The Second Blessing - Matthew 5:4

I’ve said before, that there are positive and negative aspects to reading small pieces of scripture each week. But one of the things that we can lose the most is context. We are already at a disadvantage because we didn’t grow up living in the culture of the middle east as a Jewish person in the time of Jesus, which is who the Gospel of Matthew is written to - a Jewish audience. But we also can lose context by taking small enough pieces of scripture that we can digest what is happening.

For example. The Beatitudes, or the Sermon on the Mount that we have been looking at together for the last few weeks, with a few more weeks to come, is found in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. What happened prior to this teaching according to that particular Gospel? Jesus if firmly established as being part of the lineage and line of David and Abraham, the whole way through to Jesus’s earthly father, Jospeh. Joseph received a dream telling him to both take Mary as his wife and to name the child who she is caring Jesus, God saves, because he is going to save his people from their sins. Then the Magi from the East show up, looking for the one who is born the King of the Jews. 

Jospeh is then instructed by God to take Mary and Jesus and flee to Egypt, because Herod is so threatened by the thought of another king, that he starts killing all male children under the age of two. Jospeh is instructed when to return and they settled together, as a family in the land of Nazareth. 

The next time we see Jesus it is through the lens of John the Baptist, the one who is crying out for people to repent, for the time of the Kingdom of God is near. Jesus came to him to be baptize, and John, recognizing who he is, said I need to be baptized by you! Not the other way around. At the time of the baptism, a voice came from Heaven saying, this is my son with whom I am pleased. 

Jesus then goes out into the wilderness and is tempted by Satan with immortalty, power, and provision. After banishing the Devil away, he started his earthly ministry, calling disciples to follow him so that he could make them fishers of people. 

We are told he taught and brought healing and traveled, but this, this Sermon on the Mount is the first full teaching that we find in the Gospel of Matthew.

Where am I going with all of this? Up to this point in the Gospel of Matthew, we have been told and clued in on the fact that he is Savior and King, and yet we find him amongst ordinary people teaching about ordinary things in and extradorinaiy way. From this Savior and King comes an absolutely surprising teaching, where he presents simple facts, new facts for some, that call them into a different type of living. 

Out of the mouth of Jesus came this teaching, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” And people were probably shocked. Because if we are honest, how many of us would count mourning amongst our blessings. In fact, if we are deeply honest, mourning scares us and we often do whatever we can to avoid it. 

Mourning means that we are vulnerable. Often when we think about grief or mourning it is over someone we have loved and lost. Sometimes by death. Sometimes they simply walk out of our lives. Sometimes relationships are damaged beyond repair. And so the vulnerability of love means that those who deeply love, often deeply grieve. But does that mean that we shouldn’t love? By no means! In the vulnerability of love, we find life. We find connection. We find meaning. 

Nothing is more heart wrenching than loss. The loss of someone who dear to us. The loss of a job. The loss of an opportunity that we were counting on. And with loss comes mourning. As much as we would like to pretend otherwise, no one is immune from grief. Now, we all mourn differently. Mourning with flesh on it, looks different for each of us, but we still mourn. 

And yet, here is Jesus saying that those who mourn will be comforted. Whenever I read this scripture I think of what was perhaps my favorite praise song when I was in college, “If I Could Just Sit with You Awhile?” By MercyMe. “When I cannot feel, when my wounds don’t heal, Lord I humbly kneel, hidden in you… If I could just sit with you awhile. You could just hold me. Moment by moment ’til forever passes by.”

Every time I hear that song, it brings to mind the image of just sitting with Jesus and finding comfort. Finding healing. Seeking wholeness. And that is what Jesus is offering in this beatitude - compassion and hope. 

But that isn’t the troubling part is it? It’s almost the least starting part of the whole thing. It’s that word blessed. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Those who have walked through the darkness rarely say that it is a blessing. At least not in the moment. 

A few years ago our mid week Lenten study was based off of this book by Eric Elnes, Gifts of the Dark Woods and friends that is exactly what he was talking about. The blessings of darkness. The blessings we often overlook and the blessings we certainly don’t recognize in the moment. When our soul struggles, we trust and believe and put our hope in the fact that God draws near. That we can turn our eyes and hearts to Jesus when it seems like no one else understands what we are going through and Jesus is there. Jesus is present and Jesus understands. Was that book based off of this beatitude? No. But isn’t that what this beatitude is getting at?

This idea of God drawing near to those who are mourning was not new. The prophet Isaiah in the 61st chapter said this about mourning,  to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion—to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. 

Friends, scripture tells us that comfort comes from the heart of God. But scripture equally tells us that Jesus understands what it is to grieve. We have a Lord who wept over the entire city of Jerusalem before his passion. We have a Savior who wept for his friend Lazarus upon his death and for Mary and Martha who were grieving. 

And perhaps that is the most surprising and disturbing this about this passage. It is our Savior and King, who completely understands what we are going through because he has been there, who is walking beside us and offering us comfort in life’s darkest moments. Jesus, too, was vulnerable enough to love and to love those who didn’t love him in return. He had compassion on those who would crucify him. He lived out love and its vulnerability to the point of being broken wide open on a cross, Church. He knew our griefs and died our death and mourns with us, because he, also, loved openly and honestly. 

Friends, the beatitudes remind us that we don’t worship a distant God. We are in relationship with the Holy God, right here and right now. And that relationship isn’t reduced at its purest level to legal obligations. Its rooted in love. In hope. In compassion. Will you join me in an attitude of prayer?