Blessed Are Those Who Mourn….
5:4 Blessed are those who mourn,
For they shall be comforted (Matt. 5:4).
Blessed are those who mourn, those who weep because they have turned away from their Creator, for they shall be comforted.
The man of the first Beatitude mourns his separation from God, and he recognizes that he has left God rather than God has left him. This is also part of the Good News.
To mourn does not appear to be blessed. We think of these two states as being at opposite ends of the spectrum, neither one compatible with the other.
And the promise of comfort seems distant to one who mourns, who is suffering a sense of loss from which recovery seems impossible.
Isaiah preached the Gospel in the Old Testament. Isaiah 61:1-3 describes the first four Beatitudes to the people of Israel who will listen. And Jesus read from these first two verses in the synagogue in Nazareth, according to Luke 4:17-22.
We see the people’s negative response in Luke 4:23-30. We also can see from the first verse why the imprisoned John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask if Jesus was the Messiah, and we can understand Jesus’ response.
Let us look at the following verses through the lens of an Israelite in the time of Isaiah until the time of Christ, and also as they were intended:
1 "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
3 To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.” (Isaiah 61:1-3 NKJV)
“Good tidings” is Strong’s H1319, basar. In the Greek the word is evangelion, and the Old English is god (good) + spel (news), now pronounced as Gospel.
This “Good News” is the report of a victory. In Isaiah 61:1-3, Isaiah
Those who are freed from the tyranny of a secular world without justice will be as the royal priesthood God envisioned in the Exodus (Ex. 19:6).
Isaiah’s vision for Israel is an early version of what Jesus envisioned for Israel – a kingdom of priests (Ex. 19:6), a holy nation in alignment with the Creator, and a light to the Gentiles (Is. 42:6, 49:6).
As Jesus does so often, He does not tell the people what they have not heard, but He speaks with a fresh perspective that gives them an understanding. The words shrouded in the mysteries of bygone times are spoken in ways that give them current relevance and clarity.
Isaiah 63 begins the story of how Israel turned aside and Chapter 64 of how Israel deserted God to its own harm. This is the lament of the prophets.
For Matthew 11:2-6, my Bible references Isaiah 29:18-19 and Isaiah 61:1. The people of Israel expected a Messiah who would perform the healing miracles of Jesus and establish a political kingdom.
John the Baptist, sitting in prison, sent his disciples to clarify whether Jesus was the expected one or not. Essentially, John was saying, “If you are the Coming One, why am I still in prison?”
Jesus responded by stating all the things that He had done to fulfill the Isaiah prophecy, but he omitted saying, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound. His mission was to free the people of Israel (and beyond) from the enslavement to sin.
In Matthew 11:11, Jesus speaks of John the Baptist as being the greatest of men, but goes on to say that “he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” John the Baptist expected a political Messiah, as did so many in Israel, including the disciples. Did anyone (except perhaps the poor and sick who had no hope) recognize Jesus' nature and mission?
We return to Jesus and those who mourn.
To mourn is proper when there is a sense of loss. In the physical world, there will always be much for which to mourn. Loss is always with us because death is an inevitable part of the departure from the rules of Eden. More importantly, the oneness of man and God had been lost, and chaos continually upsets the order mankind tries to establish on its own.
This sense of loss upon entering the kingdom, the shedding of the incorrect beliefs, is as sorrowful as losing a friend that has proven unfaithful. As with Paul, “forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead” (Phil. 3:13), we do not mourn what we have left behind so much as the momentary void between leaving and arriving, between casting off and replenishing.
Paul states, “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice” (Rom. 7:19). The recognition of this forces Paul to say, “O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me…?” (Rom. 7:24). Paul mourns his propensity to sin, his movement away from God. This is the natural reaction to the realization of our poverty of spirit.
Think back to how the Jesus’ disciples must have felt after His crucifixion. In the Gospels, we get an idea of their deep grief. They have not cast off their dreams of an earthly kingdom:
On the road to Emmaus, a disciple states, “”But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21);
And even when Jesus appeared to the disciples before His resurrection, “they asked Him, saying, ‘Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’” (Acts 1:6).
Think of the context of this time period. Sacrifices at the Temple were a mandatory part of Jewish life. The Israelites, offering their animal sacrifices in the Courtyard, were to mourn their sin, as well as the loss of life that sin had inflicted upon their sacrifice.
We respond to the constant presence of an unpleasant circumstance with a sense of resigned expectation. An unblemished lamb was offered in the morning, and another in the evening, day after day, year after year, in addition to the other sacrifices ordained for specific events and times. A river of blood traced the days of the calendar.
Numbness to the death and blood of the sacrifices was the human defense against the constant horror. The link between sin and sacrifice, our spiritual death and the death of the atoning sacrifice, was lost.
