"Blessed Are Those Who Mourn" Matthew 5:4

I’ve always lived with the philosophy that it’s either laugh or cry, and I choose to laugh. After all, it is a way of looking at the world, and it reflects an attitude that one takes to what the world offers us.

There is much sadness in our world, much that can cause us anguish and anger, frustration and resignation. There are wars, catastrophes, debacles. Our world often seems filled with hate and violence. But there is also much in life that offers us the opportunities to laugh, find joy and to celebrate. It really is a choice. Just read Philippians 4:8-9 and we discover this is true.

Yet, even if we have the most positive of attitudes and outlooks, it is inevitable that a period of mourning will come into each person’s life. We all experience setbacks and losses. Almost all of us have regrets. Even in them, though, we can find reasons for praise. That’s why Paul writes that we should rejoice in the Lord always and always have thanksgiving in our prayers.

As Jesus offered His beatitudes to those who were hearing His Sermon on the Mount, His second one was addressed to those who mourn. In Luke’s Gospel account, the words are for those who weep now, for you will laugh. But in Matthew, the words are for those who mourn, with the promise of comfort.

Central Truth: In a world which gives us much cause to mourn, God promises us comfort.

For what should we mourn?

We mourn the everyday losses in our lives.

I was 30 years old when my father died. It is a day I think of often, and it is a day that still brings sadness to my heart. Almost 32 years later, I still mourn the loss of both my parents, even though Mom lived another four years. Because of her Alzheimer’s, it was as if I lost both parents when Dad died. I had to relive it again a little over a year ago when we lost Kim’s mom. I’ve buried and mourned aunts and uncles, friends and loved ones. I still miss Roger and Tommy, Bill and Glenn. And I miss the Rachuigs. They’re adjusting to their new life in Dallas, and I’m happy for them, but I miss them nonetheless.

I know I’m not alone in my feelings. Each of us have lost loved ones, each of us can remember friends and loved ones who are no longer a part of our lives. And so we mourn. It is a natural part of life.

And yet, even with all that we have to mourn, God blesses us with comfort in our mourning. When I think of Dad and Mom, I am reminded of the quirky things that made them unique. The other day, my daughters were texting back and forth about our tendencies to switch letters in words. It’s done by switching the first consonants in two words and making it sound slightly weird. Pork chops become chork pops, and fried flounder becomes flied frounder. Mel and Laura blamed it on me, but I got it from my dad. Mom and Dad had some friends whose names were Dot and Reid Miller. Dad often referred to them as Rot and Deid. My dad taught me to play with words, and I have handed it down to my children. There’s comfort in knowing that.

Mom was an encourager who was constantly telling me she believed in me in ways I didn’t always understand. I look back now and see how she tried to gently guide me through life’s journey, and for that I am grateful.

The life that fails to mourn is the life that fails to feel, to care, to connect with others. It is a life that is devoid of one of the things that most make us human—an awareness of others and the reaching out to others for friendship and companionship. If we cannot mourn it means that we have never experienced gain. Without gain, we cannot also experience loss.

Again, Jesus’s promise is not only that we will mourn, but that we will find comfort. We find comfort in our memories of those who have gone before us, but we also find comfort in the knowledge that we shall see them again. Because I know my parents are with Christ, I know that we shall have a wondrous reunion some day. I’ll get to introduce my children to the grandparents they never knew, and we’ll all rejoice in the Lord and praise His comfort and His peace that was given us through His sacrifice and ensured through His Spirit.

We mourn our everyday losses, but we also find comfort in God’s grace and strength.

We mourn the sins in our lives.

Just as we find a Beatitude for those who are poor in spirit, once we recognize our spiritual bankruptcy and our desperate need for Christ’s salvation, it also leads us to mourn our sinfulness.

How can someone recognize their sinfulness, see the price Christ paid for our salvation, see the love of God in sending His Son, and not mourn their sinfulness? To look at ourselves and realize that we are the cause of this great gift from God. If not for us, Christ would never have had to die for us. If not for our sins, the world would not long for its liberation from the bondage of our sins. Going back all the way to the Garden of Eden, we see the consequences of sin in our lives and in our world.

When we sin, we don’t do it in a vacuum. The person who sins with greed and uses his or her greed to embezzle and cheat others out of their money affects so many other families. Remember when Enron cratered at the turn of the century? People who had invested their life’s saving in the company now found themselves wiped out, with no money to retire on. When our banks that were too big to fail failed anyway, men and women who had invested so heavily in their homes and other things found themselves homeless and penniless. When we sin, we do not sin in a vacuum. Our sins reverberate through the lives of those we love and those we touch. For this we should mourn.

And yet, even when confronted with our sinfulness and all that it has done to make our world a worse place, we find comfort. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12). When we turn to Christ for salvation, we find that our sins are removed far from us and our relationship with Him is secure and peaceful. Yes, we still suffer the consequences of our sins, but we know that we are in right relationship with Him. And there is comfort in this realization.

The promise that our sins are removed and forgiven is not a license to sin more; rather, it is a reminder that our sins are costly and that we have a duty to turn from sin and embrace the grace bestowed upon us. We need to seek to walk in that grace, walk in the promise of our new relationship with Christ. The writer of Hebrews tells us, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great crowd of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2a). As we mourn our sinful state, because Christ is perfecting our faith, we are able to turn away from sin’s entanglements and run the course that God has set before us.

Our comfort comes in the saving grace of God.

We mourn the sins of the world.

Isaiah had a vision early in his ministry, perhaps on the day of his calling. He saw God seated on His throne being attended to by His angels. As Isaiah realized what he was seeing, he immediately fell to the ground confessing not only his sinfulness, but the sinfulness of his own people—“Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). Habakkuk asked God how it was possible that the evil seemed to prosper. “Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds” (Habakkuk 1:2-3).

We need only look at the newspaper or watch the news and we quickly come to the realization that we live in a sinful world. The things we allow in our world today in the name of tolerance and open-mindedness exposes us to ideas and actions that are so contrary to God’s ways and will that we can only fall to our knees and mourn how we as a society have fallen.

I sit in on the editorial meetings as we plan the layout of the newspaper’s front pages, and I listen to what will be on our first page each day. Sometimes I wonder why we seem to be printing the same stories over and over. We’re not, but it seems that way at times. The same bad things being done by different people, and it seems that it will never stop.

And so we mourn our sinful world.

And Jesus promises us comfort, even for this. To Habakkuk, God promised that judgment would come. To us, God promises that the sinful world will face His judgment as well. “To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this; and I will be his God and he will be My son. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolators and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death” (Revelation 21:6b-8).

We will not always live in a sinful world, and we can begin to change our sinful world as we proclaim the saving grace that is found in Christ Jesus. The woman was sued for the right to abortion—the “Roe” in Roe v. Wade—later came to realize that abortion was wrong and regretted her past decisions. She came to this realization not through a political argument, but from meeting Christian people who reached out to her with God’s love and message. She came to know Christ, and she turned from her formerly sinful ways.

We find comfort in a sinful world because God still is working to change it.

Conclusion

We live in world of confusion, hate and anger. We live in a world that seems to delight in turning from God’s ways. And we live lives that are touched by the sins of the world and our own sins. There is much to mourn.

But in our mourning, let us also remember that Jesus promises us comfort. While He doesn’t say we will never need mourn again, He does say we can find comfort in His presence and in His grace. As is true with all things, we find comfort when we turn to Christ.