'Touched and revived with comfort of forgiveness': the Comfortable Words and the gift of the Eucharist

The Comfortable Words are back. Well, perhaps I somewhat overstate. I have, however, noticed that both Ben Crosby (an Episcopal priest-theologian serving in the Anglican Church of Canada) and Justin Holcomb (Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Florida) have both been writing on the significance of the Comfortable Words. Mindful that the Comfortable Words were dismissed by the liturgical reforms of the late 20th century, and have no place in contemporary Anglican eucharistic rites, it is not without interest that they continue to attract serious theological reflection in 2024.

Ben Crosby notes the significance of the Comfortable Words deriving from the Reformed eucharistic liturgies of Strasbourg and Cologne:

The next time that you say or hear the Comfortable Words, remember that this well-loved text shows the clear connection between the Church of England and the Reformation on the Continent. This use of Comfortable Words as part of the absolution come to us from Cologne, from a Roman Catholic archbishop’s ultimately failed attempt to move his entire archdiocese to embrace the Reformation, and before that from Strasbourg, from the work of Martin Bucer and, ultimately, from the very first German vernacular liturgy celebrated back in 1524. When you hear or say the Comfortable Words, you are connected to a largely unknown Strasbourg reformer, Theobold Schwarz, and his first attempt to provide an evangelical, vernacular liturgy in the city of Strasbourg. And this matters not just as a matter of historical trivia (although as a church historian, historical trivia are rather my stock in trade!) but because of the broader point about English theology and liturgy to which it points. In the sixteenth century, the Church of England was united with the Reformation churches of the Continent in a commitment to set forth ‘den euangelischen Trost’, the comfort of the Gospel, in both preaching and liturgy: the good news that in the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus God has freely forgiven us our sins and given us the gift of new life. This is what the church seeks to convey every time one of its ministers says “Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ saith unto all who truly turn to him…”

In a similar vein, Bishop Holcomb states:

This first Comfortable Word acknowledges the depth of human longing for good news and our need for rest. We suffer from spiritual fatigue, the most readily apparent fruit of human sinfulness, but there is good news. God favors the weak, not the spiritually proud or arrogant, but the broken. Jesus embraces the meek and the broken, the humble ones who feel swamped with heavy burdens.

Martin Luther captured this in these words:

God receives none but those who are forsaken, restores health to none but those who are sick, gives sight to none but the blind and life to none but the dead. … He has mercy on none but the wretched and gives grace to none but those who are in disgrace.

Both these excerpts point to the power and beauty of the Comfortable Words, embodying the tender mercy and gracious comfort of the 1662 rite.

There is another aspect of the Comfortable Words worth considering. While, as Ben Crosby shows, such use of Scripture alongside the ministerial absolution grounds the proclamation of absolution in God's reconciling act in Christ, Cranmer changed the order of the continental Reformed rites, with the Comfortable Words following, rather than preceding, the absolution. As a consequence, from 1552 and in the 1662 rite (also in PECUSA 1928 and Canada 1962, and - admittedly with the intrusion of the Peace - in Rite One in TEC's BCP 1979) the Comfortable Words lead from the absolution directly to the Sursum Corda, and thus to the consecration of the bread and wine for the reception of Holy Communion.

The Comfortable Words, therefore, both look back to the absolution and forward to reception of the holy Sacrament. They not only reveal the ministerial absolution as grounded in God's reconciling act in Christ, they also orient us towards reception of the "holy mysteries" as the Sacrament of God's forgiveness and reconciliation in Christ. This is anticipated in the invitation to "take this holy Sacrament to your comfort".

The Prayer of Humble Access emphasises this, echoing the Comfortable Words with its references to "thy manifold and great mercies ... whose property is always to have mercy". It is this mercy which is bestowed in the Eucharist, for the forgiveness of sins:

that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood.

