When Mourning Comes

July 29, 1990

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Scripture: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Matthew 5:4

Within the past 10 days 3 members of our congregation have passed away...Buck, Dick, and now, suddenly, just Friday, Lloyd. It simply doesn’t seem possible, and we’re still stunned by it.

Most of the old-timers in the Church at least knew these men, and certainly we all know Buck, Jr., who with his wife, Nancy, is so active here in so many different capacities, and we all know Dot, whom we appreciate and whom we love so much.

How our hearts go out to these families in their time of loss, and it prompts me today to make a switch from what I had originally planned to try to preach on. I had already decided to change, and Lloyd’s tragic death only confirmed it. I won’t be presumptuous enough to attribute the change to divine leadership...the real factors may well be much more mundane, but I realize afresh there may be other individuals, and other families than just these who have also suffered losses by death...relatives or close friends...in a group this size, who knows how many.....

And I remember the story Bishop Edwin Holt Hughes used to tell about an experience he had one day when he was walking along the beach and came across a man sitting on a rock, crying. He went over to him, the Bishop did, and said, “Friend, is there anything I can do to help you?”

The man said, “I just recently lost a loved one, more precious to me than my own life. The funeral was last week. On Sunday, I went to Church, looking for a word from God. Nothing that was said in that service, nothing in the music, nothing in the prayers, nothing in the sermon...nothing at all spoke to my condition in any way.

Bishop Hughes said he went back home and promised himself that he would never again go for long in his preaching without lifting up and proclaiming the Christian Doctrine of Eternal Life with all the faith and truth and power he could muster.

There will be other Sundays for other things---also important---but for today, suspecting a wider applicability than is generally thought, I feel constrained to follow the Bishop’s lead. I hope you don’t mind.

Hear this startling word from Jesus Himself: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Kind of unexpected, isn’t it? In fact, it’s almost jarring. If it hadn’t come from Jesus, it might almost be suspect. “Blessed are those who mourn....”

It’s so contrary to common sense, so opposite to what you would expect. When you remember as we’ve been told over and over that blessed means happy----this is a Beatitude, and “beatus” literally means “happy”---when you remember that, aren’t you equating mourning with happiness? How could that be?

If He wanted to be realistic, why didn’t Jesus say, “Blessed are those who don’t have to mourn”? That would make more sense, wouldn’t it?

Why didn’t He say, “Blessed are those who go through life entirely in the sunshine”? Why didn’t He say, “Blessed are those whose eyes are never filled with tears? THAT’S WHAT WE WOULD SAY, ISN’T IT?

It’s what we work for, what we sacrifice for, what we want, for ourselves, and for our children and grandchildren....Why didn’t He say, “Blessed are those who are fortunate enough to avoid completely the dark, forbidding shadows, who are immune from having to choke on their tears, who can live all the way through without ever having to experience the hurt, the wrenching, the numbness that comes with the loss of a loved one?” WHY DIDN’T HE SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT?

But He didn’t. He didn’t say what we might expect, what to us seems natural, and obvious, and right. Instead, He said this strange, paradoxical, unsettling thing, which cuts like a sword across our accepted values.......Blessed, happy, fortunate, “How blessed”, some translations put it....How blessed are those who mourn. Did He really mean it?

May I say this to you? I think it’s where you have to start, and I say it with all the sensitivity and compassion I can to any of you who are mourning the recent loss of a loved one----IN THIS BEATITUDE JESUS IS NOT MAKING A VIRTUE OUT OF OUR MOURNING.

He’s not saying that mourning in itself is a good thing. I suppose we know that instinctively, but it probably needs to be said.

I don’t believe Jesus ever meant to imply that mourning, grief, in itself, was a blessing. I don’t think that’s good New Testament interpretation. Some may believe it, some masochist somewhere, but I don’t believe Jesus did.

He never accepted a bad thing as a good thing. He never prescribed grief for its educational value...that would really be barbaric. He spent His life opposing human misery, human hurt, human sadness.... He believed those things were bad and did all He could to relieve them.

