Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Julie

I’ve taken two funerals in the last couple of weeks for ladies I’ve known all my life, so I’ve spent quite a bit of time with people who are mourning the loss of a loved one. As I’ve been preparing for this blog series, I’ve been reflecting how people who mourn have known love, have known what it is to love, and noted that part of love is loss, and that there is a blessing in knowing that love.

In ministering to those who are grieving, I often use the well-known quote, “Grief is the price we pay for love”, which links back to the community values of the Beatitudes that we were speaking about earlier. If you are a completely independent, self-sufficient person, and are living by values that are the opposite of the Beatitudes can you truly mourn the loss of someone? Our dependence on other people, our love for others means we will mourn their death.

Craig

This is a really helpful place to begin, because I also have a recent experience of a funeral – actually a humanist funeral – and I was left deeply impressed that the fact there was no need to end that 30 minute slot in the crematorium with an assurance that the dead person is in heaven, or that God has forgiven them for their sins, was far more emotionally healthy and honest experience. It seemed to me to be a depiction of the Jewish practice of sitting Shiva, which is first referred to in Genesis 50 and is part of Jewish practice today. In Shiva there are seven days where they would do nothing but mourn. It made me reflect that we can be encouraged by tradition, or by others, to move on far too quickly through the use of religious platitudes. And yes, I would use that word, because the way some Christian theologies leap to assure us that going to heaven is what life and death is all about is a complete misrepresentation of what Jesus taught.

Mourning is essential. In our busy world you couldn’t set aside seven days just to sit with the reality of death, but we are often given compassionate leave. Too much of that time is spent dealing with banks, landlords, wills and whatever else, rather than actually taking in the reality that we have loved and we have lost. 

So Jesus is not romanticising suffering. He is describing real loss, real grief. Which points to the fact that we inhabit a broken world, and one which doesn’t always deliver us everything we would like.

Roy

Suffering and pain are real.

Craig

Yeah, and I would point out that values we would think of as wise, life-affirming and human are currently being trampled by those with power. It is very easy in these days not to listen to the news for the sake of our own mental health, and I do think it is important that we restrict the number of times we hear bad news, but to resist engaging with reality is pretending suffering and mourning is not happening. It seems essential that we do acknowledge that there is mourning happening across the planet, and that creation is groaning. To carry on with life in such a way as to ignore the fact that others are mourning seems crass, even though we are currently insulated from their mourning by the mere accident of geography.

Roy

Are we not reflecting the nature of God when we mourn, believing that God weeps and mourns over the brokenness, over the suffering, over the pain, over the injustice, over the exploitation. It seems important that, having acknowledged our dependency upon God and our relationship with God, we feel something of what God feels for his world, which in turn should both motivate and determine how we live our lives.

Simon

I don’t think Jesus is saying you should go out and push your brother in front of a bus so that you can mourn, and that this would be a great thing. When people insist that Jesus wasn’t political, this can be an invitation to read his words very individualistically and personally, when they wouldn’t have been heard that way at the time. We know in Luke 4 that Jesus quotes from Isaiah 61, where the prophet describes his mission as being to comfort all who mourn and to provide for those who grieve in Zion, bestowing on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair – which of course reflects the first Beatitude. So Jesus is directly referencing the political aspirations of Israel for a land to return to, the place where they will belong so they can govern themselves. There’s no way that people listening to Jesus at that time wouldn’t have heard those echoes, especially as the next Beatitude is all about being given the land. So we can over-personalise this. I think it’s absolutely appropriate that Jesus says, if you’re grieving for the state of your nation you are living the good life because there is then this opportunity for God to break in.

Craig

I think mourning in the ways you’ve just described is an indication that somewhere in our minds there is an alternative vision of the way things could be. Something more positive that we’re pulling ourselves towards is a blessing in itself. We are not victims who can do nothing. We have an alternative vision. We have something that we believe is possible even in the midst of chaos.

Julie

Yes, we grieve because things are not the way they’re supposed to be. There’s something within us that says things should be better than this. And that’s not a personal want for myself or selfish desire. It’s for society to be fairer and more just.

Helen

It can be that in knowing things were better before we lost those people or things or circumstances, we recognise their value to us – the way they impacted our lives, and that can be a selfish desire, I guess, and maybe that’s ok? When we recognise the value of what we have lost it affects how we see life, people and society moving forwards. Maybe it will affect how we attempt to play our part in affecting positive change?

Craig

And I think that’s what Jesus is leaning towards in Matthew 9, when he says that it is not appropriate for the wedding guests to fast whilst the source of hope is amongst them. It is vital to acknowledge pain, and also to remind ourselves that there is a season for all things.

Julie

I would add there’s an authenticity in mourning as well. Rather than masking our emotions or hiding them, shedding tears or however we process our grief and our mourning, is an authentic thing. It’s just occurred to me this relates to our value of living authentically!

Simon

Recognising that comfort is not being patted on the back and someone uttering meaningless words. The comfort that’s offered in Isaiah 40 is personal – ‘my people, Israel’. There’s good news coming.

Roy

It’s not a sympathy card.

Simon

Yes. God is here. God is working. This is not the end of the story.