By the time of Jesus, the sacrifices had become self-focused rituals. In this post crucifixion age, have we become numb to the death of Jesus and His sacrifice, also?
As with the Israelites, the followers of Christ also mourned the conditions that had led to His sacrifice.
The sacrifice of Jesus, the loss of His physical presence, caused these early followers to “repent,” to rethink Christ and His meaning. Visions of a physical kingdom on earth began to fade. These illusions necessarily had been dashed by His Crucifixion. Indeed, their expectations had been crucified with Him, offered on the Altar of Sacrifice, and now they mourned their multiple losses.
Luke’s Beatitude expresses this concept well.
Luke 6:21b “Blessed are you who weep now,
For you shall laugh.”
Luke 6:25b “Woe to you who laugh now,
For you shall mourn and weep.”
Luke’s brief blessing and curse can be misunderstood as a praise for all weeping and condemnation for all laughing on this earth. Neither the reality of this world nor the context support this.
Weeping and laughter are common to all men, believers and unbelievers. The motive for the emotion is the key to whether one is to be blessed (happy) or cursed (not happy).
“Blessed are those who mourn.” Blessed are those who recognize the high cost of sin: “The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord,” says the apostle Paul (Rom. 6:23).
The consolation of the mourner is the assurance of comfort. What is past cannot be undone, but it may be forgiven, regarded as if it had never happened. This, too, is part of the Good News.
To mourn and yet to be considered blessed sounds contradictory. God had promised: “’Return to Me and I will return to you…’” (Malachi 3:7). And this is the cause for blessedness and happiness, that by returning we now have hope for a new future.
Conforming to the world is hard work. Values are shifting in a man-centered world. Goals, too, are arbitrary and shifting. There is constant striving, but no attaining. There is the promise of peace without the reality of peace.
This is the blessing of our mourning. We can see the promise of peace ahead. We are not there yet, but the chaos of the secular world begins to slip into the past. We are on the road, as to Emmaus, searching for the narrow way but confident we will be led as we give up control.
At this point, we are moving away from the world. Aware of God’s calling and our half-hearted response, we mourn. We have acknowledged the poverty of our spiritual life (and, therefore, of our physical life), and we desire to begin anew. We are ready for the next step toward God.
Next article
5:4 Blessed are those who mourn,
For they shall be comforted (Matt. 5:4).
Blessed are those who mourn, those who weep because they have turned away from their Creator, for they shall be comforted.
The man of the first Beatitude mourns his separation from God, and he recognizes that he has left God rather than God has left him. This is also part of the Good News.
To mourn does not appear to be blessed. We think of these two states as being at opposite ends of the spectrum, neither one compatible with the other.
And the promise of comfort seems distant to one who mourns, who is suffering a sense of loss from which recovery seems impossible.
Isaiah preached the Gospel in the Old Testament. Isaiah 61:1-3 describes the first four Beatitudes to the people of Israel who will listen. And Jesus read from these first two verses in the synagogue in Nazareth, according to Luke 4:17-22.
We see the people’s negative response in Luke 4:23-30. We also can see from the first verse why the imprisoned John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask if Jesus was the Messiah, and we can understand Jesus’ response.
Let us look at the following verses through the lens of an Israelite in the time of Isaiah until the time of Christ, and also as they were intended:
1 "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
3 To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.” (Isaiah 61:1-3 NKJV)
“Good tidings” is Strong’s H1319, basar. In the Greek the word is evangelion, and the Old English is god (good) + spel (news), now pronounced as Gospel.
This “Good News” is the report of a victory. In Isaiah 61:1-3, Isaiah
- preaches the Gospel to the poor (humble, lowly, meek, poor – those of the first Beatitude);
- heals the brokenhearted (discouraged – those who mourn in the second Beatitude);
- proclaims liberty to the captives and open their prison (figuratively, salvation from sin);
- comforts those who mourn (second Beatitude);
- gives those who will accept it the garment (vestment, as a robe of priestly service, vs. 6) of praise (third Beatitude);
- that they may be called trees of righteousness (fourth Beatitude).
Those who are freed from the tyranny of a secular world without justice will be as the royal priesthood God envisioned in the Exodus (Ex. 19:6).
Isaiah’s vision for Israel is an early version of what Jesus envisioned for Israel – a kingdom of priests (Ex. 19:6), a holy nation in alignment with the Creator, and a light to the Gentiles (Is. 42:6, 49:6).
As Jesus does so often, He does not tell the people what they have not heard, but He speaks with a fresh perspective that gives them an understanding. The words shrouded in the mysteries of bygone times are spoken in ways that give them current relevance and clarity.
Isaiah 63 begins the story of how Israel turned aside and Chapter 64 of how Israel deserted God to its own harm. This is the lament of the prophets.
