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Why Mourn?
Life on earth has sorrow and loss and disappointment. There is no way around it. The Christian life, too, is not all joy and laughter. The truth is that there are such things as Christian tears, and too few of us ever weep them. But we should recognize that the God of all comfort is always present, providing peace that is beyond understanding.
What does the Bible say about mourning?
The psalmist shed tears of loneliness. Timothy shed tears of discouragement. Jeremiah shed tears of disappointment. Paul shed tears of concern. Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus because He loved him. Jesus also wept over the city of Jerusalem because He loved its people.
Then, Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount that sorrow can be the source of blessing. Commentator William Barclay notes that the Greek word used in Matthew 5:4 gives the sense of the strongest grief. Wailing, lamenting, groaning. Ripping the garments. Sackcloth and ashes. Blessed are the overwhelmed with grief. They will be comforted.
You can cry your eyes out about your problems, and you can weep all you want about loneliness and discouragement and disappointment. You also can cry your head off about your unfulfilled lust. When it’s all said and done, none of the worldly sorrow will bring you life. Only one kind of sorrow brings life, and that is godly sorrow, which leads to repentance. Jesus is referring in this Beatitude to sorrow over sin. This kind of mourning means being sorry because you’re a sinner.
Those who bewail their own sinfulness will be comforted by the only comfort which can relive their distress, namely the free forgiveness of God.
Mourners are happy because they are the only ones who are forgiven. The rest of the world has to live with endless guilt. Get it straight now—the happiness does not come from the mourning; it comes in God’s response to it. Keep sin in your life and bottle it up, and you’ll see how ruinous it becomes. Confess it and see the freedom and joy that comes in forgiveness.
The verb used in Matthew 5:4 is a present tense for continuous action. The ones continually mourning are continually comforted. If you don’t mourn, you won’t get comforted.
Who Brings Comfort?
The comfort Jesus offers is not a pat on the back or a gesture of goodwill. The comfort that Jesus gives is His very own person living in you, imparting His peace and serenity to you. The peace He sweat drops of blood to find in the garden of Gethsemane, He gives to you.
As you experience the comfort of Jesus in your sorrows, you can pass that along through the power of Christ in you. Let Him impart His hard-won comfort to you. Let Him deposit His comfort right into your heart. Then let it flow from you to those around you. Real comfort for real sorrow.
When Jesus departed, He left us with His Holy Spirit. The Greek word Paraclatos, from which we get Paraclete, is the one called alongside to help, the Comforter. The Bible is filled with references to God as a comforter:
- Psalm 30:5 –For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.
- Psalm 50:15 – Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.
- Isaiah 55:6-7 –Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
- Micah 7:18-20 – Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. You will be faithful to Jacob, and show love to Abraham, as you pledged on oath to our ancestors in days long ago.
The Comforter helps us, He hears our cry, He meets our need. The Comforter is always there.
The Holy Spirit comforts us, the Scripture comforts us, and we comfort each other. When we are comforted, we are truly happy.
It comes down to this: We have comfort for as long as we mourn and confess our sin. Then we can truly rejoice.