“Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.”
- Matthew 5:4
Once we have realized our need for God in our lives (Matt 5:3), we can begin to shift how we view events in our lives after our dependence on Him. Jesus’s disciples were to mourn. Conversion stories are always fascinating when we can hear how someone completely turned their lives around, they once lived opposed to Jesus and now they live nestled into the grace of God. There is a transformation, a shift in their heart, and over time they begin to go about life differently. This change may be beneficial in understanding why Jesus teaches His disciples to mourn.
What do we do when we mourn? What events lead us into mourning?
When we have lost something or someone dear to us. Our hearts are broken and hurt over them. Sometimes all we can do is go to our rooms and clench on to our pillows. Some of us may cry seas, while others may dry heave. Whatever it may be, the core of our emotional being is wrecked, all rationale is gone. The world around us ceases to be comprehended as mourning can move into shock. And it is beautiful.
Emotional and Spiritual:
Somehow in our day and age, the idea of emotional responses of pain and mourning gets glazed over; some people are told to deal with it. In the process of “dealing with it,” they become numb to any further suffering, pain, and anxiety. They go to counseling; they get medications, and try to go about life and “deal with it.” Now, in the wake of a chaotic world, we have children with unprecedented levels of anxiety and depression, being told to “deal with it” as they grow up in a divided and conflicted environment. (Just to clarify, counseling and medication are not bad by any means, if needed do keep doing so, this is simply to emphasize the often overlooked spiritual nature of mourning.)
Some Biblical Scholars don’t see this verse as emotional but more of a spiritual issue. To mourn in their view is to repent of one’s sins because they realize how far from God they have become. So the disciple is to mourn their rebellion and re-enter into a relationship with God.
I hope this branches the two differing interpretations of mourning and validates the importance of both mourning the pains in our lives as well as mourning the sins we have committed. The two at times maybe even more closely connected then we realize. Perhaps the message of “deal with it” is what we tend to communicate when people are either grieving the loss of a loved one or trying to overcome their sins. This is a false lesson we either as a nation or as a church have been teaching people. One way the church communicates “deal with it” is when we tell those who are in pain, “just have faith.” As true as it is for people to keep having faith in their difficulties, they must come to that realization on their own; we share a portion of the healing before they have even dealt with the depths of grief and repentance. And Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn.”
Jesus could have easily told them, “Blessed is the one who overcomes.” Or “Blessed is the one who sucks it up.” Or, “Blessed is the one who smiles in hard times.” But He didn’t nor would that match up with who Jesus is or the resulting blessing from God. Jesus is more concerned about telling them about what God can do for them, rather than telling them how to fix their issues. Maybe that’s why He said we must realize our need for God before He mentioned mourning.
Mourning:
When we mourn, we acknowledge. We acknowledge the pain we are experiencing or the pain we have dealt upon others. We recognize that we have slipped into sin and desire change. When we mourn, our hearts soften and break for a broken world. When we mourn, we realize there is nothing we could do that could ever truly fix or satisfy. When we mourn, pride is extinguished, and we notice how human we really are.
When we “deal with it,” we take our emotions and our sins and lock them up in a safe. We try to control them by locking them away and putting them out of reach, we try to forget the code of the safe so that way we don’t open it up. But that can never truly happen. The emotions we work so hard to keep invisible, the scars we try to paint over, will remain, the sins we have committed will come back around. They will seep out of the safe and back into our hearts to continue leaving us weak. They may comply at times so that we think we are in control, but we aren’t. We need Jesus; we need God.
As we mourn and repent, we recognize that God is the only one who can properly deal with our emotions, anxieties, and sins. God is our comfort. Perhaps another way of saying this verse is this;
Blessed are those who surrender to me,
For God will be with you.
Then all of a sudden, like a heated blanket, we are wrapped up in His divine love and care. He brings mercy into our hearts and souls. We are comforted. We believe in a God who is present in every scenario, but when we mourn and repent, we are inviting Him to take action, we acknowledge that He can bring true comfort. That is the amazing blessing of our God. He cares for our every anxiety, small and large. He cares that we be close to Him. Our God does not merely want us to “deal with it” but for us to invite Him to change all of it.
He, the God of the Old and New Testaments, is our comforter. He is praised as such throughout the Psalms, and the Holy Spirit is even understood as our Counselor.
Final Blessing:
I wonder what it would be like to bring our cares, concerns, pains, and sins before God. To relinquish the idea of it being about us dealing with the problems and solving it all on our own, and then hand it off to God with raw emotion. I am not saying this will prevent pain and hurt but may surrender be a means of working through it all. You do not have to go through anything alone, but you have a God who comforts. God is waiting for you to realize your need for Him in the heartaches of life. What a beautiful relief it is to have God be present when you appear all alone. What a blessing to proclaim, Our God is Our Comfort.
May the Lord of life and redemption be with you in every step, every breath, and every heartbeat. Be messengers of the Good News and Peace friends!
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