Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Sabbath, February 16, 2013

Text: Matthew 5:4

Years ago, new in a parish, I was visiting folks, getting acquainted. Sylvia and Robert lived in a little house in a working class neighborhood. Robert had spent forty years in a Goodyear factory. Sylvia had worked as a bookkeeper. We sat in the living room to talk. Just minutes into our visit Sylvia began telling me a heart-breaking story. Her daughter had drowned. This was in the days before cell phones. It was hours before she learned the terrible news. Sylvia rehearsed the details: A beautiful, sunny day. The lake where they had often gone as a family. The group of girlfriends her daughter had gone with.

As I listened, I felt a certain cognitive dissonance. It was clear from Sylvia's anguish and the sharp details in her telling that this accident had happened recently, this past summer or maybe the summer before. It sounded like a story about a group of teenage girls on a picnic. But Sylvia was in her eighties. Maybe I hadn't heard right. Maybe it was Sylvia's granddaughter. I didn't get it. Then Sylvia mentioned this had happened three days after her daughter's sixteenth birthday. Sylvia had been mourning her daughter for forty years. And sitting there listening to Sylvia, it seemed to me her grief was as sharp and cutting as if it had happened yesterday.

* * * *

If Sylvia had been in the crowd listening when Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted,” how would his words have helped?

Sylvia believed in the resurrection. She looked forward to the grand reunion of heaven. She did not doubt any of the promises Christians cling to in the face of death. But after forty years of believing in the resurrection, she was still waiting for the comfort.

So what was Jesus saying to Sylvia?

In the crowds who gathered around Jesus to listen to his wisdom and receive healing, most of the adults would have had direct experience with mourning. In Jesus' world more than half of all children died. Every mother was a grieving mother. Every dad was haunted by the memory of a son who had carried his dreams, had carried them until both son and dreams were killed by diarrhea or typhus or the plague or gangrene.

Jesus' world was full of early death. Children and teenagers, mother's in childbirth, dads in the prime of life with a gaggle of kids at home, depending on them. When Jesus looked out at the crowds, he knew they were achingly familiar with grief. So when he spoke of mourning, it was not theoretical. It was not “spiritual.” Jesus was not talking about mourning for their sins. He was talking about grieving for their children.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Some versions of the Bible translate Jesus' words as, “Happy are those who mourn . . . .” It's a very unfortunate translation. Using the word “happy” here, implies that Jesus trivialized human pain or maybe even worse, that he spiritualized it. Jesus did neither.

(According to the “spiritual” view, when Jesus spoke of mourning, he wasn't addressing the pain of losing a loved one. Rather he was speaking of people “mourning” for the effects of their sinful actions, grieving for the pain their sin has caused to the heart of God. In this interpretation, Jesus was commending people who “mourn” over the pain they have caused instead of offering consolation to people suffering great pain. The “spiritual view” disconnects Jesus' teachings from real life and contradicts the overall portrait of Jesus given in the Gospel of Matthew. When Jesus blessed those who mourn, he was talking about the loss that haunts our lives because of death, not the guilt that haunts our lives because of our own misdeeds.)

When Jesus pronounced a blessing on those who mourn, he was not, even for an instant, suggesting they were happy. He was not minimizing their pain. He did not spiritualize their pain. He honored their pain by acknowledging it and by speaking to it on behalf of God.

When we mourn, we feel cursed. The world goes dark. Life becomes tasteless and uninteresting. Pleasure becomes impossible. Every happiness is haunted by the keen awareness of our loss. God himself becomes part of the problem.

“Why did you allow it?”

“Why did you let me get my heart so wrapped up in that person?”

“Why didn't you avert the tragedy, the accident? Why didn't you cure the disease?”

“Why didn't you let me die instead?”

It is a short step from all this questioning to wondering why God is so mad at you. Why did God curse you? Grief feels like a curse.

Into these dark thoughts, Jesus' words come: Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed, not cursed. God notices your grief. He is touched by it. He has tender regard for you. You are blessed.

