2 Corinthians 1:3-7
Notes
Transcript
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
Welcome to week 6 of our Lament summer series here at GBC! Today marks the halfway point in our series, and so far we’ve basically laid a biblical and theological foundation for what biblical lament is and spent some time thinking about what lamenting has to do with Jesus.
Hopefully this time has been a blessing to you as we’ve considered these things, as I know it’s been for me. I’ve really developed a much deeper appreciation of how honesty before God is a sign of faith and trust.
It’s also something that he encourages, rather than trying to keep our frustrations to ourselves or just repeating well-intentioned and pious platitudes that are, unfortunately, not quite up to the task of the weight we’re putting on them.
It’s one thing to say, “I’m just trusting in God” when what you really mean is, “I am trying to convince myself that I’m not as upset as I actually am so I don’t have to feel these bad feelings” — and it’s another thing entirely to say, “How long, O Lord, until you do the thing you promised you said you’d do? Why does it feel like you’re ignoring me?” or “Wow, Lord, all this suffering at your hand sure seems excessive and I have no idea what’s going on and where your hand is in this, so please have just a little mercy.”
It’s also been very eye-opening to meditate on Jesus’s sufferings, especially his suffering at his death. We can be very quick to get to the resurrection and all the joy that brings, but the reality of life in a broken world is that resurrection joy is less constant than we’d like it to be.
Our hope and faith can be far weaker than we care to admit, so it’s extremely comforting to know that Jesus really is there with us in the midst of suffering, not just standing on the other side of it once we get through it, if we ever do, and that he uses suffering not just to make us more like him, but to teach us about who he is and reveal himself to us more clearly, which is the greatest gift we could ever hope to receive.
Today, though, is not so much about lament as it is about celebration and praise. Every third week of this series is meant to be a change in tone and focus, to serve as a joyful response to the questions we’ve asked in in the previous two weeks.
So as we conclude this cycle, let’s ask one more time, “What does lament have to do with Jesus?”
Answer: Jesus’ suffering was met with his Father’s comfort, and so will ours be — so that we might meet others’ suffering with the Father’s comfort.
Today’s text divides into three sections, v. 3, vv. 4-6, and v. 7.
v. 3: Christ Comforted
v. 4-6: Comforted Christ, Comforted Church
v. 7: Community Comfort
Briefly, I want to be transparent about something. If I were preaching this text in a series through the letter of 2 Corinthians, I would preach it a little bit differently. First, I would also include verses 8-11, and second, I would not divide this text into the same three sections. I’d actually just do two sections, verses 3-5 and 6-7.
Today, I’m doing verse 3 on its own precisely because we’ve recently heard from Psalms 88-89 and Psalm 22, and we’ve just read Psalm 23 in a distinctly Christological way — so likewise, I’m taking a little bit of liberty in preaching this text with a heavier Christological focus than is explicit in the text itself.
I’m drawing your attention to this because I want you all to see that what we’re doing this summer is set on very firm theological ground, but, just as we said at the start, we haven’t been focused as heavily on the exegesis of the texts themselves — and I’m never not going to take an opportunity to start a conversation about how we’re reading our Bibles, also known as hermeneutics.
All that said, let’s go ahead and take a look at verse 3.
v. 3: Christ Comforted
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
Now, the last couple weeks we’ve zoomed in pretty tightly on Jesus’s sufferings, especially on the cross, and if we’re honest, we’ll admit we haven’t seen a whole lot of God as a merciful father. In fact, quite the opposite — the Father was pleased, as we read in Isaiah 53, to crush Jesus for the sins of others.
But it wouldn’t be accurate for us to say that we receive comfort and mercy because Jesus did not.
A couple of folks have asked me this week, in completely unrelated conversations, if Psalms 22 and 23 go together — and I’ve been delighted to inform those people that the answer is an emphatic yes. Psalms 22-24 have historically been read in light of Jesus’s death, resurrection, and ascension, and, if we understand Psalm 23 in the same way we’ve understood Psalm 22, as a kind of prayer of Jesus, we read Jesus speaking to the Father, whose rod and staff comfort him as his soul is restored.
