To find out for sure, one has to die. So they make a pact: The first to die, that will be sad for the other, but once in heaven, the dead guy gets to find out if there’s baseball after all, then send word back to the other.
The first to die somehow gets hold of the other, to say, “I’ve got good news and bad, which do you want first?” The one left behind wants the good, to soften the blow of the bad. So he gets the good news: “There’s baseball in heaven!” then asks, “Great, what could bad about that?”... Then the word came back: “You’re pitching tomorrow night!”
To which he replied, straight-faced, “I don’t know. Could you play that kind of racquetball before you had hip surgery?”
I was feeling particularly helpless, even useless, last week when an elderly lady in pain cried out to me, “Make it all go away.” At first I thought she asking me to go away. Then I heard, “Take my pain away!” So I thought she must have me confused with a doctor or nurse. To reduce her expectations and take me off the hook, I countered half-apologetically, “I am just a chaplain. How can I pray for you?”
I say “just a chaplain” advisedly, because I perform no great medical feats, and I feel inferior to the doctors who can. I dispense no words or techniques or potent meds that will take away pain or make people walk again.
But I was wrong to apologize for my role. I’m no doctor, but I do have a comforting role to play—just not one that will “make it all go away.” My mission as chaplain, as with all of us at St. Mary’s, is to convey the healing presence of God.
As a fool for Christ, I’m responding to Isaiah’s call: “Comfort, comfort my people” (40:1), and John the Baptist’s call, citing the Isaiah prototype: “A voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him’” (40:3; Mark 1:3).
Both Isaiah and John were instruments of God’s healing presence, pointing beyond themselves, as do I, to the fact that “the glory of the Lord will be revealed” in Jesus, who was full of God’s grace and truth, yet took on our mortal flesh (40:5; John 1:14). Again citing Isaiah, I’ll say: “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (40:30-31).
The first readers of Isaiah 1-39 would have cringed under such heavy judgment. They would have begged for God’s mercy and comfort. So you can imagine their reaction to: “Comfort, comfort my people” (40:1). All readers of the Isaiah, then and now, consider and compare the ways of God. Thus we see that nothing compares to the comforting presence, compelling greatness, and complete goodness of God.
As a chaplain at two locations (nursing home and hospital, that's me, at far right), I pray for residents and patients to know God’s comfort. I often pray with Isaiah 40 in mind. The elderly woman mentioned above found shalom, when she died just days later. From where you sit—with all the brokenness you’ve experienced—what would it mean to receive and extend God’s comfort?
For any who ask me, I pray God will comfort by strengthening the whole person. I pray God redeems the totality of the life situation, using all circumstances (family, financial, whatever) for good. I pray God will move whatever obstacles lie in the way. I pray that, through all the highs and lows (“mountains and valleys”) that accompany any hospital stay, that God’s presence will be most leveling and comforting. Without this sense of peace and comfort, the world is a scary place. With this assurance, we have God’s shalom.
Many regard Isaiah 40:30-31 as the “hiker’s prayer,”or something to pray as we re-learn to walk after hip surgery or a stroke. But this is mostly for anyone learning to walk with God. Our faith walk is not learned instantly, nor once-and-done. That walk is taken one step at a time, over a lifetime. In case you find yourself stumbling on your own—that’s the time to slow down, look up, and trust in the Man who goes before you, who is the Power behind you, who dwells with you.
I know I am preaching here, but I am preaching mostly to myself. Thank you, Isaiah, for extending the comfort of God—to one and all, then and now, for better days to come, even life eternal.