Monday Reflection – June 08, 2020 Who Will Comfort? Who Will Cry?

Monday Reflection – June 08, 2020
Who Will Comfort? Who Will Cry?

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for. Isaiah 40:2  

I continue to agonize over the murder of George Floyd at the hands at law enforcement officers in Minneapolis, USA. Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes in full view of three other police officers. As if that were not enough, the case of Noel Chambers makes me enraged. Based on the Quarterly Report (January -March 2020) of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), Chambers died in custody at the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre (TSACC) in January 2020 at 81 years old. He was incarcerated on February 4, 1980 and had been in prison for 40 years without being tried. He was being held at the Governor General’s pleasure, deemed unfit to plead to a charge of murder. Twice Chambers received ‘Fitness for Trial Certificates’ from two different psychiatrists and despite these, there is no indication that they were sent to the Court or that he was taken back to court for trial. Family members and a human rights attorney tried to have his case heard in Court, but this proved futile. In time, his family grew disheartened with the process. INDECOM noted that Noel is not alone, but many others are in similar situations. They highlighted nine cases of persons ranging from 19 to 49 years, with some deemed fit to plead, yet have last listed court dates as far back as 1975.

As we contemplate our appropriate response to such ungodly and unjust actions, we are invited to reflect on today’s text. Isaiah 40 signals a shift in tone from one of judgement and warning to that of comfort and blessing. Isaiah 39 ends with the announcement of the coming Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem and the impending exile. Yet, beginning in chapter 40 the Lord offers his people comfort. Today, so many with hurting hearts, obvious and hidden, are waiting for a word of hope. It is important for hurting hearts to hear a word of comfort from God’s messenger. God’s comfort is not a hollow, positive-thinking kind of message. God always gives his people reasons for comfort – her hard service has been completed; her sin has been paid for. Another version puts it like this: Her warfare is ended and her iniquity pardoned. At the moment Isaiah spoke this, the battle may have still loomed, yet as far as God was concerned, her warfare is ended. The people knew of their sinful lives, yet God offers pardon. These are reasons for comfort.

Indeed, we must offer comfort to the families of George Floyd, Noel Chambers and so many others who are hurt and in pain today. We must assure them that God’s comfort is able to heal the deepest of pain and sorrow. Yet, there is more for us to do. Verses 3 to 5 of Isaiah 40 speaks of the voice of one crying in the wilderness. What does he cry? “Prepare the way of the Lord…Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth…” It’s a call for the levelling of the field. Where inequality, inequity and injustice prevail, our voices must cry until every obstacle in the way is removed and whatever is wrong in the road is corrected. It is a cry that demands that we treat everyone as brothers and sisters. It’s a cry that lifts us the downtrodden and brings down the exalted. Who will cry until the glory of the Lord is revealed and all people see it together?

Jermaine Gibson