In other words, even Jesus himself was comforted by the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, most especially at his resurrection from the dead.
The implications of this are interesting. In this text, we see that it is the Father who comforts us, but note how he does so, in verse 5 — through Christ.
5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
To put it simply — we do not receive any comfort from the Father that has not been given to Christ.
Just as our sufferings require comfort if we are to enjoy all of God’s goodness, even Jesus’s sufferings were met with comfort — not from his own power and might as God in the flesh, but from his Father, so that the comfort Jesus gives his people is also a comfort he has himself received in response to his own sufferings.
This might all seem a little heady, but I do think it makes a difference for us to remember that when we run to Jesus for help and cry out prayers to him, he does nothing of his own accord, but everything according to the will of the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit.
His high priestly ministry did not end at Golgotha as he offered himself up once and for all, but rather it continues today, as he intercedes constantly at the right hand of the power on high on behalf of his people before the Father.
And boy, don’t his people need that intercession. Let’s look at verses 4-5.
vv. 4-5: Comforted Christ, Comforted Church
4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
Verse 4 sounds quite nice to us — if we can’t escape suffering, we wouldn’t mind suffering too much if it’ll be met comfort so that we can comfort others with the very comfort of God and do some good in the world.
If we all made verse 4 our life verse, we might just say to one another, “Oh, brother or sister! Rejoice in your suffering. Not only is it good for you, but it’s going to be good for someone else, maybe even lots of someone elses, down the line!” and boom, problem solved.
Anybody who really loves Jesus would immediately stop being such a Debbie downer and start walking in faith, right? I mean, hey, it worked for Paul!
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church,
Well, I don’t know about you, but when I used to try that way of comforting someone else or even myself, it never really did seem to go like I thought it would.
That’s because of the reality of verse 5, which sounds a little bit less nice because of one pesky adverb that shows up twice in the ESV: abundantly. Following the RSV, the translators of the ESV added in “share” here, but that doesn’t quite capture the force of what Paul wrote, unfortunately.
I quite like how the ISV puts it:
5 For as the Messiah’s sufferings overflow into us, so also our comfort overflows through the Messiah.
This translation has two benefits for us — first, it highlights that we are quite passive in what’s going on. Rather than partaking in these sufferings together abundantly as fellow diners seated at a big table, each with our own portion, it is the sufferings themselves that are abounding, which is actually even less nice than the ESV’s translation — the picture is more like we’re all drowning in an ocean of suffering together.
But they’re not just any old sufferings, which is the second benefit. If you’re like me, you frequently read “Christ” as a name, like Jesus, forgetting that it is, in fact, a title — Messiah, anointed one.
But what does it mean for the Messiah’s sufferings to overflow into us?
There are a few options here, but in the interest of time, I’m going to go straight to what I think is the best one:
Jesus so closely identifies with his people that what happens to him happens to the church, and what happens to the church happens to him. Let’s parse this out by looking at a few key texts.
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
Jesus died, so we die too.
17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Jesus suffered, so we suffer too. Jesus is glorified, and so are we.
10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Jesus rose from the dead, and so will we.
and later on in this same letter, 2 Cor 4:10-11
10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
Jesus’s death and life are revealed in the lives of his disciples.
Just as it was God’s will to crush his Messiah for the salvation of his people and to put him to suffering, it is God’s plan for his church that they will be not only a redeemed, holy people, purchased by the blood of his son, but a suffering people. Hear Philippians 1:29
29 For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,
Those who believe in Jesus, who are united to him in his death by baptism, who have his Spirit dwelling within them, do not suffer alone. Their sufferings in this world are a continuation of Jesus’ sufferings in God’s economy — somehow. In a very real sense, Jesus suffers when his people suffer because of the closeness of his union with him. It’s what undergirds his question in Acts 9:4-5
4 And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” 5 And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
As Saul persecuted the early church, he was persecuting Jesus himself.
But it’s not just the suffering that’s abundant.
