The Beatitudes Part 2: How Mourning Can Become a Blessing

_{Note: This post is part two in a series of eight posts on the Beatitudes.}

HOW MOURNING CAN BECOME A BLESSING
MATTHEW 5: 4
“BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN, 
FOR THEY SHALL BE COMFORTED.”  

Jesus Christ had the capacity of distilling an ocean of fact into a drop of truth.  He revolutionized the world’s ideals.  He inverted His society’s concepts.  He who was sharing these truths was the living embodiment of them.

Jesus Christ was a living incarnation of His teachings.  The Beatitudes are a pocket-sized biography of Christ.

The Greek word for mourning, pentheo, means a grief that consumes the whole person.  Christ is a spiritual seismograph, sensing the needs of His subjects.  He knew mourning was inescapable.  His intent is to give it meaning and purpose. God takes no pleasure in our pain.  He will take a part.

Mourning is sober judgment.  It prompts people to weigh values.  It reveals one’s true character. The blackest of velvet is used to display the rarest of diamonds.  This speaks of those who have not realized and acknowledged their spiritual poverty. Sorrow in life is inevitable. What we sorrow over is what matters. This sorrow, mourning, is over our former spiritual arrogance and reluctance to acknowledge our spiritual poverty.

Mourning is a corrective of a condition.  It is essential to recovery from an adverse condition. Godly sorrow results in repentance. To mourn is natural.  It is not optional.  Our response is optional.  Sorrow with a purging purpose is profitable.  It is mourning with a meaning.  It can bring godly repentance. That is why it is a blessing.

The word “comforted” comes from two parts: “com” meaning together with and “fort” meaning strength. Christ shares His strength and together with Him we become strong.

If mourning over sin brings us to this conclusion commissioned by Emperor Fredrick III by the faculty of Heidelberg University, the oldest university in Europe, to write a statement of faith in 1562

The Heidelberg Catechism:
“Question:  What is your only comfort in life and death?
Answer:  That I, with body and soul, both in life and death am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserved me that without the will of my Heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; yea that all things must be subservient to my salvation, wherefore by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready henceforth to live unto Him.”

Pause now and talk with the Lord about your own core of values.