The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is a high point in the teaching of Jesus. While the primary reason Jesus came was to be with us and show us how God loved us by dying for us, his teaching provided an essential context for his actions. Actions alone are ambiguous without the Word that gives them their meaning.
The Beatitudes are a sequence of blessings that Jesus pronounces. They serve as an alternative to the values of the world. They show that God values those things the world considers worthless. They speak of how God’s presence makes a difference, transforming those things we ordinarily would consider tragedies into means whereby God can connect with us and bring us to a better place.
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Jesus here speaks about the tragedy of relational pain and loss. Most of us want to avoid experiencing this kind of pain at all costs. We protect ourselves and make sure that if anyone is going to mourn, it will be someone else. We will guard our hearts against rejection, never investing ourselves too greatly in relationships. And yet here, as in many other instances, Jesus speaks paradoxically to show how God’s blessing falls on those who experience the pain of rejection and loss.
To get a grip on what is happening here, we must understand this word blessing. Unfortunately it is another “God-talk” word that easily becomes divorced from our understanding. But it is a deep, rich word that has roots both in the Old Testament and in Greek thought.
For the Greeks, this word was ambivalent and ironic. They had a saying, said by the wise man Solon: “Call no man blessed until he is dead.” By this they meant that this life is so uncertain that one can never be sure that one’s present state of blessedness (or happiness) would last.
They told a story about Croesus, the King of Lydia. He was the richest man of his time. He was visited by a wise man named Solon. Croesus showed Solon his wealth and asked if he (Croesus) was not the happiest (i.e. most blessed) man in the world. Solon gave names of others whom he considered happier, and told Croesus not to consider himself happy until he was dead. Croesus sent Solon away with no accolades, thinking him foolish rather than wise.
From this point on, however, Croesus’ fortunes turned bad. His son was killed by accident, and then, following ambiguous oracles, he made war on the Medians. But he lost and was captured by Cyrus. Cyrus was going to put him to death by fire, but when Croesus was on the pyre he cried out “Solon, Solon, Solon!” Cyrus spared him to find out what he meant, and hearing the story of his encounter with Solon, he made him his adviser. Thus Croesus came to understand the wisdom of Solon.
While the Greeks considered blessedness to be a divine attribute, they saw it as forever alien to the human condition, which was mired in change: they used the word “fortune” to describe the way our situation would become better or worse as circumstances affected us. For the Hebrews, on the other hand, blessedness was more solid. It was connected with a relationship with God. Their blessedness as God’s people was connected with their adherence to the covenant whereby God was their God and they were his people. Similarly, a man was blessed by avoiding wickedness and meditating on God’s law (Psalm 1). The result of this kind of blessing was security and earthly happiness.
Jesus took the notion of blessedness to a new level. Rather than focusing on earthly, circumstantial happiness, he spoke of it as a spiritual condition, one that transcended the human condition. And so he could speak of it in paradoxical terms. The first beatitude, for example, speaks of the “poor in spirit.” By this he means, I believe, someone whose poverty is “on the inside,” someone who carries his poverty around with him. We would call him a “loser.” No matter what he does, it does not work out. He is a failure at life.
Who would want someone like that? Nobody wants to be around a loser. But that kind of person — “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” God wants him.
In the same way, the intense paradox of the second beatitude speaks of a reality beyond circumstance. Nobody wants to mourn, and nobody really wants to be around someone who is mourning. Who wants to listen to someone who goes on and on about his pain?
Again — the answer is that beyond circumstance is God. For the one who mourns, there is a blessedness that transcends the pain. We may love and lose. We may be rejected and even betrayed. But Jesus tells us that on the other side of that is comfort.
It is tempting to see this in individual terms, as if Jesus was saying that people may let you down, but God can be trusted. But I believe that there is an aspect of this that speaks about the Church as a place of comfort. Paul seems to have tapped in to this when he says the following:
Praised be the God and Father and of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassions and the God of all comfort.
He comforts us in all our troubles, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble by the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
For as the sufferings of Christ overflow in us, in the same way our consolation also overflows through Christ. And if we are in trouble, it is for your comfort and salvation, which becomes effective in your endurance of the same sufferings which we also suffer; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort and salvation, knowing that as you are partners of our sufferings, so shall you also be of the consolation.
– 2 Corinthians 1:3-7 (my translation)
Paul seems to have in mind a “fellowship of suffering” in which we share with one another how God comforted us in the midst of our sufferings, and sharing the story of our sufferings and God’s comfort allows others to be comforted in the same way.
This, it seems to me, takes mourning to a new level. Paul talks about “boasting in our sufferings” in Romans 5. Note that this is often translated as “rejoicing” in our sufferings, but the Greek word is the same as that used in Romans 4 and elsewhere to mean “boast”. While rejoicing is more of an inner state, boasting has an outward aspect. It seem Paul is talking about the idea that our sufferings, and the resulting comfort and benefit, become the common property of the church as a whole for the building up of the body.
I believe this is part of what binds us together — the common suffering and comfort that springs from our fellowship as believers. Often the means whereby God chooses to comfort us is when our brothers and sisters come along side us, hearing us out and sharing the way God has worked in their own lives.
Thus the mourning that the world sees as a tragedy becomes the means whereby we are bound together with bonds of love and gratitude.
This is my favorite!! Blessed are those who mourn!