Image
Jerry Iamurri
Jerry Iamurri

Our Only Comfort

23

March 2023

In the prologue to his autobiography, Bertrand Russell writes of his anguished life:

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy…I have sought it, next because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one’s shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss.

For Russell rightly seeks out love in order to find comfort but is thwarted by the limits of time and the inevitability of every human’s passing. Russell is not looking far enough. C.S. Lewis writes this “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” If Russell would acknowledge his deepest needs and look beyond the limited boundaries of our five senses, he might just find the peace that passes understanding.

The Heidelberg Catechism begins with this question and answer:

Q. What is your only comfort in life and death?

A. That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him. (see scriptures, infra.)

Whenever we meet someone struggling with despair and unable to find comfort in this world, remember what C.S. Lewis wrote. Comfort them with the reality that, rather than leading them to despair, their longing is actually pointing them beyond themselves and beyond this world toward the God who created all things and offers us the love and peace that only he can give through his son, our savior Jesus Christ.

[1] I Cor. 6:19, 20 [2] Rom. 14:7-9. [3] I Cor. 3:23; Tit. 2:14. [4] I Pet. 1:18, 19; I John 1:7; 2:2. [5] John 8:34-36; Heb. 2:14, 15; I John 3:8. [6] John 6:39, 40; 10:27-30; II Thess. 3:3; I Pet. 1:5. [7] Matt. 10:29-31; Luke 21:16-18. [8] Rom. 8:28. [9] Rom. 8:15, 16; II Cor. 1:21, 22; 5:5; Eph. 1:13, 14. [10] Rom. 8:14.