HAPPY MOURNING TO YOU

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted." Matthew 5:4 (CSB)

To be well off, rich, better than others are those who are mourn.

What a strange statement from our Lord. How do mourning and happiness go together? The Beatitudes of our Lord at first glance seems to be loaded with paradoxes. Concepts that don’t seem to go together. Here is one of these statements.

The Greek word means to lament over, be sad, express grief over oneself. Jesus is saying that to be happy, we need to sad, how fortunate to be unfortunate, rejoice because we are weeping.

Not exactly the way I would consider true happiness. How about you?

This would not make sense without the first Beatitude. When we intellectually come to the realization that we are utterly dependent upon God, we come face to face with our pride. And when we mourn over our sins that create this dependence –  we are emotionally reacting to the truth.

Both are needed in the Christian life.

Some live entirely by intellectual understandings.  They KNOW the truth.  It is HEAD knowledge. That is not enough. We must have HEART knowledge to make the truth complete. Move the 18 inches from our heads to our hearts.

So, what does this mean? I can KNOW something is wrong and still do it. Remember Tweety Bird in the cartoons – “If I do’s it I will hate myself in the morning. I do’s it.” There is a story of man stealing hay and seeking confession. He said, forgive me for I have stolen half a load of hay – no wait, make that a whole load, I’m going back for the rest tonight.”

I must have a heartfelt conviction that something is wrong to keep me from it or to change from it.

Consider that Jesus did not say, “Blessed are they that moan…” When we are burdened we often come to God complaining, questioning His wisdom, His right to do this.

He said mourn – to recognize the need and then present it to God.

The worldly value that this clashes with is the concept that we must be happy at any cost. The world creates the desire in us that we must always be happy. Happy comes to us from words that meant chance, luck, accident. Happy is what happens to us.

Jesus will challenge us at other times to have JOY, not HAPPINESS. Joy is what is sitting at our core – happiness is based on what happens to us. When the things happening to us is not good – we tend to moan or mourn. Jesus says we should mourn over the sin that causes this emotion.

So, today, choose to mourn.