Comfort in Sickness & Sadness
“Surely Jesus took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows.”
Isaiah 53:4
As modern-day Americans, we are very blessed people. Today’s medicines mask the ugliness of illness, pretty effectively removing the pain. Our many distractions nowadays prevent us from being sad for very long.
Still, we cannot escape sickness and sadness completely, can we? After we’ve enjoyed good health or regained it, heart troubles suddenly strike, or cancer develops. We cruise through life: oblivious to betrayal or solitude or death, impending upon us. Without warning, our life crashes down around us. Then, where do we turn?
Christ’s cross is lifted high for every eye to see. In it is proof that, even when we can make no sense of the Lord’s plans, God still means great good for us. Jesus’ hands are spread out to handle what we cannot. Fingers which fashioned the universe, healed the sick, raised the dead, and hands which were pierced for you—these will never fail us.
Probably nowhere is Christ’s cross lifted so high as at church. Every time we enter, Jesus extends to us his embrace—not only figuratively from the altar sculpture at the front of church, but very certainly by way of his Word. All of this is one final reason to rejoice in your congregation, its workers, and regular worship.