One of the most emotional paintings I’ve ever looked at is Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica.” I haven’t seen it in person but only pictures online. Which, judging by the impact of seeing it online I can only imagine the effect of seeing it in person. It is huge at 12ft high by 26 feet long. There is no color, just black and white.
And its horrifying. He painted it as a response to the bombing of the town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War and to protest the destruction and suffering caused by war. The whole scene is chaotic and wrenching, you can hear the screams coming through the visual of each disfigured character – from the mother holding a dead child, or the wounded horse, or the dead soldier, or the random person in agony off to the right. That they are disfigured enough emotionally is obvious from the tormented moment they are painted in, but their suffering seems to be captured even more by Picasso’s painting unique style.
The chaotic suffering in the scene is hard to make sense of, and your mind tries to put the whole thing into some kind of order. But that’s just it – you can’t, and you’re not supposed to be able to. Your mind is trying to make sense of something that Picasso is showing us doesn’t make sense. War, destruction, death, suffering, violence, tragedy – it doesn’t make sense.
The visual almost verbalizes a question that has been asked wherever there have been humans: Why tragedy? Why do bad things happen? Maybe the question can be even more penetrating: why are the worst human experiences the least able to be explained? Grief can’t be explained at times, it can’t be made sense of. It almost seems to reduce people to something very elemental or primal, as when King Lear wailed over the death of his daughter, “Howl! Howl! Howl! Howl! O you are men of stones: Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so that heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone forever! Has grief ever stripped you of everything so that you could only respond with Howl!?
Job showed us how grief can make you wish for death, “Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul, to those who long for death that does not come…who are filled with gladness [finally] and rejoice when they reach the grave? For sighing has become my daily food; my groans pour out like water. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.”
If you have walked in the shadow of grief and mourning, then maybe this is touching close to home.
Our focus today is Matthew 5:4, where Jesus said,, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” What Jesus shows us is that faith in the midst of mourning is the reason why those who mourn are blessed. People can mourn, but the key to understanding Jesus here is understanding that our mourning is led by our faith, and as we’ll see, our faith will even lead to mourning.
MOURNING
Jesus says blessed are those who mourn.
First, there is a time for mourning
(Ecc 3:1-8; 4:1-3; 7:2,4; 8:6). A season for everything – including mourning. There are times when it is right to mourn and appropriate to mourn. To not mourn would be inappropriate.
APPLICATION: A life of faith does not mean the absence of mourning, sadness and grief. A life of faith means mourning is different from the mourning of those without faith.
Second, the bible shows us different reasons for mourning.
- Death of loved ones. Think of the powerful expressions of sorrow in the bible from people who lost loved ones: Isaac when Rachel died, the sons of Jacob when he died, the nation of Israel when Moses died, David over Jonathan’s death, Job in the face of all his loss, the disciples mourning Jesus’ death, Christians mourning Stephen’s death, John the Baptist’s disciples mourning his death, even Jesus mourning Lazarus death. Paul said that when God healed Epaphroditus and spared him from death that he spared Paul “sorrow upon sorrow.”
The death of ones that we love is a time for grief and sorrow.
APPLICATION: Enter into your grief. Embrace your own mourning. Do not suppress it. Do not deny it. Do not think the manly or strong thing to do is act like you’re untouched by painful emotion. The stoic or the stiff upper lip is not biblical. The godliest of men gave full expression to their grief. Give expression to yours too. - Sin of Christians. First Corinthians 5:2 addresses a congregation that was not responding to sin in their fellowship the way they should, “And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has done this?” The sin of this man was very bad, and they should have experienced the stress of grief and lamented that it happened.
The Corinthian church gave their pastor Paul a lot of stress. He would say in his next letter to them, in 2 Corinthians 12:21, “I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grief over many who have sinnered earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged.” “Grief” is the same word as Jesus used, “blessed are those who mourn.” Christians sinning is cause for mourning and grief by other Christians.
Like the death of a loved one, the sin of Christians is cause for mourning. These are episodes in life where the right response is to mourn. The reason is because the right inner response to sin will lead to the right outward response. They should have shown the man the door, but they didn’t. The didn’t because they didn’t “feel” the right way they should have about what he did. If they had felt the grief over what was done they would have done what they should have. - Our own sin. I don’t think we can truly mourn the sin of others in a godly way until we have actually mourned our own sins. James 4:8-10 says “Wash your hands you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up.” James is saying that people who sin should not be rejoicing or be glad in heart. They should be weeping, grieving, mourning. Rather than lifting up glasses toasting the joy of life, they should be tearing their clothes over the gloom of their sin.
- The wrongness of this world. This is different than the episodic reasons for mourning in the previous two examples. This is maybe what we can call the epoch of mourning. Its the epoch or era that we live in right now and that will continue until Christ returns and makes everything right. Until then, so much is wrong, so much is painful, tear-filled, unjust, evil….all things that are reasons to mourn and weep. Think of Lot when he lived in Sodom. Second Peter 2 says this about Lot: that he was “a righteous man and was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard.)” That is how we feel as we look out day after day at all the depraved and lawless conduct of the world. That is how we feel as we see it touching our own lives in various ways. That is how we feel when we wrestle with our own evil flesh. We long for it all to end. We mourn our sin, the sin of loved ones, the sin of Christians, the sin of this world.