For Matthew 11:2-6, my Bible references Isaiah 29:18-19 and Isaiah 61:1. The people of Israel expected a Messiah who would perform the healing miracles of Jesus and establish a political kingdom.
John the Baptist, sitting in prison, sent his disciples to clarify whether Jesus was the expected one or not. Essentially, John was saying, “If you are the Coming One, why am I still in prison?”
Jesus responded by stating all the things that He had done to fulfill the Isaiah prophecy, but he omitted saying, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound. His mission was to free the people of Israel (and beyond) from the enslavement to sin.
In Matthew 11:11, Jesus speaks of John the Baptist as being the greatest of men, but goes on to say that “he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” John the Baptist expected a political Messiah, as did so many in Israel, including the disciples. Did anyone (except perhaps the poor and sick who had no hope) recognize Jesus' nature and mission?
We return to Jesus and those who mourn.
To mourn is proper when there is a sense of loss. In the physical world, there will always be much for which to mourn. Loss is always with us because death is an inevitable part of the departure from the rules of Eden. More importantly, the oneness of man and God had been lost, and chaos continually upsets the order mankind tries to establish on its own.
This sense of loss upon entering the kingdom, the shedding of the incorrect beliefs, is as sorrowful as losing a friend that has proven unfaithful. As with Paul, “forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead” (Phil. 3:13), we do not mourn what we have left behind so much as the momentary void between leaving and arriving, between casting off and replenishing.
Paul states, “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice” (Rom. 7:19). The recognition of this forces Paul to say, “O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me…?” (Rom. 7:24). Paul mourns his propensity to sin, his movement away from God. This is the natural reaction to the realization of our poverty of spirit.
Think back to how the Jesus’ disciples must have felt after His crucifixion. In the Gospels, we get an idea of their deep grief. They have not cast off their dreams of an earthly kingdom:
On the road to Emmaus, a disciple states, “”But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21);
And even when Jesus appeared to the disciples before His resurrection, “they asked Him, saying, ‘Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’” (Acts 1:6).
Think of the context of this time period. Sacrifices at the Temple were a mandatory part of Jewish life. The Israelites, offering their animal sacrifices in the Courtyard, were to mourn their sin, as well as the loss of life that sin had inflicted upon their sacrifice.
We respond to the constant presence of an unpleasant circumstance with a sense of resigned expectation. An unblemished lamb was offered in the morning, and another in the evening, day after day, year after year, in addition to the other sacrifices ordained for specific events and times. A river of blood traced the days of the calendar.
Numbness to the death and blood of the sacrifices was the human defense against the constant horror. The link between sin and sacrifice, our spiritual death and the death of the atoning sacrifice, was lost.
By the time of Jesus, the sacrifices had become self-focused rituals. In this post crucifixion age, have we become numb to the death of Jesus and His sacrifice, also?
As with the Israelites, the followers of Christ also mourned the conditions that had led to His sacrifice.
The sacrifice of Jesus, the loss of His physical presence, caused these early followers to “repent,” to rethink Christ and His meaning. Visions of a physical kingdom on earth began to fade. These illusions necessarily had been dashed by His Crucifixion. Indeed, their expectations had been crucified with Him, offered on the Altar of Sacrifice, and now they mourned their multiple losses.
Luke’s Beatitude expresses this concept well.
Luke 6:21b “Blessed are you who weep now,
For you shall laugh.”
Luke 6:25b “Woe to you who laugh now,
For you shall mourn and weep.”
Luke’s brief blessing and curse can be misunderstood as a praise for all weeping and condemnation for all laughing on this earth. Neither the reality of this world nor the context support this.
Weeping and laughter are common to all men, believers and unbelievers. The motive for the emotion is the key to whether one is to be blessed (happy) or cursed (not happy).
“Blessed are those who mourn.” Blessed are those who recognize the high cost of sin: “The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord,” says the apostle Paul (Rom. 6:23).
The consolation of the mourner is the assurance of comfort. What is past cannot be undone, but it may be forgiven, regarded as if it had never happened. This, too, is part of the Good News.
To mourn and yet to be considered blessed sounds contradictory. God had promised: “’Return to Me and I will return to you…’” (Malachi 3:7). And this is the cause for blessedness and happiness, that by returning we now have hope for a new future.
Conforming to the world is hard work. Values are shifting in a man-centered world. Goals, too, are arbitrary and shifting. There is constant striving, but no attaining. There is the promise of peace without the reality of peace.
This is the blessing of our mourning. We can see the promise of peace ahead. We are not there yet, but the chaos of the secular world begins to slip into the past. We are on the road, as to Emmaus, searching for the narrow way but confident we will be led as we give up control.
At this point, we are moving away from the world. Aware of God’s calling and our half-hearted response, we mourn. We have acknowledged the poverty of our spiritual life (and, therefore, of our physical life), and we desire to begin anew. We are ready for the next step toward God.
Next article
