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“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” That word isn't just for Israel; it's also for you.
On paper, Christmas is supposed to be simple. The songs on the radio tell us how to feel. The commercials tell us what to buy. Calendars fill with parties and programs that assume the same story, that this is a season of uncomplicated happiness, easy laughter, and families sitting around tables without any empty seats.
But for many, the story isn't that simple. Some walk through December carrying a quiet heaviness that doesn't lift when the lights come on. Some mourn the loss of a loved one. Others bear the weight of broken relationships, lost health, or fears they can't quite name. The noise of the season doesn't erase that ache. If anything, it sometimes makes the ache stand out more sharply in the heart.
The Scriptures are not taken aback by this tension between cultural celebration and personal pain. The prophet Isaiah addresses a world that faces exile, loss, and waiting. In that situation, God does not shout, “Cheer up.” Instead, he speaks a very different word:
“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned” (Isa. 42:1-2).
God does not tell his people to find comfort within themselves. He offers comfort as a gift. He calls them “my people,” even while they sit in darkness. He speaks to them tenderly. He names their sin and then declares it pardoned. He observes their conflict and announces that it has ended. Comfort is not a mood they must achieve. It is a promise he makes.
God does not tell his people to find comfort within themselves. He offers comfort as a gift.
A familiar Advent hymn paraphrases this promise: “Comfort, comfort ye my people, speak ye peace, so says our God. Comfort those who sit in darkness, mourning ‘neath their sorrow's load.” (stanza 1 LSB 347) This is not loud or triumphant language. It resembles a quiet word spoken in a dark room, addressed to people tired of pretending everything is okay.
In recent years, some congregations have begun openly discussing this experience. They use the term “Blue Christmas” to describe how grief and sorrow affect the season for many. Some gather for a service on or around December 21st, the longest night of the year. It’s a gentle time of prayer and song where people who aren't feeling merry or bright can honestly share their feelings. The goal isn’t to fix anything. It’s simply to acknowledge, in God's presence, that there are believers who love Christ and still find this time of year very difficult.
I know something of that blue tint that Christmas brings. The last Christmas my wife, Jill, was here was a hard one. Surgery was waiting for her in the new year, serious enough that the possibility of death was no longer remote. We didn't sit down and talk about it bluntly, at least not very often, but the thought that this might be her last Christmas settled somewhere in the back of my mind. I tried to push it away. It stayed.
From the outside, our Christmas looked familiar. The tree was decorated. The lights were shining. The calendar was full. But inside the house, and inside my own heart, there was a quiet heaviness. Every tradition felt more fragile, as if someone had turned up the contrast on our life together. The laughter was still there, but it had an edge to it because no one knew what the next year would bring.
At the same time, Jill was still very much Jill. She thought about Christmas all year round. She had a knack for finding the perfect gift for someone on an ordinary day in May, buying it, and stashing it away in a bag in the corner of the room. By December, a small collection of these hidden treasures would be assembled, each carefully selected with someone in mind.
For years, as she wrapped her treasures, she would often forget to put a name on them. On Christmas morning, as we sat together by the tree, there was always at least one, if not more, gifts without a name. She would laugh, look at the wrapping, and try to remember who it was for. There was always a pause where you could almost see her thinking through each person she loved, until finally she would say, “Oh, that one is for you.” It was a small thing, but it was so very her. She loved to give gifts. She loved to see faces light up, especially at Christmas.
The One who brings good news to the poor, who binds up the brokenhearted, who proclaims liberty to those imprisoned by sin and death, is not a distant figure.
After she died, the season did not lose all its beauty, but it gained a deeper shade of blue. The bags in the corner of the room are gone. The small chaos of unlabeled packages disappeared. Her laughter at the mystery gift vanished. The tamber of the house changed. I began to understand in a new way what it means to sit in darkness and mourn with a full load of sorrow.
If that is part of your experience too, you are not strange, and you are not faithless. You are simply living in the world Isaiah knew, where God’s people endure real pain and real loss but still hear him say, “Comfort, comfort my people." Isaiah then describes the One who will bring that comfort.
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives” (Isa. 61:1)
When Jesus begins his public ministry, he speaks these words himself. He reads them in the synagogue and then says, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).
