"Mourning Has Broken": Living in the Blessed Sorrow and Joy of Jesus

As pastors and Christian workers, have we given the kingdom values of Jesus (as expressed in Matt.5) that are often quite counter-cultural to both our communities and congregations? 

My doctoral cohort in cross-cultural engagement intentionally took an entire course to consider how to apply Jesus' beatitudes to our lives and larger ministry contexts. Here is a brief consideration of just one such kingdom value— mourning.

This post was originally an assigned response to “Blessed are those who mourn”—not those who are spiritually comfortable by Paul Louis Metzger.

Are you comfy?

The second beatitude, “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted” continues Jesus’ highly counter-cultural teaching about the values of the kingdom of heaven. Unfortunately this beatitude, according to Dr. Metzger, “often devolves in our present context to read, ‘Blessed are the comfortable, for they will never mourn.’ If we are honest, many of us—including me—are tempted to prize consumer comfort in the religious and secular domain over most anything.”

Cemetery on Mount of Olives
(Photo: Vikki Dueker)

So what do we mourn as we follow Christ? Let me suggest at least four areas of mourning that might apply. We mourn...

• Human suffering and loss experienced personally and within our community.
• Sin—both our own sin and the sins of others. We are sorry to have been faithless in our relationship with God.
• How our own sin has impacted the lives of others at every level.
• Societal and systemic injustices in the world will grieve us deeply as we enter into the suffering of others.

These kinds of mourning are woven into the life of a disciple of Jesus. In fact, we are used to going to our own funerals. It is not like we are trying to be Tom Sawyer and attend our own funeral in order to hear what people say about us, but rather in order to say something about our Savior. Let me explain…

We die once in baptism. Baptism is like a funeral service for our "old nature" which died with Christ on the cross and now in the sacrament of baptism we are holding the funeral service as the "old nature" goes down into the water, symbolizing our burial with Christ (Romans 6:3-4; Colossians 2:11-15). In baptism, we are declaring that we are dead to sin and alive to Christ.  We are making public our decision to submit to Christ and to leave behind the sinful things of the past.  We are saying that we have determined that because of Christ's work on the cross; we will no longer allow sin to reign over us but instead will submit our lives to Christ, actively living for him.

We die daily…as Jesus' followers in many different ways as we consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6:11; 1 Cor. 15:31). We "overcome" by living a crucified life not by living a comfortable and self-confident life.

We enter into the heart of mourning, the emotional suffering of Christ, for lost and hurting people. Each time the world rejects the love of Christ offered through us, we mourn for their sake—for their loss. They may even celebrate when our lives and ministries are ended [I am reminded of the passage in Revelation 11 where the world celebrates the death of the two witnesses.] but even as we mourn their missed opportunities we trust the loving plan of God, and it is there that we find lasting comfort (2 Cor. 1:5).

Jesus the Messiah was "a man of sorrows" (Isaiah 53:3), for he saw the human condition more completely than anyone else ever has. Yet, he is also described as one anointed with "the oil of gladness" more than all his brothers (Psalm 45:7; Hebrews 1:9). How can this be? It is possible because he was in perfect union with his Heavenly Father. Those early morning conversations he had alone with the Father, and filled with the Holy Spirit, charged him with joy unspeakable which spilled over into unmatched gladness.

Just as Jesus could reverse the normal flow of uncleanness, touching even the lepers and healing them, so too he could touch the world, dwelling in our midst, and mourn over our stubborn blindness, our pain, and even death itself, without becoming morose. His pervasive good humor and full humanity reverse the flow and bring healing and comfort to those who mourn—even today. His very message is one of gladness (Isaiah 61:3) to those who mourn. 

Our own comfort, true comfort, is not found in avoiding the suffering and grief-filled world, but in joining Jesus as he engages with it. As Dr. Metzger noted in his original post, “The rest Jesus promises is the rest of sharing in his burden, carrying his yoke. It is indeed rest, for when Christ is Lord in their place he bears the brunt of the burden (See Matthew 11:28-30).”

Photo: Greg Dueker

If I may finish by borrowing a metaphor or two, there are times when mourning seems to break forth in overwhelming waves—a tsunami of sorrow—that seem to turn our respective worlds upside-down. Yet, in the very midst of grief, when we come to the end of our own resources, we get a glimpse of eternity and see that in the suffering of Christ, mourning has broken. 

There is a morning after our mourning.

Hope for Tomorrow

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4)