[AI translation] In the passage, the apostle Paul speaks of the mystery of personal consolation and the knowledge of how to comfort others. He does not go into detail, but only refers to the difficult situation he was in, the dark depths he had to go through. He talks about some great, great misery that happened to him in Asia. It must have been a very serious ordeal, for he says of him that "we are exceedingly burdened, so that we are in doubt of our lives" (2 Cor 1,8). When he had "abundantly" come out of suffering, he also received such an abundance of consolation that he could give it to others, to others who were in tribulation. He has already experienced what it means to be comforted in suffering - blessed be the God of comfort, so that he can now comfort the church at Corinth with the same comfort with which God comforts him. To be comforted and to comfort others: these two things are closely linked. That is what this Word now teaches us.But it would be good to really learn this secret, the secret of personal consolation and of knowing how to console others! But this world is in great need of people with consoled hearts who can authentically console others! After all, discouragement, despondency, lassitude, sadness are so very common symptoms of this modern age! I saw an advertisement for a medicine in a foreign newspaper the other day. It said this in large letters across the top: and underneath, praise of the infallible medicine that helps one through this trouble. There was a photograph next to it, a woman holding her head with two hands. Wrinkles of fatigue around the eyes, a weary man stares blankly into space. And right next to it, another photograph. The same female face, but now with a radiant expression. Cheerful, smiling, brave, looking out into the world. What a miracle, just a few drops of medicine, or a few pills, and the moodiness is gone! - Yes, that certain moodiness, that certain sadness, could be linked to a certain physical condition. And surely there are drugs that can help in such a state. But the moodiness itself, the lack of zest for life and joy in life, cannot be cured by drugs. It is not a question here of improving physical condition, but of giving a discouraged person a new spirit, of encouraging, refreshing and comforting him! He should be encouraged to face life's problems, not to crumble under the burden, to dare to go on, to have the strength and the will to love life again. Because it is not so easy! Because life as it is makes us old, wears us out, fries our nerves, saps our strength. Life sometimes wounds us, strikes us, causes pain, suffering, sadness. The many burdens of life eventually break us down. To be able to love this difficult life, I need a lot of good humour, a lot of cheerfulness and courage! And for that one does not need this or that injection or pastille.
You know what we need to keep our zest for life alive? We need a fresh, clean spring from which we can draw consolation every day, so that we can go on, so that we can be encouraged to work and struggle again, and if necessary, leave this life on earth. We need a fountain of wonder from which the bitter and disillusioned soul can draw comfort and refreshment. But is there such a spring on earth? Well, that is what the apostle is talking about when he speaks of God as the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions. Says Paul: 'Look, people, in the sufferings and trials of my life I have constantly experienced the empowering support of God's consolation, God is as much a God of consolation to you as He was to me!
And indeed, just think, is God not as close to us as he was to Paul? After all, the very foundation of our faith is that the kingdom of God has come to us in Jesus Christ! Through Christ, God has come very close to us, He has come into our lives, and through Christ we have come very close to God, we have entered into His love, His grace, His fatherly heart. I too have had such a happy experience: when God's heart is opened to me through the Bible and my heart is opened to God through prayer, I am already at the fountain of Life, in the immediate vicinity of the God of refreshment, of consolation! And God comforts me in such a special way! You know, the problem of the sad, the bitter, the discouraged man is that he sees nothing but his problem, his misery. He stares, as it were, in fascination at what is before him: at the disappointment he has just experienced, in which he sees the destruction of his best hopes; or at the obstacle he has encountered and cannot overcome; or at his own weakness, which discourages him; or at the predicament which despairs him. But God says: try to look beyond the visible and above the invisible, to what I will show you. And if you look there, you will be comforted. Because it is more powerful, more real than all that you are now fearfully looking at. And then you don't have to sink, you don't have to be down, because you will see that there is help, there is deliverance for you too!
But where does God direct our gaze, what is it that gives us new strength, a new zest for life, that comforts us? He points to the Passion of Christ. Behold, the apostle says: "For as we have received abundantly through the sufferings of Christ, so our consolation also abounds through Christ." (verse 5). And through Christ on the cross! God is pointing to a very special place, to the lowest place in the world. He is saying: 'People, in the midst of your own consolation and despair, look to the ultimate place of consolation and despair, to Calvary, to the place where Christ Himself will plunge into death, the death of damnation! Look to Him who suffers in immeasurable agony, who cries out in the last despair of the encroaching darkness: 'My God, why have you forsaken me? There is no more dreadful abyss in the world! But why is Christ there, in this terrible inferno? It is to be with us. For our sake he hangs there on the tree, for our sake he suffers and dies. It is so that He may share our sufferings, so that He may take our sufferings upon Himself, so that our trouble and misery may be His trouble and suffering. So that His immeasurable suffering may flow into our suffering as a healing, uplifting, redeeming, comforting power.
