Happy are the Mourning

I never knew my Grandpa Luke. But I wish I did.

Stories shared by my grandmother, family, and friends make me wish for one afternoon walk around the property there on Highway 52 with him. Nevertheless, I’m thankful for the stories, legacy, and hairline he left me.

I was, however, fortunate enough to know and spend significant time with my other grandparents as a kid. Playing in the yard, working in the garden, sitting around the table, sharing meals, listening to stories. My grandfather’s work ethic; nothing like it. My grandmothers’ cooking; nothing better. My mom learned from the best.

But then death did what death does; acted as a thief and took them away. And our family mourned. We cried. We grieved. Well, I’m not much of a cry-er. So I held it together as best as I could.

For all three of my grandparents, I spoke at their funeral. And the words I tried to muster up really couldn’t do justice for the impact they had on the lives of family and friends who gathered to celebrate their lives. But fortunately, for many of us, though the funeral ceremony produced a weight of sadness, we experienced a glimmer of hope.

Jesus said, “happy are those that mourn.” That seems so counterintuitive because we often associate mourning and grief with experiences of sadness. So it’s interesting to note what Jesus actually meant in relation to what He had just spoken.

He had just said that the spiritually poor and impoverished are to be happy because theirs is the kingdom of God. But He then speaks to the comfort that those who mourn would receive. Not only could Jesus physically comfort those who mourn the detriment of physical pain and death, but there’s a much deeper insight to our spiritual being at play in these words.

We are, by nature, sinful people separated from God. And until we embrace the reality of our need for His intervention in our lives we will remain separated from Him and broken in our wayward, wretched ways. Our sin must break our heart because it breaks the heart of God.

We must mourn over our sin. We must become grieved by our sin. Not pitied because we are deemed guilty in our sin. Not saddened because we’ve been found out, and must now accept the consequences that sin brings into our life. But truly remorseful. Repentant.

Paul speaks to this thought about being grieved over our sin. “For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death” (2 Cor 7:10).

There is a natural progression of statements that Jesus is making in regards to the spiritual transformation He wants to see occur in our lives. He speaks of poverty, grief, and submission.

Jesus proceeds to say, “happy are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” That word, meek, is not a word used regularly in my vocabulary. So with a bit of research it became more evident that what Jesus was saying is that our journey from being spiritually poor to spiritually rich would require an act of surrender; to forgo one way of life to embrace another.

The person who is poor in spirit focuses on admission; I have sinned. Those that mourn have a decision; I am sorry. Those who are meek focus on direction; I choose to change. You can admit poverty and choose not to change, continuing to live in the same mess that can never be cleaned up apart from God’s intervention in your life. But you will not mourn or be grieved by your sin without it affecting some kind of change.

Let’s make it personal. At least for me. I want to ask myself a few questions. And maybe you can ask yourself these questions as well. Do I really believe I’m a sinner who is spiritually poor and separated from God? Does my sin really bother me to the point of being grieved over breaking the heart of God? Am I willing to surrender my current way of doing life and choose to submit myself to the authority and leadership of Christ in my life?

Today I remember that there is a godly sorrow, a grief over sin, that leads to repentance. And we do not grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thess 4:13). I choose to take Jesus at His word that when I admit, mourn, and submit that He will give me all that He says and I will be happy in knowing that He is greater and provides more than all I could think or imagine.