He Himself mourned with a deep-seated emotion at the loss of a friend. Jesus is reported as crying twice in the Gospels, I think. Once was over the city of Jerusalem....“Oh, Jerusalem....How I could have gathered you in my arms....”

The other time was over the death of a friend...when Lazarus died. Remember? John recounts it for us. “Jesus wept”, we’re told, when He heard the news. He cried...real, physical, painful tears. Certainly that was not a blessing, not a “good” thing, though good, later, did come out of it.

No, when Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn”, He’s not denying the reality of the hurt, nor is He magically “hallowing” it, by calling it something it’s not.

He’s telling us rather, I think, that in the experience of mourning, and beyond it, there are resources which if appropriated, can make something positive out of the hurt.

Don’t stop too soon when you read this beatitude. Don’t quit in the middle of it. Read it all the way to the end...the full text says, “Blessed are those who mourn...FOR THEY SHALL BE COMFORTED.” That’s the part we need to remember.

We’re never promised escape from pain or trouble...nowhere in the Bible. We’re never promised immunity from sorrow. Nobody can expect that. We all mourn, or we all will mourn, eventually, if we live long enough.

WHAT’S MORE, THE BIBLE NEVER CHEAPENS OR GLOSSES OVER THE HURT OF GRIEF.

It hurts, all right. Anybody who has ever been there knows it. It hurts, sometimes, may I say it, like HELL. But there’s medicine. There’s an antidote. There’s a resource. And it’s tied up with that magnificent word, that great Biblical word “comfort.”

I had not realized, frankly, until I began working on it in preparation for today just how prominent a place in the Scriptures the word COMFORT plays. It’s an important, significant word, in both Testaments.

I looked it up in the Concordance, and it’s all over the place. “Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people”.... God speaking to the refugees in the Exile.

“Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me”...23rd Psalm. And Jesus in the Upper Room before His departure and physical separation from the 12.... “I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you.”

It’s everywhere, running like a thread, through the Bible, from beginning to end. You could call the Bible the Book of Comfort, in a sense. One of its major themes is the loving support God wants to bestow on those who must pick up the pieces ripped apart by the experience of grief. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Now, may I try to elaborate on it just a bit? I know that many of you here who have yourselves walked through the Valley could no doubt communicate it more effectively than I. You’ve been there, you’ve experienced it, and you know.

But allow me this morning to try to share, as meaningfully as I can, and as helpfully as I can, at least something of how this marvelous comfort of God the Bible talks about comes to sustain us in the midst of our mourning.

1) First, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”...with a PRESENCE.

Do you remember those 3 Hebrew boys in the Bible who were thrown into the fiery furnace by the callous Babylonian king? It’s in the book of Daniel.

Remember how the story comes out? They were sheltered somehow, protected somehow, in their ordeal by the presence of SOMEONE ELSE. Someone else was there with them. The prologue is almost like something out of Auschwitz....thrown into the furnace and abandoned....YET THEY WERE NOT ABANDONED. In the end, the King says, “Did we not throw 3 men into the fire? Lo, I see 4 men loose, and they have no hurt, and the form of the 4th is like unto the Son of God.” What a story! Is it meant to be liturgical language, or picture language?

Well, I don’t know that it matters. The TRUTH is real.

Someone else was there with them. That’s the point of it. In that desperate moment, that crisis moment, when it seemed there WAS no future, the Presence of another broke through to uphold them.

I remember that Presence when my mother died. I’ve never talked about it much because it’s a very personal thing, but I remember it clearly. At the grave, when the preacher, who knew her well, read those familiar words from John----“I am the resurrection and the life.... Because I live, ye shall live also.....” when he read those words, it was as if Jesus Himself were saying them.  HE WAS THERE.

The reality of it didn’t assuage the pain entirely....It certainly didn’t remove it---it hurt just as much.

But somehow, I was not alone in bearing it. SOMEONE ELSE WAS THERE, TOO, and with that Presence came the assurance that I could make it.

