INTRODUCTION
My dad’s parents lived in a very old house. It was a small house, just two bedrooms. They had seven children and 18 grandchildren. When the kids were all grown and moved out, Grandma and Grandpa moved into a tiny house.
There was not room for much more than two people. Large groups just could visit, but not for very long. I think there was a message in there.
That old house had solid wooden doors. Not like the hollow doors in my house – these were old, painted, solid, heavy wood.
When I was just a little boy, I went out onto the back porch. Grandma said, "Close that door, honey." I must not have been tall enough to reach the door knob because I wrapped my little fingers around the edge of the door and started to pull.
That big door started to move fast and it was all I could do to stay out of the way to keep from being knocked down. I was so busy moving, I forgot to move my fingers.
Looking back, I wish my whole hand had been slammed in that big, heavy door. Instead, just the tip of that middle finger that sticks out beyond the others got pinched.
I wailed and cried. And grandma held me on her lap. Grandma’s lap helped ease the pain. But she could not keep that fingernail from turning black.
We all have experienced pain. It may have been minor pain, such as hitting your thumb with a hammer. It may have been intense pain.
Perhaps you have been through the trauma of being fired from a job or endured a divorce.
Perhaps someone you love very much has a serious illness or has died. Some of you, as you sit here this morning, are in more pain than I have ever experienced.
Sometimes we bring the pain on ourselves, like I did when I shut my hand in the door. Through our own carelessness or outright stupidity we injure ourselves. Sometimes we are hurt by others.
And sometimes, we have pain inflicted on us simply because pain is part of life. Disease, cancer, auto accidents, migraines, arthritis, insomnia. Maybe even depression
Pain is, to say the least, unpleasant. And we would all like to keep it out of our lives. If nothing else, we would like to postpone it.
We would all like to procrastinate, postpone, put off anything that is uncomfortable. Pain, grief, suffering - anything unpleasant. We would like for it to wait. It is never convenient. We always ask, "Why now?" In fact, we would rather not suffer at all.
That makes the statement of Jesus in Matthew 5:4 very hard to understand.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Last Sunday we took a very brief look at this word "blessed" and learned that it means happy. It communicates a state of being that is satisfied and well content.
So it seems backward to us that Jesus would say, "You are truly happy when you mourn."
That sounds like an oxymoron. An oxymoron is two words put together that are exact opposites. Some examples might be: military intelligence, government organization, airline food, child proof.
And this one by Jesus: happy mourners.
Although it sounds like an impossibility, I want to share with you from my personal experience that what Jesus says is true.
What I want to share with you this morning comes from my heart which has been touched by grief.
I will not tell you that I understand what you feel or that my pain is as deep as yours or that my loss in any way compares with the losses you have lived through.
What I do want to tell you is that I have mourned. And in my mourning, I have experienced the comfort Jesus speaks of. And from my own experience, with the authority of the words of Jesus, I tell you – "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."
The sermon series is "The Pursuit of Happiness" and is based on the Beatitudes found in Matthew 5.
TURN TO Matthew 5:1-4
I ask you to consider these three points:
Pleasure and Pain are Closely Connected.
Only Those Who Mourn will be Comforted.
There is Rich Reward in Giving Comfort.
READ Matthew 5:1?4
BODY
It may sound to you, at first, to be a contradiction to say that pleasure and pain are closely connected. We usually think of pleasure and pain being opposites – unconnected - entirely different.
However, a book by Philip Yancey titled Where Is God When It Hurts (Zondervan Publishing, 1977, pp. 32-33.) helped me to understand this principle. Mr. Yancey tells about visiting the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital in Carville, LA. The Carville facility is one of the few of its kind. They offer specialized treatment there. They work with victims of Hansen’s Disease. You have probably heard it called Leprosy.
Hansen’s Disease is cruel because it primarily acts as an anesthetic. It numbs the pain cells. Sounds good doesn’t it? No more pain. Slam your fingers in the door every day and never feel a thing.
But that is the problem – victims of Hansen’s Disease never feel a thing. According to Mr. Yancey, Leprosy does not cause fingers and toes to fall off. They are damaged because the body’s warning system, the pain receptors, do not do their job.
The result is, a person can put his/her hand in fire, or slice a finger on broken glass and never feel it. The other danger is, that if you cannot feel pain, you cannot feel pleasure.
Imagine touching a child’s face, but not feeling it. Never sensing the rich texture of good wood in your hands or fine silk between your fingers.
Now translate that truth to your emotions. If I make myself numb, if I never feel any grief, loss, mourning, or emotional pain...
Then I block the pleasure, the fulfillment, of relationships.
Being fully alive brings risk. Being able to feel the warmth of the sun brings the risk of feeling the pain of a sunburn. Making a friend includes the risk that the friendship may end. Loving someone brings the risk that you may be separated from the one you love by death.
Imagine how lifeless life would be without feeling warm, making friends, or having people to love.
Now the statement of Jesus makes a little more sense. Happy are they who mourn. It is a blessing to grieve.
Sadness and sorrow have their good side. Because if you are never sad, if you don’t grieve, if you never mourn – it is because you never had anything to lose.
And that is the severest poverty of all.
Observation #1: Pleasure and Pain are Closely Connected.
Observation #2: Only Those Who Mourn will be Comforted.
I am glad that as a little boy I slammed my finger in the door. Now, I do not always respond to pain that way. But now that the hurt is gone, I still have the memory.
