The horrific news of the shooting and murder of students at Oxford High School this week by another student was heart wrenching, tragic, and shockingly devastating to our society’s sense of comfort, control and safety. The grief, pain and sorrow experienced by the children and families involved is unimaginable and as in all such cases, provokes the inevitable questions of how and why; how such a thing could occur in a place that is supposed to be a place of hope and safety, and why would this young man do such an abominable thing? The other how question this provokes is how can we prevent this from occurring in the future?
These are important questions in such a time as this and need to be thoroughly and rationally addressed. However, the more immediate question for those experiencing the traumatic impact of such an event, either directly or indirectly, is where are we to find real, substantive and lasting comfort, hope, and peace when our minds and souls are being deluged with overwhelming sorrow, inconsolable grief, unabated fear and irreconcilable anger?
The difficult trials, the horrific sorrows and sufferings that abound in our fallen sinful world cry out for the comfort and assurance of knowing that these events have meaning and purpose that transcend the shallow psychological and sociological theories and social platitudes of our “modern” age, as well as for the certainty that in the end, all will be well.
Such comfort and assurance, such certainty can only be found in one place, in one person; the person who as a man wept with those who wept over the death of His friend (John 11:32-36) and who lamented with great sorrow over His beloved countrymen as they rejected the comfort, hope and assurance of the glorious life with God He came to give them (Matthew 23:37-39). He is the One who was not untouched by the sorrows and sufferings of this present evil age (Isaiah 53:3) (Hebrews 4:15) but came into this world to bear the eternal sorrows and sufferings that are the destiny of all mankind apart from Him (Isaiah 53:4-6).
This He is the infinitely wise, infinitely good, infinitely powerful God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-5), who reveals Himself to the world in the person and work of Jesus Christ, who came into this present evil world as a man to deliver us from it (Galatians 1:4), giving us rest from and comfort in the burdens it imposes on us, as well as those we bring upon ourselves (Matthew 11:28-30).
He is the One who is in control of all that occurs in this world, working all things according to the wise counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11), for the ultimate and eternal good of all who love Him, of all who live for His purposes and not their own (Romans 8:28).
He has promised to those who love Him eternal life (Titus 1:1-2), the life with God for which we were created, in a new universe and new earth where there will be no more sin and thus no more sorrow, no more death, no more crying and no more tears (Revelation 21:4). He assures us that the temporary sorrows and sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be compared with the joyful life we will have with Him forever in that renewed creation (Romans 8:18).
While we are in this world, He is our refuge and our strength, a very present help and comfort in times of even the most difficult and troubling circumstances we can experience or imagine (Psalm 46).
The Heidelberg Catechism summarizes the comfort and assurance Christ gives in both life and death to those who entrust their lives to Him. The Catechism was composed in the city of Heidelberg, Germany, in the midst of the Protestant Reformation. It was intended as a tool for teaching and encouraging young people in the Christian faith, a guide for preaching Biblical doctrine in the provincial churches and for providing a form of confessional unity among the several Protestant factions. Using a question-and-answer format, it addresses essential Christian doctrines and beliefs.
Question 1 asks, “What is your only comfort in life and in death?”
Answer: “That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.5 He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.”
Our comfort in both life and death, our certainty that all will be well in the end must come from our faith in the One who is the source of all life, and who through His suffering and death has overcome eternal death (Hebrews 2:9-10), namely God the Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Below are links to two wonderful songs of comfort and encouragement and a timely sermon by my favorite online preacher, Brian Borgman. I would encourage you to take time to listen for your own comfort and to help you in your efforts to comfort others with the comfort and assurance we have in Christ.
Grace and Peace ×
Our Only Comfort in Life and Death Christ Our Hope in Life and Death Still My Soul Be Still
Thanks Jim
Certainly at such a time as this needed this reminder today and every day. Thanks