If you want an explanation, I can’t give it. If you want to call it an illusion, or self-hypnotic suggestion, I’m in no mood to argue. I ONLY KNOW I WAS COMFORTED...that’s the word. I was aware of a presence beyond me that came, and strengthened, and blessed...and while I do not covet death nor wish it for anyone I know, it is not any longer as fearsome a prospect for me as it once was.

I am even beginning to understand what St. Francis meant when he wrote in the hymn attributed to him---we sang it a moment ago---

“And thou, most kind and gentle death,

Waiting to hush our latest breath,

Thou leadest home the child of God

And Christ our Lord the way hath trod.... Oh, praise Him. Alleluia.”

Someone Else who has been there before us, is there with us. That presence, in the midst of our mourning, won’t remove the hurt, but it can lift us beyond it. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” …with a PRESENCE.

2) Again, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” ...with a PERSPECTIVE.

By that I mean, anytime we come to grips with TRUTH, even harsh truth, we’re better off than when we try to evade it. Better to live uncomfortably with what is real, what is true, than to live sumptuously with what is false.

Out of mourning can come blessing, provided we allow it to help us catch a vision of what is really important, what is really worth our time and effort. Sometimes it takes strong medicine to restore our sense of perspective.

Dr. Bob Goodrich tells a story that almost any minister could parallel in one form or another. He was called once, he said, to a home in Texas, where everything in the house was Texas-sized.

It was one of those super-modern homes, with every conceivable gadget and convenience you could imagine...Everything in it, from garage door to coffee pot was push-button operated.

He said that if luxury could make people happy, that should have been the happiest family on earth. Instead, three absolutely miserable people lived there....three people constantly at war with each other---a husband, a wife, and an 11-year-old son.

They’d called him to come because the son was in trouble...11 years old! It was serious. They had run out of political pull. The boy was about to be sent to Reform School. Finally, they had gotten desperate enough to try religion. They’d given the boy everything he wanted, but nothing he needed.

Bob Goodrich said he bit his tongue. What he wanted to say was, “For God’s sake, people, come to your senses. What profit is there in all this dazzling junk if you lose your soul, and the soul of your son as well.”

It’s so tragic when it takes that to bring people to their senses. THE IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE ARE NOT MATERIAL. You can’t weigh, or register, or measure eternal values on the Stock Exchange.

If anybody ought to know that, it’s Church people. Much of what we spend our lives trying to amass become trivial at the time of death. It’s not things that abide then...it’s memories, remembrances, deeds recollected, loving acts recalled... moments shared, intimacies, warmth, love, integrity, generosity...

How grateful we are then, for those intangible things we can cling to. Mourning helps us to see them in better perspective.

Mourning is not good in itself. But out of it can come an appreciation for the real meaning of life. What is trivial subsides, and what is valuable emerges.

What is little fades, and what is big blossoms. It’s part of the beatitude that lifts us beyond the grief experience. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”...with a PERSPECTIVE.

3) Once more, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”...with a POWER. We’ve been calling “comfort” the key word of the text. Remember your Latin? It comes from 2 Latin roots, this word, “cum”—with, and “fort”---strength.... “with strength”. To comfort literally means “to empower.”

It’s as if Jesus were saying, out of your personal mourning, if you’ll let it, there can come a new strength which can make you a completer person.

And it comes, maybe ironically, when you use your hurt to help you be more helpful to others. When you do that, something happens to THEM, and something happens to YOU. So often it’s precisely in reaching out to heal another that healing comes to US. It’s in giving comfort that we receive comfort.

One of Thornton Wilder’s brilliant little mini-plays is entitled “The Angel That Troubled the Waters”. It’s less than 3 pages long, and the setting is the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem, where a host of wounded, crippled, and sick persons are waiting for the waters to stir so they can throw themselves in and be cured.