The memory of sitting in my grandmother’s lap. The memory of her gently kissing my finger. And I would not trade that memory for anything. Not even for escaping the pain.
Because I am a preacher, I have spent a fair amount of time in funeral homes. I have seen people be absolutely devastated by grief. But I have also seen many of those same people experience comfort.
Friends have come to their home or the funeral home. They bring food and watch the children They make phone calls and write letters. They hug and hold hands. And they cry together.
And it all brings comfort. If you have been the one standing beside the casket you know about that. You have said, "I had no idea so many people cared." "I can’t believe so many people came."
But you cannot know that comfort until you endure the pain.
To understand what Jesus is saying here, I think it will be helpful define some words that are commonly misused.
The word Grief is used for our inward thoughts and feelings when we experience a loss. Grief is an internal response.
Mourning is a shared social response to the loss. Mourning is going public with our pain by talking, crying, or even wailing. It is the outward, visible response to the pain we feel.
Americans have an unhealthy view of grief and mourning. Most of us are ashamed to be seen crying or weeping. We speak with pride of people who are able to suppress the very natural and healthy expressions of pain.
When someone has died, it is not uncommon for people to ask, “How are they holding up?” What they mean is, “Are they crying a lot?” And if they are not crying, not mourning, people say, “He is so strong. She is bearing it so well.”
But that is backward, the opposite of reality and it can be devastating to our emotional well being.
When will not share our pain. When we determine to hold up, be strong, keep it together, we miss something very healthy. So many of us have been trained not to “lose it.” When Losing it is what God designed us to do.
Jesus tells us that those who mourn will be comforted. Those who share the pain through tears will be comforted. When we do not share the pain, when we keep it in, when we “hold up well,” we will not be comforted.
To mourn is to share our pain with caring people. Please understand, I am not telling you pour your heart out to strangers in line at the grocery. One of the reasons God gave us the church is to develop relationships with others who believe in Jesus Christ and have experienced for themselves God’s comfort. They in turn will share that comfort with us when we are in pain.
Observation #1: Pleasure and Pain are Closely Connected.
Observation #2: Only Those Who Mourn will be Comforted.
Observation #3: There is Rich Reward in
Giving Comfort to Someone.
2 Corinthians 1:2?7 is printed in your bulletin.
When you suffer a loss, when you have pain, when you experience grief, go ahead and cry. Mourn.
Allow God to bless you. Experience the comfort of the Holy Spirit, God’s comforter. Allow caring people around you to comfort you.
Then accept this challenge. Ask the question: "How will God use my suffering to help someone else?"
In v. 3 of 2 Corinthians 1, Paul says that God is the "Father of compassion and the God of all comfort."
Paul is saying compassion and comfort begin with God. When we are troubled or heartbroken we have a God who understands and cares.
Paul goes on to say that he "comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."
God comforts us out of his love and compassion for us. But he does not want that compassion to stop. He wants us to recycle it.
If you have been through grief or suffering, God’s intent is for you to be a conduit of the comfort you have received to someone else who is in need.
That may seem like a tall order. Especially if you have not had extensive training and experience in grief counseling. But I have great news for you. You don’t need extensive training. All you need is to be available. Available first to God. And then to people in need.
When my father died in 1996, my family received very good support. My dad’s church brought food, the minister came to the house, people did things that I cannot list or even remember.
Donna and I had cried together. We cried with my step-mom. By the time we got to the visiting hours, I thought I was about “cried-out.” We were busy greeting people, meeting people, giving and receiving handshakes and hugs.
I was holding up, but I felt hollow. Empty.
And then, from across the large chapel room, I saw Rich walk in. Rich and I had developed a special relationship. We were close because we were in a small men’s Bible study on Tuesday mornings. We grew closer when his father died about five months earlier.
Rich and his wife Debbie bundled up their two young children and drove two hours to come to the visiting hours. That was a wonderful gift.
When I embraced Rich, I held on to him and wept. The hollow feeling was gone. The empty spot was filled. Rich and I shared a bond in our grief. We mourned the loss of our fathers together. And I was comforted. There in the funeral home, I experienced genuine happiness.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says that God … comforts us … so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
That is what God did through Rich.
When we are in pain, most of us don’t need advice or even theology. More than anything, we need to be sheltered from the storm.
Not to talk, offer advice, or say something meaningful. Just to hold us, sit with us, pray with us.
CONCLUSION
Jesus said, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."
You see, Jesus does not speak in oxymorons. He does not make contradictory statements or fill us with unreasonable expectations. He tells us there will pain. Our hearts will be broken -- we will mourn.
But he does make a promise. When we mourn, we will be comforted.
Jesus promises us that when we mourn, when our grief is expressed he will provide comfort. Through the Holy Spirit. And through the people around us. Especially Christian people. Who have experienced God’s comfort for themselves. And then share that comfort with us.
Mourning is an expression of sorrow. Do you need to do that this morning? Do you need to express your sorrow to someone. God always listens and he hears our prayers.
But sometimes we need someone with ears we can see and hands we can touch. Before you leave this morning, if you need to, find someone to talk to about your grief.
You can probably look around you and find someone who you know would have a sympathetic ear. And don’t worry about what people with think if they see you talking with someone or even crying. I can tell you what most people will think: I should be honest and talk to someone, too.
