Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Matthew 5:4
Mourning is not a blessing.
It hurts.
It's an almost literal hole in our soul. A piece of us -- a spouse, a child, a parent, a friend -- has been ripped away from us (at least in an immediate, physical, temporal sense). And it's hard to function with such a gaping wound.
Mourning is not what I'd call a blessing. So what does Jesus mean here in the Sermon on the Mount?
There are two common interpretations of this.
First, Jesus is prefiguring his death and the eternal fate of all things through him. If we love Jesus enough to cling to him in faith when he dies -- and therefore mourn -- we will be comforted by the resurrection. And by extension, those who cling to Jesus when a loved one dies -- even in the midst of obvious human mourning -- will be comforted by the resurrection too.
That's how I've traditionally viewed this passage. Essentially, "this world is hard, but heaven is coming!"
And that's true.
Nevertheless, probably a more contextually accurate way to read this verse is in light of the preceding verse -- "blessed are the poor in spirit." Jesus was talking about the present condition of our heart and soul. He wanted us to be humble and thankful, not proud and entitled.
What if we put "blessed are those who mourn" into the context of our heart and soul's condition?
What do our hearts have to mourn about?
Sin.
What Jesus is calling us to do in these first two beatitudes is to humble our hearts and grieve over the sins that separate us from God and one another.
Our world has developed the brazen habit of laughing at and excusing sin. No! It's cost is frayed relationships, broken marriages, fatherless children, violence, wars, etc. We must not laugh with the world. We must grieve.
In Christ's Love,
a guy who is not "comforted"
by justifying my actions
or rationalizing my sin,
but only by Jesus' costly grace
which drove him to the cross
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