5 For as the Messiah’s sufferings overflow into us, so also our comfort overflows through the Messiah.
The as-so construction here is one of my favorites in Paul’s writings. In the same way there’s more than enough suffering to go around for God’s king and his people, there’s more than enough comfort, too. You think the ocean of suffering is deep and tumultuous? Wait til you get to the ocean of comfort.
Jesus’s resurrection. His ascension into glory. His vindication in the eyes of his enemies both natural and supernatural. His future return to judge and destroy those enemies for all time and take his place on the throne as king of all the universe for all time. These are the sorts of comfort the Father set for Jesus — and the sorts of comfort that are in store for us, too, who belong to him, and who carry his sufferings. How sweet those comforts will be to those who have suffered the most bitterly.
Let’s return briefly to Romans 6 to see an implication of the church’s identification with Jesus.
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
To recap, in verses 3-5 we’ve seen Jesus’s sufferings and subsequent comfort, and how those not only set the pattern for the church’s suffering and comfort, but are continued in the church’s suffering and comfort.
Let’s turn to verses 6-7, where the rubber meets the road.
v. 3: Christ Comforted
vv. 4-5: Comforted Christ, Comforted Church
vv. 6-7: Community Comfort
6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. 7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.
Notice here how closely Paul replicated Jesus’s attitude in his own apostolic ministry, understanding that both his suffering and comfort were for the benefit of others moreso than they were for his own good. In either situation, whatever was abounding to Paul was destined to end up going to someone else, in this case the Corinthian church, provided that the Corinthian church patiently endured the same sufferings as Paul and, ultimately, Jesus.
And now we can address a very important question that’s been looming in the background of this series and all we’re doing as a church.
What does lament have to do with Jesus’s mission on earth?
We’ve been clear from the start that we’re not merely seeking good mental health by resolving our pain and trauma so that we can be happy and healthy. Those are good things, to be sure, but that’s not what the church is about.
Indeed, our notion of “comfort” is actually somewhat muddied relative to what Paul is talking about. When we think comfort, we may picture warm, soft beds, pints of ice cream in hoodies and slippers, and bingeing Netflix for some self-care time so that we might escape our troubles, or at the very least numb ourselves to them.
But for Paul, comfort is not an anaesthetic that dulls the pain and removes it from us. This word is translated elsewhere “exhortation” or “encouragement” — in other words, it’s a shot in the arm that enables us to stare the troubles in the face and continue putting one foot in front of the other no matter how heavily we may be burdened.
That’s why, through this series on lament, we’re seeking to develop habits of worship, prayer, and relationship with one another that will serve as springboards for our household to be not only a safe haven for sinners and sufferers in need of healing, mercy, and grace, but a pillar and buttress of the truth, upholding and proving the truth of the Gospel message we proclaim week after week as God proves himself faithful to us — as he empowers us to live honestly, openly, and lovingly with one another, as we follow Christ together, truly weeping with those who weep (and being those who weep as need arises) and rejoicing with those who rejoice (rather than being envious that someone else has it easy), sharing our lives in ways that only those who have undergone significant mutual suffering can.
As we do so, how attractive will it be for those in our community who are utterly friendless, who have sought to inoculate themselves against the curse of this world by pursuing wealth, status, and all the dopamine rushes those things can provide?
How will we be salt and light here in Wake Forest unless our Father preserves our saltiness through the purifying trials he sends our way? What light can we shine in a place that largely doesn’t even recognize it’s groping in oppressive darkness if we just try to find quick fixes and strategies to get the numbers back up and a pep in our step again like any other organization would?
Brothers and sisters, the suffering that we’ve experienced together in God’s providence for us is not only for our own growth in Christ, nor is it something that should surprise us. I’m far more worried about a church that isn’t obviously suffering, where a sufferer feels like the exception and not the rule.
I’m not sure exactly what the future’s going to look like for us, but my hope remains for us unshaken, that as we share in Christ’s sufferings and patiently endure them, we will also share in his comfort, and that comfort will go forth from this place in ways that will be glory and resurrection power to those who receive it.