety was shattered at a blow. The power of Christianity is found in the fact that it can say such brave and hopeful words about life, while all the time it is perfectly conscious of death. (Text.)
Christian faith transforms the fear of death into peaceful assurance and hope.
Death, ever present all the world over--how softened his grim visage is when associated with the name of Jesus, how awful when he appears alone. The writer still recalls one summer long ago, May, 1889, when funeral preparations were being made before a neighboring house. He made inquiry of An, his host: “I didn’t know that there was a death.” “Yes, the master of the house is dead; they will bury him.” “But when did he die? To-day when we were out?” “No, no, not to-day. He died before you came.” I had been there two months. They had a bier ornamented with dragons’ heads, painted in wild colors, that suggested skull and cross-bones. The funeral service was a fearful row; everybody was noisy, many were weeping, many were drunk. A more gruesome performance than that which I saw, over that horrible, unburied body, no one could imagine. To-day that same village sits as it did then, with background of mountain and foreground of sea, but how changed! All is Christian; Sunday is a day of rest, and every house is represented at the service in the chapel. They have lived down old-fashioned death in that village and exchanged it for quiet sleep.--JAMES S. GALE, “Korea in Transition.”
The sea's eternal rhythm comforts the dying with hope of the eternal morning.
The following paragraph is the conclusion of James G. Blaine’s eulogy of President Garfield, and forms one of the finest passages of English prose:
Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will. Within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices, with wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the ocean’s changing wonders, on its far sails whitening in the morning light, on its restless waves rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun, on the red clouds of evening arching low to the horizon, on the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning, which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that, in the silence of the receding world, he heard the great wave breaking on a farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning.
A dying princess found comfort and assurance resting on Christ's invitation for the weary.
The Princess Elizabeth, imprisoned during her father’s trouble, had a long spell of sickness while in the castle. One time she was found dead in bed with her Bible open before her, and her finger resting on these words: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
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