Fortunate Are The Mourners
Written by Ed Allen
Saturday, 02 March 2002 19:00
In my experience, the people who struggle the least with Jesus' teachings are those who understand him the least. To be sure he is often puzzling and provocative and always very challenging. The way to lead is to serve. The path to exaltation is the path of humility. The way to live is to die. More than one commentator has called Jesus' kingdom an "upside down" kingdom.
This is what Jesus does to our values, our assumptions and our expectations ? he turns them upside down.
In the Beatitudes, Jesus pronounces a blessing over 8 different conditions. Last week we said that that word "blessed" means to be very fortunate or that you're in the right place. Our assumption is that you're in the right place if you're cocky and a little bit pushy. Our assumption is that you're in the right place if you feel completely confident, thoroughly independent and secure. Jesus says you're blessed if you're poor in spirit. Then you'll get the kingdom of heaven.
Our assumption is that you're fortunate if you're always happy. Our assumption is that you're fortunate if things always go your way, and if you've got everything the world can offer. Our assumption is you're in the right place when you feel like you're in the right place. Jesus says you're blessed when you mourn, for then you will indeed be comforted.
Matthew 5:4: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."
We typically think of mourning related to the loss of a loved one. This may be part of what Jesus is talking about here. This kind of mourning is not only not a bad thing - it is the right response, the only honest response to many experiences in life. But Jesus is talking about much more than just working the grief process appropriately. He is talking about a spiritual condition. James expresses it this way:
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (James 4:7-11)
In other words, the first step in bringing your life under God's control is to recognize that you have not been under His control. You have adamantly pursued your own way. You have cut yourself off from God and from others. The world is not what it should be and you are not what you should be. Recognize this distance from God, acknowledge this idolatrous independence and mourn over it.
Suppose we spliced gene into a mouse that would allow the mouse to feel complete joy by running in circles and eating food from human hands ? then from birth we trained it to run in a maze and get its food from a tray at the end of the maze.
Jesus is not attempting to start a movement of sadsacks. As I read the biographies of Jesus, I have been struck by how many times Jesus and his followers end up at parties. I also am reminded that Jesus told us he wanted us to live effective fruitful lives and that he wanted in joy in us and our joy to be total and complete. This does not sound like a guy starting a class for moaners and groaners.
So what is he talking about? Why is mourning a blessed state? At least 3 reasons:
1) Because it reflects reality. The world is askew, it is cut off from God and He is the source of life and joy and pleasure. So it is right to mourn.
Move to a different place - if you feel awkward and disconnected, you're right. If the whole world is out of balance, then to feel out of balance is to have the right feeling.
a) In writing this Matthew may have remembered his own calling. Matthew 9 ? sick not the healthy ? Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 ? they didn't get it, didn't see the irony - we are all sick.
b) We have never arrived; we never fully get it. We are always sick and in need of a spiritual doctor. We were made to run freely and with joyful abandon and to receive all that we need directly from the hand of God. But we have been cut off from that hand and forced to run in a maze.
c) Why would we want to be mournful? Because the world is askew, bad things happen, we are not what we should be, and grief is the right response, the true response to that reality.
2) Because sorrow causes us to cling to God, to look for something more than the superficial solutions available to us here.
a) In a real sense, this is the essence of Jesus' entire ministry: calling us to look for more, to look beyond just what we can see, hear, smell, taste and touch; calling us to recognize the spiritual reality that surrounds us.
b) This was certainly a central theme in Jesus' sermon recorded in Matthew 5, 6, 7. Especially notice the end of 6, "Seek first his kingdom and everything else will fall in place around this priority."
c) Sorrow has the effect of riveting our attention on those things that are most important. In this sense, it is a great blessing.
d) "My God I Thank Thee"
e) Why would we want to be mournful? Because mourning drives us to long for God.
3) Because God will comfort those who mourn.
a) Last week we noted that God is the active agent in the Beatitudes. God will comfort those who mourn.
b) The pessimists among us think that there are many griefs for which there is no remedy, so many that life is not worth living.
c) But Jesus says blessed are those who mourn for they will indeed be comforted.
d) 2 emotional paths offered us -
- Lock your feelings away, distance yourself/insulate yourself from your own conscience and from difficulties (from others, from yourself) through distraction, diversion, denial. Convince yourself and others nothing is wrong, nothing to worry about, nothing to mourn. (This is what TV, movies, drugs, plastic surgery and affairs are designed to do.)
- Recognize, acknowledge and mourn - deal with disappointment honestly. Recognize your own frailty. Acknowledge your own failings. Confess your sin. Life is tough. I sometimes am disappointed with you, I am sometimes gravely disappointed with myself and things are not exactly as they should be. The world is off and worse than that I am off. My selfish independence does damage to relationship and has set me at a distance from God. The Bible calls this sin! And the right response to it is mourning.
- First path leads to emotional isolation, ulcers, anxiety and depression. Ultimately the first path is the path of joyless death. Ironic because this seems like the path to happiness.
- The second path leads to life and comfort and joy.
e) This word comfort means "encouragement, cheering, comfort ?"
f) Why would we want to be mournful? Because God gives mourners His at-a-boys.
I know some you tend to be depressive in nature. I don't believe Jesus is saying, "Blessed are those who mourn," because this is an easy thing. He does not intend for us to wallow in our pain. Depression is yet one more thing that must be acknowledged and addressed. But I do think Jesus is telling us that things are not always as they seem. That there are ways in which even your depression can be an aid to your spiritual life. It's possible that your depression could be a pathway to real life and joy.
I know some of you have dealt with unimaginable grief. Some of you are dealing with it now. Loss of a dream, loss of a spouse, or a child ? I don't believe that Jesus is trying to offer easy-answer, glib, truism. Quite the opposite. I believe Jesus is jumping right into the middle of your grief. He's grieving with you and saying, "I understand your grief. I have been well acquainted with it myself. But also know that you're in the right place when you mourn! Because when you mourn, I will comfort you." He doesn't want you to live in a state of loss. Don't get stuck in the depths of grief. Don't get stuck in the past. But don't avoid your grief, because there is comfort in mourning.
(Interestingly, we are all supposed to take up this part of Jesus ministry. We are to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Romans 12:15)
Most of all, with this saying Jesus is expounding an alternate view of the universe. Your highest joy and good is not attainable by the right arrangement of circumstances and any time you pursue this avenue as a means of blessing, you are deceived and wasting your time. Your highest joy is relationship with me! That is what you were created for.