(Sermon #4 of the Sermon on the Mount Series)
J. Richard Lord, Jr.
Parkview Church of the Nazarene
The Mourning Shall Be Comforted
Matthew 5:4
It is a fact of life that at some point in our lifetime we will be faced with loss. Loss of jobs, loss of property, loss of loved ones, even loss of dignity. It is also a fact of life that we will find ourselves in a state of mourning over these losses. Part of our ability to survive in this life with our sanity intact comes with our ability to cope with our losses and to somehow exit the state of mourning.
Persons who never get over their losses are faced with the inability to restore normal function to their life and spend the rest of their life crippled emotionally. For person to function normally in this life there has to be a mechanism in place that will help them rebuild their life after their loss.
It is easy to assume that in this Beatitude, Jesus is referring to people who have faced loss. Of course, anyone who has any length of time on this earth has faced loss, so this could apply to all of us.
I believe that Jesus is referring in part to these very numerous and very normal losses that all of us face. When we lose loved ones and other things in our life that are important to us, it is very natural that we mourn.
Jesus certainly understands what it is to mourn. He Himself stood in front of the tomb of a very dear friend and wept over his death. Even though in the very next moment, He raised His voice and struck death aside and called Lazarus to “come forth,” He felt the bitterness of loss.
Coping with loss is not easy. You can lose your favorite pair of glasses or favorite pair of socks to the hungry maw of the electric dryer and you will have temporary pangs of mourning over favored items. Lose a long time pet and the mourning is deeper. Lose a parent or relative and the pain is greatly increased. Lose a spouse or a child and it is almost unbearable.
But regardless of the severity of the pain, the coping mechanism is the same. God has given us, built into our very nature, the ability to cope with loss.
Granted, some people can cope with loss better than others. A very complex set of emotional matrices determines our ability to cope with loss.
We can understand them well. Some of us have observed in our lifetime some people who have suffered tremendous loss, such as: jobs, health, even much loved close relatives, and they seem to come through it with mind and happiness intact and survive very well.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are some people that fall apart emotionally if their goldfish dies, or other some small loss in life. Their coping mechanism is inefficient and in need of repair.
However, regardless of how well our coping mechanisms give us the ability to survive the losses of this life, I believe that part of what Jesus is referring to is that there is a power, a strength and a grace, that is a gift of God, that is available to those who have committed their life and trust to Him that fills in the gaps of our natural ability and causes us to not only just survive the losses of our life but to achieve a victory, a joy, and a confidence that the losses in our life cannot dim.
This is what we normally understand as being “comforted.” However, it is not just a case of the Holy Spirit just coming down to us and putting His arms around us as we would a little child and saying, “There, there now, it’s going to be all right!” He does do that, but He also does much more than that.
To comfort us,
I. HE CHANGES OUR VIEWPOINT OF LIFE.
When I was a child, I was making a road trip with an aunt and uncle and some younger cousins of mine. On the way, my aunt fixed us a peanut butter sandwich to eat. My cousin Dennis, who is about seven years younger than I, accidentally tore up his sandwich while trying to eat it. He began to cry and then got mad and finished ripping to shreds in frustration and threw in on the floorboard of the car.
Of course, my aunt, in an effort to teach him a lesson, refused to make him another sandwich. He finished the trip crying over the loss of his sandwich. It set him a bad mood for most of the rest of the day, and somewhat soured the trip for the rest of us.
Now you might say to yourself, “That’s silly!” To we adults, it is silly. But to a child, whether or not your bread is torn is important. From our viewpoint of time and maturity, we simply don’t view that as important.
This is what Jesus does for us. When we give our lives to Him, He transforms our way of looking at life. What was important before, is not important now. What was unimportant before, is now important.
The reason is that we now have an eternal and Godly point of view. We tend now to see things from the viewpoint of eternity. We look at life through the eyes of God.
This does two things:
1)Temporal and earthly things lose importance. Ann Richards, former governor of Texas, recounts how her mother use to keep a lot of “keepsakes” in her house. If something got broken, she would get upset about it. Her “things” were important to her.
But Ann came to realize that “things” weren’t important. She saw how those keepsakes became a point of contention with her mother, and how it seem to interfere with her enjoyment of life.
When her mother passed away, Ann ended up with all of those keepsakes. Except for few choice items, she got rid of all those keepsakes, vowing that she was not going to be burdened down with “things.”
Jesus helps us realize that nothing in this life is permanent and it will “pass away.”
2) We take on an eternal view. We no longer look at our existence as the “fourscore and ten” years of this life. We see our existence in the light of eternity. We know that when we die, if we are a Christian, we will go to heaven.
Now what that means is that death itself has been conquered. I no longer have the fear that I once had. I have lost loved ones, yet I have no fear. Yes, I miss my grandmother and grandfather, my aunts and uncles who have gone on, but I know where they are. One day, I will see them again. So why be sad?
What was once considered loss is not truly a loss, it only a temporary separation.
II. HE SUPPLIES OUR NEEDS.
One of my favorite scriptures is James 1:2-4: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Jesus supplies everything we need to survive in this life. If we are lacking in the emotional structure we need to survive in this life, he will build us up. If we are lacking in monetary or physical resources, he will provide.
It is true that God will sometimes use the losses in our life to teach us, to test us, for that is the way He comforts us, by making us strong enough to endure.
We will have losses in this life, and it will cause us pain, but the promise of Jesus is that He will comfort us in our losses.
But when Jesus referred “those who mourn,” I believe that He is talking about more than the normal losses in this life, I believe He talking about something much more, something deeper.
Isaiah 61:1-3 says, “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion--to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. “
One of the traditions of the Jewish people was to mourn over the destruction of Jerusalem, which was a result of its sin.
It is part and parcel of its tradition. Even today, the Jewish people do not feel complete, and will not feel complete until the temple is rebuilt.
Jesus is using this tradition to point to something deeper.
God created man to love and serve Him. When man sinned, a part of his existence was destroyed. The life of love and relationship with God, the kind that “walked with God in the garden in the cool of the day.” was lost.
What Jesus came to this world to restore was that relationship. When He died on the cross for our sins, He made it possible for us to be restored to that relationship. It is now possible for us to walk hand in hand with God.
Anyone who has not been restored to that relationship is in a state of mourning.
We may not recognize it as such. Because we were created to have a relationship with God and when we don’t have that relationship, something is missing. We don’t what it is. We know there has to be more to life, but we can’t find it. Just like the singer Peggy Lee of a generation ago sang, “Is this all there is?” that is our question. Something is missing and we mourn its loss.
We may not recognize it as mourning. We just know there is a painful emptiness inside us that just won’t go away. We try everything we can think of, such as worldly pleasures, alcohol, drugs, sex, and all kinds of vices. But nothing satisfies us. We are lost, unhappy, and undone.
It is not until we discover that Jesus died on the cross to restore us to that which we are missing that we find comfort. It is when we turn to Jesus, ask Him to forgive us our sins, commit our life to Him, promising to serve Him for the rest of our life do we find true satisfaction in life. The old gospel song says it just right, “Hallelujah, I have found Him, whom my soul so long has craved. Jesus satisfies my longing, through His blood I now am saved!”
We are transformed into a new existence. No longer do we mourn. We are blessed, we are comforted, just as Jesus promised.
