They That Mourn

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Matthew 5:4

How can a person in mourning be blessed? Remember we said to be blessed means to experience happiness, contentment, and good fortune. Certainly no one says they feel good fortune has found them when a loved one dies. When my father died, I felt an almost overwhelming sense of loss. I spent a day sitting by the sea watching the waves roll in and pondering how empty life would be without him.

I have since found that though I deeply miss him, life has not been empty at all. He lives in me. The things he taught, the values he imparted are not only very much alive, but they cannot be taken from me.

Jesus wasn’t speaking, however about mourning our loved ones in that way even though there is comfort in it. He was speaking about a three-dimensional type of spiritual mourning that ends in the comfort of happiness, personal contentment, and the realization of good fortune. I say it is three dimensional because it reaches vertically, inwardly, and horizontally.

Christianity begins in an inward mourning over our fallen state that has led us into sin. It is not until we are crushed by the death that sin has infected us with that we reach up for God. When we see ourselves caught in the storms of sin, then we cry out, “Lord, save us: we perish”. Mourning over personal sin will lead us to contentment.

Closely akin to our inward mourning is a vertical mourning in which we are contrite over what the remedy for sin cost God. Jesus suffered on the cross in our place. How much must our continuing to fall short of all He wishes for us pain Him? That should be cause for our mourning and His continued forgiveness cause for eternal rejoicing.

Horizontal mourning comes when we look around at those lost and perishing in sin. We pray for their salvation, we try to warn them, we offer hope in Jesus yet are turned away sorrowful. Christians see the justice in divine punishment and mourn. The day will come when we will be comforted, but that day is not yet come.

If you can mourn over your role in this imperfect, sin-filled world and know it is we who have made it so, then the love of God shall find you and comfort you. The world will not always be as it is now. If we are blessed, we mourn the loss of paradise and look to the bliss of heaven.

Maranatha