Blessed are the mourners
Matthew 5:4
New Revised Standard Version: Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
The Message: You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
There is much in this world to mourn over.
Eugene Peterson takes us immediately to think of the personal losses in our lives. Deaths of loved ones, loss of relationships that were central to our lives, even loss of job, position, status – all that and more than be heard in the line “lost what is most dear to you.”
Traditionally this mourning has also included recognition that our lives are not lived the way that Jesus would have us live. Thus, mourning over the sinfulness of our lives has also seen as part of the mourning. The emotional brokenness of knowing we have done wrong and have hurt other people in our wrongdoing and have gone against God’s desire for how we are live life.
And we live in a world where there is much to mourn. Humanity’s inhumanity to other human beings – in warfare, violence, and greed. The plight of the poor, the struggles of those held in slavery, the fear that grips those who are bullied.
Yes, mourning is appropriate. Mourning tells us that we cared and that we continue to care. Our broken hearts declare we are people who loved. We are people who understand Jesus when he weeps over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44), who understand when he weeps at Lazarus’ tomb (John 11:32-36).
As people who mourn, we are offered comfort beyond human understanding, comfort from Jesus Christ who has walked the agony of mourning, of grief, and discovered the comfort, the healing, the hope of the resurrection. For until we have understood the agony of loss, we cannot grasp the beauty and peace of the comfort Jesus brings. Until we have known what it is to mourn we cannot know the wonder of being embraced by Jesus Christ who will never leave us.
PRAYER:
O Lord, we weep for our world, its violence and brutality break our hearts. We weep. We weep for the losses in our lives – loved ones gone, relationships ended. We weep. We weep over our wrongdoing, our wrong actions and attitudes, our hurting of others and hurting of you. We weep. Come to us that we might know the power of the resurrection giving us peace, hope and comfort. In Jesus’ name. Amen.