Here is what I think Solomon was getting at in Ecclesiastes. In 1:18 he said “For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.” Wisdom causes grief and sorrow. (Perhaps this is where we get the inverse of this parable: “Ignorance is bliss,” because Solomon is asserting that wisdom is grief). Why though? Why does Solomon say that wisdom increases sorrow and grief? I will propose my answer:
Wisdom causes grief because wisdom means knowing what God’s will is and what pleases God. In other words its knowing what is right and what the right thing to do is. Yet, in knowing that, and then seeing all that is wrong with the world and how far from being “right” it is, it causes grief. In other words, it causes grief in those who know what righteousness is and long to see it yet they don’t see it. They see the opposite of it in so much of the world.
APPLICATION: Mourn this world. Mourn this epoch in which we live. I am personally going to start practicing in my own prayer life designated times when my focus is just prayerfully and in fasting – lamenting this world, and the failures of the Body of Christ, and my own failures as a son of God. I think this heightens your sensitivity to what is holy and what is sin. It is PRACTICING a love and a concern for what is right and holy. Here’s the thing about practice: it shapes and forms you. So let us practice intentional mourning and grieving.
COMFORT WILL COME
Comfort will come. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn for they WILL BE comforted.” That is the language of promise, and guarantee. Psalm 126:5-6 says, “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.”
APPLICATION: Know that as certain as mourning and grief is to come, so too does the comfort of our God to those who trust Him.
This promise of comfort I think is offered in two ways: now and later.
First, there is comfort now. The blessing of comfort I would interpret large enough to include comfort now, in this life. This is the comfort that we find in God and in Christ now in the middle of difficult circumstances. Jms 1:2; 2 Cor ___; This is the comfort that Christ gives us now in this life, when trials come, and when this world is all wrong. Its a comfort that does not come from everything being “right” in our life, and right in this world. Its a comfort that comes from our Savior.
“When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow;
for I will be near thee, thy troubles to bless,
and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
my grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
the flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.
Second, comfort later. This is what I think Jesus was getting at in John 16:33, “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” He has overcome the world in His death and resurrection, which forms the basis of our salvation and now allows for the future kingdom to come and be established. In this kingdom it will be a great reversal: the least shall be the greatest, the lowest shall be the highest, and so on.
After his life of arrogant and indifferent luxury was over, the rich man who was suffering in Hell was informed by Abraham, “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.” Lazarus’ comfort did not come until later in the next life.
Revelation 21:4 has that beautiful promise that we have all heard so often, and it is a promise of comfort to come later in the next life, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes . There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Blessed are those who mourn now in this old order that we currently live in, yet who have put their faith in Jesus Christ, because they will be comforted in the new order when it finally comes.
It’s similar to what Jesus told the church in Smyrna, “I know your poverty, yet you are rich!” They were materially poor while alive on this earth, yet they were owners of incredible wealth in the age to come after this life was over. In the same way, Jesus could tell those who mourn now, “I know your grief, yet you are happy!” They grieve this life, this old order, the curse and sin from the fall, yet, happiness is there, it’s coming, and they will step fully into it.
A great passage to cap this thought off is Revelation 7:14-17….turn there with me…..
CONCLUSION: The Mourning of Christ
The mourning Jesus describes here in the Beatitudes follows the pattern of His own mourning and grief. He took up His grief in this world only to enter into His blessed joy after. “He was despised and rejected, by mankind” Isaiah 53 says, “a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.” Our Savior was not just crowned with thorns, but grief. In that vulnerable moment in the Garden He said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” One of the most haunting and captivating songs is Stricken, Smitten & Afflicted. The 2nd and 3rd verses go like this:
Tell me, ye who hear him groaning
Was there ever grief like his?
Friends thro’ fear his cause disowning
Foes insulting his distress
Many hands were raised to wound him
None would interpose to save
Yet the deepest stroke that pierced him
Was the stroke that Justice gave
Ye who think of sin but lightly
Nor suppose the evil great
Here may view its nature rightly
Here its guilt may estimate
Mark the sacrifice appointed
See who bears the awful load
‘Tis the Word, the Lord’s Anointed
Son of Man and Son of God
There is a mourning and grief we will never taste because Jesus tasted it for us. The suffering of Jesus makes Picasso’s Guernica look like a sunny day. The awfulness of hell will include weeping, gnashing of teeth, all while in the jaws of grief and mourning. That penalty of our was taken by Jesus for our sake. You must come to the place where you grieve over your sin. Then you must come to the place where all your sin was brought by God: the cross. Then you must come to the One who took every one of your sins on Himself: Jesus Christ. Look to Him. Look and believe. Look and believe. Weep in your sins. But rejoice in your forgiveness. Weep in looking at your sins. But rejoice in looking at Christ, who forgives you every single one of them.
SILENT REFLECTION: