Blessed Are Those Who Mourn
Jesus, who is our teacher in so many ways, as well as our Lord and our God, is a model of dealing with grief: You may recall the story in the Gospel of John that tells about the death of Lazarus, a friend of Jesus and the brother of Mary and Martha. I find it helpful to remember that even our Lord Jesus experienced great sadness when Lazarus died. Jesus had the power to give Lazarus his life back, yet he stood outside the tomb and wept.
When we experience loss, we must grieve. And that includes the loss we experience as a result of sin. Have you ever thought about sin that way? That it is about loss? Most losses are things that happen to us. What happens when we sin is that we create our own losses. Loss of self-respect, loss of our concept of ourselves, loss of innocence, loss of a right relationship with God and with people we care about.
Sin is not a terribly popular topic these days. And I would guess it is a concept that many don’t even understand. What is sin, anyway? Our culture teaches us to be tolerant of all kinds of lifestyles and to value individual conscience. Sin has become relative. If you think it’s ok to do it, then who am I to be your judge? We’re all just decent people trying to find our way. We haven’t done anything really bad. Yet, we know that millions of people walk around every day with a big burden on their shoulders—and that burden is called guilt. And that guilt comes from the inkling that something isn’t right. Here again, we need to listen to what’s happening in our soul. Pay attention to the dissonance. Look reality in the face.
When we are not in touch with what’s going on inside, with our feelings, that guilt remains a vague nameless feeling. We don’t know where it’s from, or how to get rid of it.
Let me hazard a definition of sin, without going into laundry lists. Sin is taking your own road instead of the way that God shows you to go. In other words, we all try to find contentment in our own way. Instead of God’s way. In so doing, many people give control of their life over to something or someone else—instead of working at learning to make good decisions themselves. We try to find contentment through achievement or accumulation or thrills. And we come up empty. Some people come to this point of emptiness staring at the bottom of an empty bottle of beer. Others find it when served with divorce papers or the loss of a job.
King David in the Old Testament, is one of the most helpful models for us in dealing with sin. He saw a woman who was beautiful, and though she was married, he had to have her. They had an affair. Then he learned that she was pregnant. Then, he tried to get her husband, who was a general in the army, to come home on leave, so that the child could be presumed to be his. When that didn’t work, David had Bathsheba’s husband sent into the thick of battle where he would surely be killed. And he was killed. Then, David took Bathsheba for his wife. And he got away with it all. Until God, who knows the heart, sent the prophet Nathan to him, to point out his sin. And then, David grieved. He was sorry for his sin. In Psalm 32, David tells us what it is like emotionally and physically when a person does not admit wrongdoing and what it is like to experience forgiveness: (READ IT)
Now, you know I’m going to mention the name Jesse Jackson, because the news of his affair is just too fresh not to. Certainly he knows the truth of what David is saying in this Psalm. When public figures fall, they fall hard. But this message is not about Jesse Jackson. It’s about you and me. Because we all know what it is like to make choices that do not match up with who we say we are—and then try to hide our wrongdoing, or hide behind excuses.
The question is, do you also know the relief that comes from confessing your sins and turning away from them?
I’m going to say something I have said before. You don’t have to tell the whole world all your dark secrets. You do need to be honest with yourself and with your God. You need to be truly sorry for the things that you have done that have separated you from God’s will for you.
Blessed are those who mourn. They
will be comforted.
They will
be comforted.
God’s comfort is every bit as strong as our grief--stronger. This word carries the meaning of restoring hope, bringing solace, and providing strength. But it is not just an emotional “there, there, everything’s going to be all right.” When the Bible talks about God bringing comfort, there is always some kind of saving action being suggested. For instance, in Psalm 23 there is the famous line: thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Now, this is about sheep, as you recall. Why would a sheep be comforted by the shepherd’s rod and staff? Well, the shepherd used the rod to fight off wild animals. And when a wayward little lamb or sheep would lose its way and get stuck somewhere, for instance falling down a rock crevice, then the shepherd would take his staff with its great hook on the end, and use it to lift the animal out of trouble. When God comforts, God doesn’t just stand back and say there, there. God does something. God saves.
God will change your name, like we sing in that great song. God will make you a new person with new possibilities. God will lift that boulder of guilt from your shoulders and give you hope and peace. God will lift your sorrow and enable you to face life again—if you will let God do that work in you—for God will never force you to accept this gift. God will offer it and provide it, but you’ve got to open the door.
Listen to this advice from Paul, from I Thessalonians: (READ)
We must not grieve as others do, who have no hope. We must grieve, but our grief must be laced with hope. Hope that is stronger than both death and sin. Hope that will ultimately turn our grief inside out.
In God’s world, death and guilt are never the end of the story. Life and hope are.
We believe that Jesus defeated death and sin through his own death and resurrection. Death has been swallowed up in victory. Sin no longer controls us. It is that belief that gives us hope.
It’s my hope that you will take this message very personally today. If you are at a tough spot in your own climb through life—mourning your losses, feeling the depth of your own sin—if the climbing has grown steep and you wonder if you can possibly make it up this steep climb to the next outcropping of rock, remember that you have a rope around your waist. And Jesus is holding firmly to the other end. Trust him. You won’t fall.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.