“God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
As a pastor of many years, I am acquainted with mourning. A loved one dies, an opportunity is lost, a commitment is shattered, a relationship is broken. One grieves.
Let me go away from this to come back to it from a different direction.
As I look at it, American life is based on illusion. Our whole entertainment industry makes life seem larger, or smaller, or more dramatic, or more desperate, or more magical than it really is. But its images and impact are so powerful that we think it shows life as it is supposed to be. Social media in its varied forms offers connections and information which create an illusory community without true communication or intimacy. We have been raised with the illusion that the way to happiness is having things go your way. We are made happy, popular culture says, by money, pleasure, entertainment, and unlimited self-expression. Yet, if this is true, why are so many Americans, who are rich, surrounded by entertainment, with easy access to many and diverse avenues of pleasure, and with few limitations on self-expression, so unhappy that our social problems, crime, and violence gallop ahead of us?
This beatitude, “God blesses those who mourn…” helps us begin to take away some of the illusion. It is a gift of disillusionment, leading to an honest appraisal of self.
What kind of grief is Jesus talking about? It is illusion to pretend that God will comfort us when our plans and behavior are opposed to his will for us. God offers no solace when we continue in rebellion against him. He offers no comfort when we engage in self-destructive behavior. To the contrary…God will allow us to suffer the full consequences of our sinfulness. How else can we learn?
I think that the heart of this beatitude beats with the desire of God to remove all such barriers between us and him. The first beatitude helped us to see that our spirits are poor when filled with self, but rich when filled with God. This beatitude teaches us that grief from the realization of our separation from God will lead to change and to the comfort of God’s approval. But James says it so much better than I: “Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts you hypocrites. Let there be tears for the wrong things you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter and gloom instead of joy. When you bow down before the Lord and admit your dependence on him, he will lift you up and give you honor.”
James, the brother of Jesus who denied Jesus until his resurrection, is speaking from his own experience. His words sound grim until we realize that he is saying that the child of God is willing to step aside from the pursuits of self…is willing to mourn his sinfulness…precisely because he knows that to do so will lead him closer to God. This is the mourning that God blesses…to see ourselves in the mirror of reality, without illusion, and to see and remove anything that stands between us. I believe this to be true, that God is more concerned with our character than he is with our comfort.
Prayer: “Father, one of the things hardest for me to do is to see myself without illusion. If that is to happen, I must have your help. And when I see myself clearly, and realize again how far I have to go, help me to grieve and then to change any wrongness I see. Help me to be thorough in becoming the person you designed me to be, and remove any influence that might hold me back. Lead me, and give me the heart to follow. I ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.”