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

Barnes suggests:

“This is capable of two meanings: either, that those are blessed who are afflicted with the loss of friends or possessions, or that they who mourn over sin are blessed. As Christ came to preach repentance, to induce people to mourn over their sins and to forsake them, it is probable that he had the latter particularly in view. Compare 2Co 7:10. At the same time, it is true that the gospel only can give true comfort to those in affliction, Isa 61:1-3; Luk 4:18. Other sources of consolation do not reach the deep sorrows of the soul. They may blunt the sensibilities of the mind; they may produce a sullen and reluctant submission to what we cannot help: but they do not point to the true source of comfort. In the God of mercy only; in the Saviour; in the peace that flows from the hope of a better world, and there only, is there consolation…”

I’d like to suggest a third meaning; that of this being a “hidden command” to us. To visit those who are stricken with grief, depression, pain and misery and just BE with them in their circumstances, without doing anything else but in stillness be their companionship. It is so easy to be like the people admonished in James 2 “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? (James 2:15-16) Sitting with the grieving, the sick, the depressed, the pained and the miserable without imposing our thoughts and beliefs on them is not something we are encouraged to do in our society. One thing most mourners have in common, is a feeling that people avoid them, avoid talking and listening to them about normal everyday things that are on their minds, including that which they mourn. Yet that is what most of them LONG for! This is a an exhortation not to Preach the Gospel, but BE the Gospel. So those who meet us may have a sense of the Blessing given to them in their mourning. To be heard, to be taken seriously and eventually to come out on the other side of grief, fear, depression, pain and misery with a new feeling of Hope and Comfort. Not because they “confessed their sins and accepted Jesus”, but because they were treated kindly and genuinely. Because we had the courage to stay close when Life had sucker-punched them real bad.

Blessings,
Henry