Blessed are those who mourn

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” – Matthew 6:4

This is the second of the teachings of Jesus that are known collectively as The Beatitudes. Each beatitude opens with the word “Blessed” which simply means “happy”. Each time Jesus is going to describe who the happy people are. Here in verse 4 the happy people are those that are mourning. They are people who are painfully aware that something treasured in their life is absent.

In short, mourning is the tearful rejoicing over the goodness of some blessing that is now painfully absent. Its the celebrating of what our treasure is.

The Psalmist says

“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” (Psalm 56:8)

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)

What is the treasure that you are mourning after? Paul said:

“whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:7-8)

When your treasure is Christ, and you sense a great loss, happy are you!