The One who brings good news to the poor, who binds up the brokenhearted, who proclaims liberty to those imprisoned by sin and death, is not a distant figure. It is Christ himself. He is the Child whose birth we celebrate, and he does not wait for a tidy, happy season before entering the story. He comes into a world soaked in grief. He enters funeral crowds. He stands at open graves. He weeps with those who weep. He carries the full weight of sin and sorrow on his shoulders, all the way to a cross. When he speaks in Matthew, his voice resonates with anyone who feels crushed by this season.
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).
He does not say, “Come to me when you have pulled yourself together.” He does not say, “Come to me when you feel festive enough.” Instead, he says, “Come to me” to those who struggle and are burdened. To those who are tired of holding back tears. To those who feel like they have to smile their way through church while their hearts are breaking. To those who have learned how to carry grief quietly so no one else feels uncomfortable.
That invitation isn't a new law. It's a promise. Rest isn't something you have to earn. Rest is something he gives.
I have learned to hear that invitation at the Communion rail in a new way. Every time the church gathers at the Lord’s table, there is a mini Christmas. Christ comes, not to lie again in a manger made of wood and straw, but to give himself into a manger made of flesh and bone. He comes into human hands, into human mouths, into human hearts that are often very far from merry.
Every time the church gathers at the Lord’s table, there is a mini Christmas.
At the rail, where heaven and earth are at their closest, he does not ask if you're handling the season well. He does not remove your grief as a condition for his presence. He enters right into the place where the pain resides. He gives his body, broken for you. He gives his blood, poured out for you. He unites himself with you so closely that nothing in life or in death can separate you from him.
In that sense, the Incarnation is not just an event from two thousand years ago. It is not only something that happened in Bethlehem. The Child who was laid in the manger comes to you now, for you, with the same human body, bearing the same wounds, carrying the same mercy. He meets you in your brokenness, not after you have escaped it.
Grief does not simply vanish in that presence. It's transformed.
Grief is not who you are. You are not defined by what you have lost. In Christ, you are defined by the One who has found you. Grief becomes, instead, a kind of soil. It is a dark soil, heavy and often cold. Yet into that soil, the Lord plants his promises. Over time, almost without your noticing, small things begin to grow.
A moment of laughter that doesn't feel like betrayal. A memory that evokes tears and gratitude simultaneously. A friendship that grows deeper because you've allowed someone else to see your sorrow. A new awareness of how many people around you carry their own grief and suffering silently.
A grief shared is a grief survived. Not because sharing it is a method that fixes you, but because in sharing grief, Christ continues to show up. He is present in the Word that is read and preached. He is present in the Supper. He is present in the people who listen and sit with you when there is nothing to say.
If this Christmas feels blue for you, the comfort God speaks of in Isaiah is also for you. The One who was anointed to bind up the brokenhearted has not forgotten you. The Child who lay in the manger has not moved away because you have grown up or been scarred by living in this sinful world. The One who says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden,” is speaking to you.
He comes for you—specifically you—the one whose heart aches when you see a stocking that no longer has an owner. He comes for you—the one standing in the narthex trying not to cry. He comes for you—the one feeling guilty for not being more joyful. He comes for you with forgiveness, mercy, and his own pierced hands, speaking with his steady voice.
Others around you may go through the season without that particular ache. Sometimes, life is like that. If that is where you are, consider it a blessing. It’s also an opportunity to notice the people whose smiles don’t quite reach their eyes, to remember that behind the carols and candles, there are real wounds. You don’t have to fix them. You can’t. But you can show kindness. You can be patient. You can be the kind of person who leaves space for someone else’s blue, and you can simply share that space, with no words needed.
In the end, sorrow isn't the only voice during this season. It's real and often very loud, but it doesn't have the last word. Above it, and even through it, another voice speaks.
“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.”
That word isn't just for Israel; it's also for you. For the grieving, the weary, those sitting in darkness, wishing they didn't have to. For the Child of Bethlehem has grown, carried your sin and sorrow to the cross, walked out of his own grave, and now draws near again to comfort his people. He has you.
He will not let you go.
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