The Lord restores Jerusalem, His Church, and she become like the mother of His children, whom He comforts “as one whom his mother comforts” (Is. 66:13). We are “satisfied from her consoling breast” with the pure milk of the Word, and we “drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance” (Is. 66:11). Yet, this comfort doesn’t come easy. The messengers of Christ, who administer Christ’s gifts to His Church, are sent out “as lambs in the midst of wolves” (Luke 10:3), bearing in their bodies the sacrifice of His cross, by which “the kingdom of God has come near” (Luke 10:9, 11). Indeed, the Church is a “family on a mission” to discipline and comfort. This is very challenging, and this is why Christ’s people do not “boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 6:14). Rejoicing in Christ’s forgiving Gospel, we “bear one another’s burdens” in love, according to “the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2).