On a daily basis I am bombarded with a steady diet of bad news, fake news, old news, videos of cute baby animals, pictures of what my nephew had for lunch and suggestions for how to treat the illnesses I am presumed to already have given my advanced age. All courtesy of this: my auxiliary brain! Even now when I’m only living out one career rather than simultaneously juggling three, all of this information can get a bit overwhelming. In fact, one of the things that I’m just now learning to do is to avoid looking at it just before bed. Because if I don’t turn off the information spigot, I can’t sleep. My brain thinks it’s supposed to be solving problems instead of drifting off into the comfort of restful peace.

As we navigate our way through life, we often look for comfort and we seek it in all sorts of ways: some of it temporary, some of it lasting. It’s an instinct to seek comfort, whether it’s in the form of mac and cheese, a sappy Christmas movie on TV or as a hug from a loved one.

Even when everything is going well, we still seek comfort—cookies, a snuggly blanket and the like. It’s an instinct, and it calms us down so we can process information. It’s the consequence of being gifted with the most complex of all computers—the human mind.

As long as there have been people, there has been the instinct to seek comfort, and it’s not always been clear where or how to find it.

Our faith ancestors were asking for it a thousand years ago—we see the evidence of that yearning for comfort when we read the psalms of David.

Prophets do more than speak truth to power; they’ve also spoken words of comfort to people who are suffering through times of trial. A true prophet is not an oracle predicting the future, but rather the mouthpiece of God. A servant willing to trust that God will provide the words if only they are willing to open their mouth on God’s behalf.

So when the prophet Isaiah opened his mouth somewhere around 600 years or so before Jesus was born, he did so to speak both a warning of the consequences to the Kingdom of Judah for her betrayal of the northern Kingdom of Israel, and also to speak comfort to God’s people living in exile. “Comfort, o comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid…”

“Comfort is coming,” says the prophet! Some times it takes a little while to get that set up. And if you’re expecting the comfort to taste like mac and cheese or other comfort food when you don’t feel at your best and instead you get a big old dose of medicine– it’s pretty disappointing! You may not even notice the comfort when it comes five or six days later, after the treatment starts to work. That’s why we have to keep alert, so we can know the medicine worked and go for it quickly if we get sick again.

Isaiah said “Comfort, o comfort my people,” and went on to foretell of John the Baptist, the voice in the wilderness yelling, “People, get ready!” because the glory of the Lord was about to be revealed. Seven generations had already passed between Isaiah’s prophecy and the appearance of John the Baptist and the messiah—Jesus. So John had to yell, “Wake up, everybody! It’s time! Wake up and see what God has done, and you will never believe what your comfort looks like!”

That’s why “The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” [Mark 1:1-8] starts with Isaiah’s prophecy about a voice crying out, alerting us to the most awesome news ever to come to humankind: comfort is here, comfort and joy! He was reminding people of the comfort Isaiah had promised. By the time John the Baptist began his ministry waking people up to the good news, Jesus was already a grown man. I’m guessing that the people didn’t expect the good news of comfort and joy to come out of the mouth of a crazy-looking guy eating bugs and wild honey, any more than they expected it to come out of Isaiah 600 years earlier, but there you have it. Here it was again: “…the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Where is that good news today? Is it so obvious that it no longer needs telling? If that’s the case why are so many of us still hurting? Why are we still craving comfort food or something stronger to numb the pain? Have we forgotten that in a world of pain there still is still true comfort to be had? Who is it that speaks peace in our town? Who brings comfort and joy and peace and hope? Jesus told his first followers that the good news was now their responsibility to bring to the ends of the earth. We are the spiritual descendants of those apostles, and now that good news of comfort and joy is ours to tell. As the hands and feet of Christ on Earth, we are the bearers of that good news, but we are more than just the field reporters speaking live from a time of trial. It’s more than the telling; we ARE that good news because when we love, when we offer ourselves in relationship to others, that’s where God emerges. It only takes two people together for God to be made visible—one to say, “I love you,” and another to hear it and be comforted.

There’s not a one of us who doesn’t possess a beautiful and amazing heart with nearly unlimited potential to be the comfort for someone else in a troubled world. How we speak to one another is a choice. Choose tenderness. Choose words of peace over words of conflict. “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.”