Good morning! I invite you to turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 40.
How many of you know what I am talking about when I say “comfort food?” Is there a dish or food that comes to mind?
Usually when I think of comfort food, I’m really thinking about binge food—like a carton of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream or a box of Girl Scout cookies (admit it: you have eaten an entire sleeve of Thin Mints in one sitting, haven’t you?)
But comfort food, at least as Wikipedia defines it, is food that provides a nostalgic or sentimental value to someone,[1] The nostalgia may be specific to an individual, or it may apply to a specific culture.[3]
The term comfort food first started showing up in popular culture around fifty years ago (Ok, it was 1966, which is closer to 60 years ago, but that’s the year I was born, so we are going to stick with “fifty”). The Palm Beach Gazette wrote that "Adults, when under severe emotional stress, turn to what could be called 'comfort food'—food associated with the security of childhood, like mother's poached egg or famous chicken soup."[
I don’t know about poached eggs, but I can definitely relate to chicken soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, gumbo, and fried chicken. Any one of these immediately takes me back to my mom’s kitchen.
The wiki article I read went pretty deep into describing what people of different cultures think of as comfort food. At the top of the list for the United States, for example, is apple pie, Beef stew, and biscuits and gravy. But in Ireland its bangers and mash and shepherds pie. In Russia, its borscht and layered herring salad.
But the point is that true comfort food isn’t bingeing while you’re watching Netflix by yourself. True comfort food connects you with a place and a people. True comfort food reminds you of the family you belong to.
This morning as we celebrate communion, I invite you to think of the bread and the cup the way we think about comfort food. And there’s no better place to start than Isaiah chapter 40. If you are physically able, please stand to honor the reading of God’s Word:
40 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare[a] is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord's hand
double for all her sins.
3 A voice cries:[b]
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
4 Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all flesh shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
May God bless the reading of His word. Let’s pray.
[pray]
If you’ve been following the reading plan, we’ve been in Isaiah now for what seems like ever. This is typically the point in the plan where people ask me (like someone did this week), when do we get to the New Testament? You’re reading Isaiah and you are thinking, “there’s only so much judgment and woe I can take. Just get me to Jesus!”
Well, believe it or not, Isaiah gets us to Jesus. Just to review, Isaiah is the first book of the major prophets—Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Lamentations. We talked last week about the difference between major and minor prophets, that the minor prophets aren’t less important, they are just less long winded.
Isaiah had a 40 year long ministry, focused on the Southern kingdom of Judah. spanning the reigns of four kings of Judah—Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. You remember that over its 350 years, Judah only had eight good kings. Isaiah was fortunate enough to live under three of them—Uzziah, Jotham, and Hezekiah (Ahaz, not so much).
Look at the teaching picture in your notes. You have a big letter I. What is it saying? Right. So this is the book of I Say Ah. And you see two men in front of the house of I Say Ah. One is weeping, one is rejoicing. And you see the house has two sections—one labeled 1-39 and one labeled 40-66. What does that mean?
Well, Isaiah has been called The Bible in Miniature. How many books of the Bible are there? Right. 66. You remember how to remember how many books are in the Old Testament? Three letters in Old, nine letters in Testament, 39. How many books in the New Testament? Three letters in New, Nine letters in Testament, but there is a cross in the middle of the New Testament, so 3 X 9, 27.
And so Isaiah has 66 chapters, corresponding to the 66 books of the Bible. Now, understand that the Bible wasn’t divided into chapters until about eight hundred years ago. So this is just a coincidence.
But it’s a really cool coincidence. Because for the most part, chapters 1-39 of Isaiah focus on God’s people turning away from Him and God’s judgment of their sin. Which is most of the Old Testament.
But the last 27 chapters of Isaiah, beginning with Isaiah 40, focus on God’s redemption of his people. And broadly speaking, those last 27 chapters track with the message of the New Testament:
• Chs. 40-48: God sends the servant
• Chs. 49-57: The servant suffers
• Chs. 58-66: God’s people are restored
So let’s get back to the message of Comfort in Isaiah 40. Isaiah begins the “redemption” section of his book by speaking these words from God to the people of Jerusalem:
40 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare[a] is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the Lord's hand
double for all her sins.
First, We belong to Him (v. 1). God says speak to “MY” people. Not “your” people, or “the” people. God isn’t aloof from his children. Just a few chapters after this, in Isaiah 43, God tells Israel, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and throught the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you… For I am the Lord YOUR God. The Holy One of Israel. Your savior.
Our slavery is ended (v. 2). The ESV says “her warfare is ended” But other translations, such as the CSB, say “Her time of hard service is over” or “her compulsory service has ended.” It’s kind of an ambiguous phrase in Hebrew, but the gist seems to be about those who have been either forced into slavery or required to serve in the military. And God says that that time is over. We aren’t going to be slaves anymore. We are no longer required to fight. We are free. Why is that? Because when victory is declared, the soldiers can leave the battlefield. When Jesus said “It is finished” from the cross in John 19:30, that was the declaration of victory. Our warfare has ended!
Our sins are pardoned (v. 2). Again, this became true on Calvary. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
An exchange has taken place (v. 2). This is probably the most difficult phrase in the passage. What does it mean that God’s people have received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins? Well, you could read it as receiving twice as much punishment as our sins deserve. That God is saying, “However bad you hurt me, I hurt you back twice as hard.”
And maybe that is what God is saying. I don’t know enough about Hebrew to know definitively. But I do know that God is not a revenge-seeking God. He is wrathful, but he is also just. So the idea that we are going to get double payback from God’s hand just doesn’t seem to fit with what we know about the character of God.
In fact, the opposite is true. Flip over to Psalm 103 for a minute.
Verses 8-12 say that God is merciful and gracious. He does not deal with us according to our sin. He does not repay us according to our iniquity. Instead, “as high as the heavens are above the earth, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”
So if it isn’t about reputation, what is this phrase about? Think about the word “for” in “she has received from the Lord double for all her sins.” “For” can also mean an exchange. Like at a garage sale, when you say, “I’ll give you $10 for that lamp.
So, God has exchanged something for all our sins. And whatever that something is, He gave us much more than what He got.
All our sins for all His salvation.
All our unrighteousness for His righteousness.
2 Corinthians 5:21 says that God made him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin for us, in order that we might become the righteousness of God. What an exchange!
There is so much comfort to be found in our salvation! Just in these two verses, we see that God has redeemed us into his family, set us free from our slavery, forgiven our sins, and pronounced us righteous. And those who receive His offer of salvation will have a seat at God’s table and a room in God’s house!
But how did God accomplish that? Well, Isaiah tells us that as well. Turn with me to Isaiah 53. This is what is often called the suffering servant passage. By the way, this was the passage the Ethiopian eunuch was reading in Acts 8 when Philip led him to the Lord. So as we begin to prepare our hearts to celebrate communion, I’m going to draw three aspects of communion from Isaiah 53.
Communion means “common union” And the first facet of this common union is Jesus’s union with us through his sorrow and suffering.
• Jesus with us through the Incarnation(vs. 1-5)
• Us With Jesus, through our confession and repentance (v. 6)
• Jesus with us, through His death and resurrection (v. 7-12)
*. Us each other, through the observance of the Lord's Supper
Do you remember how we defined comfort food at the beginning of the sermon? True comfort food isn't binging on empty calories and temporary pleasure. True comfort food connects us with a place and a people. True comfort food reminds us of the family we belong to.
Jesus said, "My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink" (John 6:55). Jesus Himself, the Bread of Life, the Living Water, God with us, is the truest comfort food we will ever taste. So come to the table, and let us keep the feast.
[Communion]
