Dear Faith Family, 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 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, (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). 

A long-time friend, mentor, servant, and brother-in-Christ departed last week.  He’s home!  I confess, his departure left a hole.  An emptiness.  A loss.  You understand.  We all know loss.  We all know grief.  We’ve all felt the emptiness of grief.  

In my experience, holes don’t stay holes for long.  They tend to fill up, right?  Even empty tables don’t stay empty for long!  Have you found that to be true?  Like a magnet they seem to attract something into the emptiness.  Likewise, the emptiness doesn’t seem to stay empty.  It tends to fill up with something. 

So, here’s my question:  with what are you filling your empty?  In his letter to the church at Corinth, Paul emphasized the comfort of our God.  He offers to us the God of all comfort.  In fact, in five verses Paul mentioned the word comfort ten times!  But what exactly is this comfort?  And how does that comfort reach our “empty”? 

Beside + to call = comfort.  The consolation of presence is comfort.  To know that God is present even in our grief somehow makes the empty not empty.  God is here.  I’ve seen Him.  In you!  You, who have received His comfort (His presence) are extending His comfort to others.  I see it!  You, the comfort of God, are being His comfort to each other!   

He has called us beside one another to be His hands and feet.  To cry together.  To remember together.  To pray together.  To speak His truth together.  To love together. 

We get to be the heralds of the present God!  We proclaim the truth of His Word into the empty in our lives: 

13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 

14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.  

15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.  

16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.  

17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.  

18 Therefore encourage (that’s the same word: comfort!) one another with these words.  

(1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) 

May He comfort you with His presence, 
Pastor Karl