Happy Are the Mourners

Matthew 5:4

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

The last thing we want to be is sad. Mourning is seen as something connected with grief, loss, and death. We picture people at funerals, dressed in black, wiping their tears. Not exactly a pathway to happiness. But is this what Jesus had in mind?

What is meant by ‘mourning’ here?

‘Mourning’ here does not mean that we Christians are to be a melancholy and depressed people. Rather, this mourning is a spiritual mourning. Jesus sets forth here the inner attitude of mourning which comes about from an awareness and encounter with Almighty God. This is a mourning which occurs when one awakens to the reality that he dwells in a world separated from its loving Creator (Matt. 23:37-39), and when he himself senses his own distance from a holy God (Isa. 6:5).

Why are the mourners ‘blessed’?

Since this mourning is the emotional counterpart of being ‘poor in spirit’ (5:3), we can see that God calls those happy who have a right estimate and realistic view regarding themselves, the world they live in, and the God who created them. For this reason, they are called ‘blessed’, or ‘happy’, because they do not live blind to the truth as Jesus said some do (Luke 6:25).

But Jesus says that the primary reason they are blessed is because they are now in a position to receive the comfort God longs to give them. Paul, who lamented over his inescapable lostness in the cry of Romans 7:24, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” was also able to find and proclaim his joyful deliverance in the very next verse, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Once again Jesus presents us with a paradox – the way up is down. “That is the astounding thing about the Christian life,” writes Martyn Lloyd-Jones. “Your great sorrow leads to joy, and without the sorrow there is no joy.”

How are we to mourn?

1. We must get into the presence of God.
2. We must ask God to give us the grace we need to be deeply affected by that which grieves God.
3. We must be willing to take action as we mourn to be God’s agents of redemption.

We will ache at sin

Where is our ache at sin’s devastation? Where is the mourning of the church at the violence of abortion and the pain of its living and dead victims? Where is the mourning of the church at the fracture of families because of the selfishness of men and women? Where is the mourning of the church at the way in which that pornography and prostitution has enslaved millions? Where is the mourning of the church at the realization that our city, nation, and planet is at war – not with opposing nations, cultures, and ideologies – we are at war with God Himself because we have abandoned our Creator for gods made in our own image?

We will grieve for the lost

“I am speaking the truth in Christ--I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit--that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” (Rom. 9:1-3)

We will revel in our salvation

Romans 8:31-39:

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died--more than that, who was raised--who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

36 As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,

39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones: “Now this is not only true at conversion; it is something that continues to be true about the Christian. He finds himself guilty of sin, and at first it casts him down and makes him mourn. But that in turn drives him back to Christ; and the moment he goes back to Christ, his peace and happiness return and he is comforted. So that here is something that is fulfilled at once. The man who mourns truly is comforted and is happy; and thus the Christian life is spent in this way, mourning and joy, sorrow and happiness, and the one should lead to the other immediately.”