Comfort isn't the same as sympathy. Sympathy identifies with your circumstance and attempts to pacify or mitigate the situation. It intends only to make one feel better and not necessarily repair the situation. However, comfort is a replacement for a certain loss. It is a correction of the disaster; a repair of the damage. Comfort makes you feel better, not by taking your eyes off the problem but by proffering a solution.
Comfort might come in the same form as what is lost like a new job in place of a lost job or a new car in place of the one destroyed by accident. The lost coin, the lost ship, the lost son are scenarios of comfort by restoration.
Comfort could also be different in form. A child could never really be replaced. But when God decides to comfort such a family, he could give them another child. Comfort could even be intangible to physical senses, but undoubtedly real. Comfort could be a word or prophesy that addresses longstanding issues in your life. Comfort could be an in depth revelation into the purpose of a tragic occurrence. When such revelation dawns, the weight of the loss could be borne more easily or entirely relieved. This also is comfort.
Comfort is better. Whenever God intervenes to give comfort, He gives something better. The better wine at the wedding in Cana; the restoration of the family of Job; death of David's unnamed son with Bathsheba; Hannah's dedication of Samuel many more. Even when it is an exact replacement, the joy that accompanies it will outweigh what you could ever have if it wasn't lost at all. If it isn't better, it's probably not God's comfort. If you are certain it is God and it isn't better, you probably haven't understood the value of what you have received.
The disciples needed comfort. They were not just about to witness the redemption of the entire creation. They were also about to loose a friend. Many who have lost dear friends can tell. Jesus was not just Rabbi and Lord. He had become their friend. He had been hewn into their heart. They had become one. Christ's death on the cross was not so simple. He sacrificed His life, the disciples lost a friend. The work of the Holy Spirit was not just to empower them to preach and understand the scriptures. He was also to heal their hearts from all wounds, including the loss of their greatest friend ever.
Noah's name means comfort. He lived at a very strategic age. There had being a warning from God. They had an inkling of impending judgement. Methuselah's name continually remind them. However, such massive sanitisation of humanity can easily be misunderstood and make someone resent truth. God then brought comfort to at the time of such judgement. When we look at the world as a whole, we would not understand what comfort means. So let's picture a single man.
There is a man whom God made but has become infiltrated by other influences over time. God desires to retrieve His original idea from the rubble and mixture, so He decides to judge. Judgement is not all about destruction, it is more about separating the original from the reality. It is about separating day and night, light and dark. In this process, there are many losses. God gives us comfort to bear the losses and understand what He intends to achieve.
In a single statement, comfort is God's strategy to pacify us while He deals with us. Comfort is God's anaesthetic. He administers it as He cuts through our souls to remove cancerous cells. Comfort is God dipping His newly forged instruments of war into water to quickly relief them of the excessive heat of the furnace. It also doubles as a process to strengthen the newly forged weapon.
I have just a prayer, that God will not relent in the process of retrieving His original intention from the rubles of our life. Whatever it takes, even if it means great losses or massive destruction, He should proceed. However, He should comfort us deeply to bear the losses, pain and understand the transient disaster.