A newcomer, whose hurt is not outward, but inward, arrives to stand among the waiting. He prays, “Oh, God, how heavy my heart is. I am weighted down by the burden and hurts I’ve experienced. If only I could be cured of this inner pain. Then I would be free to be of more service.”

Just then the Angel appears, the waters stir, and the physically sick leap into the pool, each trying to be first. But the Angel restrains the newcomer, holding him back, saying, “Friend, healing is not for you.”

“What do you mean, not for me?” cries the man. “Think what I might yet do in love’s service were I but freed of this bondage.”

And the Angel stands a moment in silence, then answers, “Without your wound, where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of people. The very angels of heaven cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children of earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. IN LOVE’S SERVICE, ONLY THE WOUNDED SOLDIERS CAN SERVE.”

Again, it’s not to say that brokenness and mourning are good in themselves. It’s to say that OUT of them can come a heightened sensitivity that can make you more effective in dealing with the hurts of others.

YOU CAN USE YOUR HURT TO MAKE YOU A BETTER HEALER, and you’ll be empowered in the process.

“I don’t remember anything he said”, a man told me once about another man in connection with the death of his father.... “I don’t remember anything he said when Dad died. I’m not even sure he said anything at all. But I remember that he came, and he put his arms around me, and he cried.”

I KNEW HE’D LOST HIS OWN FATHER JUST A FEW MONTHS BEFORE.

In love’s service, only the wounded soldiers can serve. USE YOUR MOURNING. It’s a way in which even the worst, even the most painful experiences can be transformed into a beatitude. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”...with a POWER.

4) And finally, maybe best of all... “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”...with a PROMISE.

This, of course, is what Bishop Hughes was talking about...the great CHRISTIAN doctrine of ETERNAL LIFE. When you get to the bottom, what else is there?

It comes as solid promise from the One whose promises never fail. It comes as radiant assurance that our loved ones, who are separated from us now, will not be separated from us forever. IT’S A PROMISE.

Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions, or many rooms. I would have told you if it were not so. I go to prepare a place for you....”

Does it matter, really, whether we have a lot of details? Is that so important? I just can’t get all that excited, frankly, about those physical descriptions of heaven that focus on golden streets, and pearly gates, and all that kind of splendor.

I don’t believe to be honest, that John, and Milton, and Dante or anyone else knows enough to be that specific. I rather suspect we’ll all be in for some surprises....

BUT I THINK I KNOW WHY THEY WROTE. I think I know what they were TRYING to portray, as best they could, and I don’t know how you’d improve on it. THEY WERE TRYING TO EXPRESS THE INEXPRESSIBLE.

They were trying to convey what can’t be adequately conveyed. They were trying somehow to put into finite words something mere words can’t wrap around.

Sir Wilfred Grenfell once said, “He who wants all heaven in his head is going to have his head split.”  AND THAT’S RIGHT.

What they were doing their best to say to us, IT’S GOING TO BE WONDERFUL. It’s going to be glorious. Beyond our comprehension, because our loved ones, now separated from us, will be there....AND GOD WILL BE THERE....What more do we really need?

It’s a promise, from the One who knew God better than anybody. So our mourning now, though painful, though real, though excruciatingly wrenching, is not a permanent thing. GOD IS WITH US NOW, AND WILL BE WITH US AT HOMECOMING TIME.

And maybe, as in the story of the Prodigal Son, He’ll be out there on the road as we arrive, to throw His arms around us, and dress us up, to bring us in to the feast, and the glorious reunion.

“Let not your hearts be troubled”. As David Livingstone said with all the elegance of 19th Century British civility, “That’s the promise of a Gentleman.”

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”...with a PROMISE.

Now I close with this. When the Duke of Clarence died, his close friend, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, wrote these words:

Be comforted,

The shadow of Death is toward the Sun of life.

His shadow darkens earth; his truer name

Is ‘Onward’. No discordance in the roll

And march of that Eternal harmony

Where to the worlds beat time, though faintly heard

Until the great Hereafter. Mourn in hope!

So we. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”