Christmas songs often carry the tune of the Christmas season. Rich with theology, truth, hope, and encouragement, they remind us of the reason we celebrate. Every year, it seems that one song captures my attention, mesmerizing me with how it articulates the coming of our Savior. This year, a traditional Christmas hymn did just that. 

“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Let nothing you dismay

Remember Christ our Savior 

Was born on Christmas Day

To save us all from Satan’s power

When we were gone astray 

Oh tidings of comfort and joy 

Comfort and joy 

Oh tidings of comfort and joy.”

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen 

I replayed the lyrics over and over in my mind. What does it mean that Christ’s coming brought “tidings of comfort and joy”? This Christmas season, those were two things my heart was searching for. 

Our year began with the excitement and hope of our family growing. Soon, the excitement turned to sorrow. We faced a difficult loss resulting in a ruptured fallopian tube and an emergency surgery. Several months passed, and we found ourselves facing yet another loss of a baby in the early weeks of pregnancy. Our year seemed to be bookended by loss, marking our second and third miscarriages. 

I sat at my kitchen counter poring over the phrase from the old Christmas hymn, “Oh tidings of comfort and joy.” My heart desperately needed comfort, and joy felt just out of reach. I opened the Word and asked the Lord to show me how He brings comfort. 

He Is Our Comfort

I think we often assume the comfort of the Lord will come through contentment. We expect to find comfort when the wrong is made right, the disease is healed, or the burden is lifted. What I see in scripture, however, is that we have access to comfort in the midst of our suffering. It’s not reserved only for when the storm clouds lift, and it comes through Christ Himself. 

Psalm 23:4 

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 

The comfort comes while we are in the valley, through the kindness, nearness, protection, guidance, and steadfastness of the Lord. He walks with us, and it is in His trustworthy, unchanging character that we know we are cared for, not forgotten about, and greatly loved, even if our circumstances have not resolved. For we are not promised the absence of a struggle, but we are promised His presence. He Himself is our comfort, and He came to give us His ultimate comfort. 

His Coming is Our Comfort 

“Remember Christ our Savior

Was born on Christmas Day 

To save us all from Satan’s power

When we were gone astray.”

Our greatest ailment, He came to bear on our behalf. He lifted a burden too heavy for us to lift and took it upon Himself. He stepped into humanity to comfort our dying, burdened souls with His salvation. This truth reminds me of the lyrics of another Christmas song, 

“Out of the depths of silent night

Immanuel, come hear our cry

Our grief is strong, our burdens great

The night is long and hope is faint

You came to make your blessings known 

And bear our curse of death alone

You came to share our suffering 

So in our sorrow we could sing

Glory, glory, glory in the darkest place.” 

Glory In The Darkest Place,

He stepped into our greatest grief and brought us salvation, a promise of future redemption, and restoration. And that brings comfort to our souls now, because we know this world is not our home and that the brokenness we feel and experience here does not have the final say. 

No matter the grief or sorrow we face in this life, though they may be great, this comfort will never diminish. Our souls can know true, lasting, unfailing comfort even in the face of hard, seemingly unrelenting days. When I know and believe this, I can face even the darkest days knowing I am not without comfort – for He is Immanuel, God WITH us, who made a way for us to sing “glory in the darkest place.”

The Body is Our Comfort

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

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. 

A theme we see throughout scripture is the Church’s role in encouraging and uplifting one another. 

In our seasons of grief and loss, when we needed to be reminded of this comfort in Christ, it was brothers and sisters in Christ who helped to hold up our hands and turn our eyes toward truth. They bore our burdens alongside us and covered us in faithful prayer. 

We, the Church, are called to be involved in the comforting work of Christ. I have had opportunities to encourage other women in the depths of infertility and pregnancy loss because I have stood where they stand. I have known the comfort of the Lord in the depths of my despair, and I am called to move toward my brothers and sisters to love, stand with, and remind them of truth when they need it most. 

Jesus Weeps With Us 

I recently studied, alongside women of our church, the story of the raising of Lazarus. A verse caught my attention that I had never quite thought much of in the past. 

John 11:35 

Jesus wept. 

Jesus had been called by Mary and Martha to come and heal their dying brother. Before He arrived, Lazarus died. Christ went to this family, brothers and sisters, whom He loved dearly, in a time of great grief. When He arrived, He was met with distraught sisters, family, and friends, mourning the death of their brother. In His sovereignty, Christ knew He had come to raise Lazarus from the dead. Their tears would soon be turned to rejoicing. Yet, He stands in their midst, and He weeps. 

He didn’t weep because He didn’t know what the outcome would be or wasn’t sure He still had control of the situation, but because He was broken over brokenness. Knowing the outcome did not make Jesus emotionally uninvolved with the realities this family was facing in that moment. 

As believers, when we face loss or hard seasons, we often struggle to know how to hold both faith in a sovereign God and grief over a difficult, dark situation. We see that example in Christ here. When we walk through loss, of any kind, He is near to us in our mourning. He is broken over the effects of sin. But while we mourn those realities, we can rest steady, trusting that God is still on His throne and His ultimate and overarching plan cannot be thwarted – what comfort for our souls! All will eventually be made new in Christ! 

Comfort Gives Way to Joy 

When we know and experience this comfort in Christ, our souls are led toward joy. Joy that is not circumstantial or rooted in our feelings that ebb and flow, but joy that rests in the truth that Christ has come and made a way that sin will not have the final say. 

This is not true only in the Christmas season. At the time of writing, we are walking through yet another early pregnancy loss. I am grateful to know that the comfort of Christ is as near to me today as it is on the day we celebrate His birth. He came to bring good tidings of great comfort and eternal joy. I pray that you know Christ and walk in His comfort today, and that your heart would find joy in resting in Him alone. 

2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.