The immediately following opening words of the Prayer of Consecration provide another expression of the gracious comfort of forgiveness, proclaimed in the Comfortable Words, with the beautiful phrase "tender mercy", referring to the Lord's sacrifice upon the Cross, set before us in the bread and wine of the Sacrament. That the conclusion of the Prayer of Consecration with the Words of Institution over the Cup, "for you and for many for the remission of sins" and the congregational "Amen", leads directly into the administration of the Sacrament is a powerful statement of the forgiveness of sins received in the Eucharist.

And so, after reception of the Holy Communion, 1662 gives thanks for the forgiveness of sins received in the Sacrament:

most humbly beseeching thee that, by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we and all they whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion.

The Eucharist, in other words, is the Sacrament of comfort; it is the Sacrament which brings us to touch and taste the promise of the Comfortable Words.

Lancelot Andrewes powerfully expounds this understanding in a sermon on Isaiah 6:6, seeing in the cleansing of the Prophet's sins by the coal from the altar a sign of the forgiveness of sin bestowed by the Eucharist:

In the Liturgy of the ancient Church, these words are found applyed to the blessed Sacrament of Christ's body and blood ... the Angell tells the prophet, that his sinnes are not only taken away, but that it is done sacramentally, by the touching of a Cole, even as Christ assureth us, that we obtain remission of sinnes by the receiving of the Cup: Now as in the Sacrament, we consider the Element and the word; so we are to divide this Scripture. For first, in that the Seraphin touched his mouth with a burning Cole taken from the Altar, therein we have the element, and the word of comfort which the Prophet received, was, that the Angell said to him, Behold this Cole hath touched thy lips, and now thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sinnes purged: And there is such an Analogie and proportion, between the Altar and the Lords Table, between the burning Cole and Bread and Wine, offered and received in the Lords Supper. As we cannot but justifie the wisdome of the ancient Church, in applying this Scripture to the holy Eucharist: For as, St. John sheweth, this vision shewed to the Prophet Isaiah, is to be understood of our Saviour Christ, John the twelfth and the forty first verse, for saith the Evangelist, These things said Esay, when he saw his glory, and spake of him; and therefore by this burning Cole taken from the Altar, is meant Christ Jesus, who by the Sacrifice of his death which hee offered up to God, his Father, hath taken away our iniquities, and purged our sinnes, as it is in the sixth chapter to the Hebrewes, and therefore for the confirmation of our Faith wee are here taught, That our sinnes are no lesse taken away by the element of bread and wine, in the Sacrament, then the Prophets sinne was by being touched with a Cole.

This is what the positioning of the Comfortable Words in the 1662 rite proclaims. In doing so, it exemplifies the 1662 eucharistic rite as, in the words of Ben Crosby, "a liturgy of comfort". Here in consecrated bread and wine, the sacramental signs of Christ's Body and Blood "given for thee", "shed for thee", the forgiveness of sins is renewed, to "assure us thereby of thy favour and goodness towards us" (Prayer of Thanksgiving). 

The fulfilment of the Comfortable Words is in the first words said by communicants after reception: "Our Father". Forgiven, embraced, accepted, loved, by virtue of the Body given for us, Blood shed for us, received sacramentally in the holy Eucharist. In the words of Andrewes' sermon, "touched and revived with comfort of forgiveness".

Rather than being an odd, accidental feature, the Comfortable Words reveal the heart of the 1662 rite: to bring us to partake of these Holy Mysteries understanding, in heart, mind, and soul, that here we are renewed and restored as forgiven members of "the mystical body of thy Son" (Prayer of Thanksgiving), as children of  our "heavenly Father" (Prayer of Consecration and Prayer of Oblation). That such forgiveness should be bestowed on us who "are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table", who are "unworthy, through our manifold sins", is to "our great and endless comfort".

... then our sinnes shall be purged by the death of Christ, and by partaking of the sacrament of his bodie and blood; the rather, because in the sacrament we doe touch the sacrifice it self, whereas the Prophets sinne was taken away with that which did but touch the sacrifice. Then, after the receiving of this sacrament, we must take a view of ourselves, whether we can say, Nonne cor nostram ardebat in nobis? Did not our heart burn within us? - Lancelot Andrewes.