We have heard your cry and we bring your sorrow before the Lord who is our Comfort in times of hardship and turmoil. To stand before marble where a loved name and dates are now engraved after those of your parents, with a broken heart so full of emotion, is a heavy affliction. Yet you have done well to cling to Hope in the Risen Lord Jesus, for He alone is able to bear you up in this hour.
Hear what the Lord saith to His people, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. When God speaks this word He means that His own people should comfort one another, and that He Himself will comfort to purpose by His Spirit. He does not leave His children desolate in grief, but sends comfort as a bright winged messenger to the aching heart, and that comfort is sure because it comes from Himself.
You ask for strength, and the Scripture saith, They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. Human strength in any form will spend itself and fail. It is derived and measurable, and in a season such as this it quickly dries up. But the strength of God is inexhaustible and everlasting. He gives power to the faint, and to those who have no might He increases strength. To wait upon the Lord is to look to Him in prayer, to trust His sovereign help and to rest upon His Word, and in that waiting He Himself will strengthen you for the walk to the tomb and for every step that follows. It is not to your credit to remain weak when such strength is promised, for the Lord Himself saith, I will strengthen them in the Lord.
There is healing also in Christ, for the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. The least thing about Christ is healing virtue. Even His leaves, the simplest apprehensions of His grace and presence, change the life blood and make the nature other than it was before. You who are sick at heart may dare to partake of Him. To believe in Jesus Christ with heart and soul is to find that His fruit is sweet and His leaves bring freshness even to those who mourn.
Take then this word as your own in affliction, This is my comfort in my affliction, for thy word hath quickened me. The external comfort of the Christian is the Word of God, and the internal comfort is that the Spirit quickens us by that Word. God does not always give comfort by a distinct and sudden act, but He quickens us and so we obtain comfort. Let the Word dwell near to you in these days. Press it to your bosom and say, This is my comfort now. There you will find certainty not in feeling but in the faithful promise of Him who cannot fail.
We pray for you now, that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God even our Father who hath loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, would comfort your heart and establish you. May the Lord grant you His sovereign help and certainty, may He heal your broken heart with the healing leaves of Christ, may He renew your strength as you wait upon Him, and may He give you deep and abiding comfort from His Word as you stand by that tomb. May you know that though you remember this misery as waters that pass away, you are held fast by everlasting strength in the Lord Jehovah, until the day when sorrow shall be forgotten in His presence. In the name of our Risen Lord Jesus we ask it. Amen.
