Speaking of (dis)Comfort

In Love Wins, Rob Bell describes the near-death experience a congregant once recounted to him. The man was working to repair a roof inside a massive industrial building. The cherry picker the man was standing on tipped, pinning him to the wall, simultaneously preventing him from a deadly fall while also crushing him. As he lost consciousness, the man had the experience of being bathed in a warm light. The stuff of your typical near-death experience. The exception is this: instead of being comforted by the light, his instinctive response was to say repeatedly, “I’m so sorry; I’m so sorry; I’m so sorry…”

In chapter five of Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis reiterates that one of our greatest clues that the universe is created and governed by a personal being is our awareness first that there is an objective right way to live, and second that we don’t follow it. Lewis then argues that as we grow in our awareness of this personal being we become increasingly uneasy. The divide between how we ought to live and how we actually live becomes increasingly significant. Our initial response to this being isn’t comfort; it’s discomfort. There are wrongs for which we are accountable and for which we can’t compensate. As such, says Lewis,

"Of course, I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I have been describing, and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth— only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair."

The Christian faith offers something that is, in the end, the only possible comfort. But to get there, one has to be made uncomfortable enough to go looking for the person at the heart of the Christian faith. This is, in turn, the very argument that introduces the Heidelberg Catechism. Many within our church tradition know the answer to the Catechism’s first question:

What is your only comfort in life and in death?
That I belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.

The authors Catechism follow this up immediately with: “The first thing I need to know in order to live and die in the joy of this comfort is…how great my sin and misery are!”

To Lewis’ point, if you go to Christianity looking for comfort, you’re going to be disappointed. That is unless the comfort you’re looking for is relief from the discomfort of recognizing the fundamental incongruity of your being. There is a way you should be – in your relationships; in your business dealings; in your attitudes; in your treatment of self and others. And you have not been that way. Lewis says, “Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness.” Jesus puts it this way: “The healthy do not need a doctor; the sick do. I haven’t come for the ‘righteous’; I’m here for sinners.” Not for the comfortable, but for the uncomfortable. The proper first response to the Person who governs the universe? I'm sorry...