“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.” Matthew 5:4
When Christ begins the Sermon on the Mount He gives a series of distinct truths that tell us about the Kingdom of God. These beatitudes are spoken in an “inclusio” which means the first and the last beatitude end with the same promise, “for the kingdom
of heaven belongs to them.” This tells the Beatitudes are not separate statements but are all collectively a part of the kingdom of God. They are a set. The Lord now gives the second beatitude to those who sit and listen and hope that He is the promised Messiah who will usher God’s promised kingdom onto earth.
Heaven will be a magnificent place. One of the things that we are
told about it, is that there will be no more mourning there. “He
will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no
more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”(Revelation 21:4) The Lord continues telling His audience what the kingdom of heaven is like – His words describe the physical one in the millennium, the eternal one in heaven and the spiritual one which He comes to establish in their (and our) hearts.
Blessed Remember this means blessed by God. It is the opposite of a “woe” or of being cursed – under the wrath of God.
Are they A lot of people think the beatitudes apply to all people. They don’t. Christ is describing those people that will inherit, be admitted to, God’s kingdom – a very group who loves and believes God from their hearts.
Mourn Have you ever noticed how the Christian life is the direct opposite of the world? Christ said, “Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.” (Luke 6:25) The world laughs now while it collects the trinkets of this life but that will not last. At the same time those who enter into God’s kingdom mourn over what we are and what we see. In the New Testament there are nine Greek words for mourning. Here the Lord uses the strongest of these words. This verb refers to a person mourning the death of a loved one. It is deep, intense grief. The word “mourn” is also a present participle, meaning to “continually” mourn. There is an act of continuous grieving over sin in the life of a true believer and in the world around us.
Matthew records in Chapter 4 how Jesus had gone to His home town, Nazareth, and while there spoke in the synagogue. There He read from Isaiah 61:1-2 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent
me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of
the Lord’s favor”. The Lord stopped reading in the middle of verse 2. He does not read, “And the day of vengeance of our
God; to comfort all who mourn” for he will do that at His second coming. The Lord knows He will be rejected, his
kingdom will be a spiritual one, and is followers will mourn the sin until He comes the second time.
What can we learn? We are not far into the beatitudes until we see that what the Lord teaches about God’s blessing
and entering God’s kingdom is nothing like the world or any established religion teaches. The Lord’s Himself is our
example. He is “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”. He weeps, He mourns but He never laughs. Joy in a sin cursed earth that is headed toward eternal destruction is not possible. Sin and judgment must be grieved before the joy of the Lord’s kingdom can be realized.