Grief before Gladness
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
(Matthew 5:4)
Beloved,
A few years ago one of my friends
died of leukemia. A few weeks before Charles passed away he sat in his hospital
talking to a friend and said, “I am so blessed.” His friend looked at him with
a surprised look. How could he consider himself blessed as he was staring at
the last few weeks of his life? Realizing his friend did not understand,
Charles said, “I have the privilege to know how my family and friends feel
about me. Most people never get the opportunity to experience this kind of
love.” Charles had to help his friend see how blessed he was in his grief. He
was a few weeks from death, but was able to say, “I am blessed.”
Jesus says, “Blessed are those who
mourn.” It is true that God comforts his people in their grief. Paul writes to
the church at Corinth,
Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those
who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are
comforted by God. (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
The God of all comfort, meets us
the grace our grief so we then can meet others with grace in theirs. And
although God comforts people who mourn in their grief, in this beatitude Jesus
is one who mourns over their sin, that they will be comforted.
We need to realize we are sick
because of our sin. Jesus did not come
for the healthy, but for the sick. He did not call the righteous, but sinners
to repentance. Jesus Christ wants us to see the reality of our sin before a
holy God. He wants us to know experience
a godly grief for only a, “godly grief produces a repentance that leads to
salvation without regret (2 Cor.7:1). A person is spiritually blessed when they
mourn over their sin seeking comfort from Christ.
In Luke 4, Jesus announces his
public ministry in Nazareth by quoting the prophet Isaiah, “He has sent me to
proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set
at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor…and
the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn” (Isaiah 61:1-2).
Jesus came to comfort everyone who would mourn over their sin and turn to Him
for salvation.
Do you mourn over or minimize your
sin? True faith comes only after we deeply grieve over our sin. Beloved, true
happiness only comes on the other side of true grief. A godly grief produces
repentance that leads to salvation. It
is only after you grieve over your sin that you can be comforted by the Holy
Spirit of God. Let us weep over our sin now so we will experience the blessed laughter
in the age to come (Luke 6:21).