No depth of consolation, then, in which we are left to ourselves! Behold, He is with us! It is indeed as Psalm 139 says: "...if I make my bed in Sheol, there you are present... If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light round about me shall be as the night, The darkness shall not cover me from thee, and the night shall shine as the day; the darkness is as the light." (Psa 139:8b, 11-12) This means that even in the terrifying shadows of the underworld, even in the nightmares of darkness, the face of the God of consolation is revealed in the suffering Christ. He looks at the suffering, the despairing, with a love of strength and consolation, as if to say: Fear not, I am here, you are mine! Is not the apostle right when he says: "Our consolation is abundant through Christ"? Look only to Him! It is as if Paul were saying, "I have not been comforted by myself, nor by a change for the better in my circumstances, for I myself have come to the point where a man despairs of his life. Christ has delivered me, He is the only consolation for you! It was there, in the most desperate situation, when the apostle himself was about to die, that he learned not to trust in himself, but in God, who raises the dead. If this God is our God, who raised Christ from the dead, who will raise the dead with Him, what is our problem, our sorrow, our comfort? Do not all the troubles, sufferings, miseries, which we see in Him, in ourselves, as so frightening, so great, that we are discouraged and embittered, shrink into ridiculous insignificance? For the face of God revealed in Christ who suffered for us is not the face of a wrathful, punishing God, but a God of grace and love! And what then is the meaning of all the dark mysteries and enigmas of our age and our world, if we know that this gracious God holds all things in His hands and that He has the ultimate victory?!
Jesus has a very strange statement to make to his disciples during his farewell discourse: 'In this world you will have tribulation, but trust, I have convinced the world! He speaks at once of his own triumph and of the misery of his own. This means that this victory of Christ is for us now only a reality of faith, i.e. not visible! Therefore, faith is a constant tension between the invisible reality - that is, the victory of Christ - and the visible reality - that is, the miseries and problems of the present. That is why faith often means smiling again and again, even through my tears. I hope even in the face of hopelessness! As I once did, for example, at my parents' coffin, where the joy in my heart at Christ's victory over death was greater than the pain - I go on courageously even in the midst of my fears! Comforted even in bitterness! Hurt, oppressed, wounded perhaps, but still victorious in Christ! That's the "yet"! It is the shortest confession of faith for one who trusts in the God of consolation! Yea, this assurance comforts, that, in spite of all the burdens of life, in spite of all the terrors of death, there is deliverance, there is victory in Christ!
Perhaps we already know this very well, and this consolation of God often does not enter into our hearts, nor does it lift the gloom and despair within us. Our hearts are simply not open to the consolation of God. Well, here we have to learn another secret from the Apostle Paul. He closely links the consolation of his own heart with the consolation of others who are in tribulation. He says: remember that the two are so closely connected that they are almost one. To comfort ourselves and to comfort others is one and the same. God comforts us so that we can comfort others with the same comfort that we have received from Him.In one and the same movement, we receive and pass on comfort. And if we feel that God's consolation does not find its way into our hearts, or does not lift us up, we must ask ourselves: is there an exit from our hearts for the same consolation? Do we know that we ourselves receive it only if we are ready to give it away immediately?
Behold, the consolation of God is here with you, very near to you, but if it remains with you, it will be extinguished like a flame that cannot burn because it has no air. The consolation of God cannot be stored up in the soul like money in a safe-deposit box. It cannot be kept to ourselves, for it goes out! This consolation is not the private business of one man, but the business of the mighty God, the God who is the Father of grace, the God of all men. Yes, you too may draw from His abundance, from His fountain of consolation, but only by taking it for yourself with one hand and immediately passing it on from the other to others who also need consolation. This is the secret of divine consolation. Perhaps that is why there are so many inconsolable people, and perhaps we ourselves are so inconsolable, because we have never really grasped this secret.
Comforting and comforting others are inextricably linked. It is so clear from the Word: the "God of consolation, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we also may comfort those who are in any tribulation with the comfort with which God comforts us." Let God comfort you, and go comfort your brother!
Amen
Date: 3 March 1957.
Lesson
2Kor 1,3-11