The heaviness of your heart is not the testimony of God against you. Rather, the heaviness of your heart is evidence that you have obeyed the commandment to love.

We mourn only those we love. The world is full of tragedies. Death stalks every corner of earth. But when someone we love dies . . . that is when we are stricken with grief. When you love someone, you never have enough time together. A life time is too short. When love is interrupted by death or other wrenching separations, we grieve. We mourn. The very fact that you are grieving is evidence of your courage to love. No wonder Jesus blesses you. No wonder Jesus says that no matter how intense your pain and dark your heart, God regards you with favor. This is what it means to be blessed.

Not necessarily happy, just regarded favorably by God.

Sometimes we want to hurry the blessing to completion. We want Sylvia to quit mourning her daughter. We want old friends to get over their inconsolable grief at the loss of their spouse of fifty years. We want to talk about the promise of resurrection, not about the reality of present loss. But this kind of hurry is a departure from our calling as agents of the kingdom of heaven. The model set for us by Jesus (in line with Jewish tradition going back a thousand years before him) was complete engagement here and now with real life as it happens in the real world.

In our world, we are much less likely to lose a child to death. But we are more likely to confront another grief.

A month or two ago I was listening to Steve Scher on Weekday. He was talking about parents of children autism disorders. I listened to a couple of mothers describe their efforts to secure proper service from the school system and adequate help from the various medical resources. Then a dad called in.

He, too, was a tireless advocate for his son, trying to get help, trying to create a life for his son. Then this dad described the eternal ache he carried for the son who would never be. He choked up as he described a dad's dreams of tossing a football with his son. He talked of dreams of going camping and teaching his son to fish. Dreams, that in the case of his son, could never turn into life. Dreams he had to give up, if he was going to be fully present for the son he actually had, instead of the son he had dreamed of.

He lived in the impossibly complicated world where the very exercise of his love for his son who was disabled kept constantly alive his grief for the son who never was. What a weight to carry. What heights of nobility. What depths of pain.

When Jesus speaks to this father, Jesus does not say: “How happy you are.” Jesus says, “You are blessed.” God sees your love and your grief. God knows all the complicated, topsy-turvy emotions of your world, the resentment and hope, the affection and weariness. The tears. God sees it and God's word to you is “blessing.” Grace and peace to you.

Then Jesus goes on to promise: You will be comforted.

One of the central claims of Christianity is that God is planning a bright future, a future so bright and sweet and rich and beautiful that all grief, all loss, even all injustice will finally be redeemed. The book of Revelation promises that God will wipe away every tear. Paul wrote that Jesus will gather all people into an eternity of bliss. Jesus himself foresaw a future kingdom ruled by righteousness, beyond death and loss and pain.

Jesus said to the thousands of grieving people listening to him preach—and in his audiences the vast majority of adults were grieving—you will be comforted.

Jesus did not pretend that they were happy here and now. The comfort he spoke of was future. Jesus did not trivialize or spiritualize their present loss. He recognized it for what it was: an incurable pain. Then he said to those caught up in the sharp pain of recent loss and to those carrying decades of ache: you are blessed. God is with you. God is for you. And some day God will provide comfort commensurate with the enormity of your pain.

It is the ultimate promise. The Book of Revelation pictures that bright future as a golden city, the New Jerusalem where it is forever bright.

I saw a new heaven and a new earth . . . I heard a loud voice from heaven shouting, “God will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Revelation 21:1-5

Adventists celebrate that future as the climax of the “Great Controversy.” We insist that beyond the chaos and trauma of this world is a future so rich it will be worth the journey to get there.

The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation. From Him who created all, flow life and light and gladness, throughout the realms of illimitable space. (Page 678, The Great Controversy by Ellen G White )

Blessed are those who mourn. They will be comforted. And the comfort will be sufficient.

These words were intended to offer solace, to offer encouragement and grace. They also describe our mission as agents of the kingdom of heaven. We are to bring blessing to those who mourn. How do we do that?

What is our calling the face of Sylvia's forty-year long mourning? How do we respond to that father's magnificent service and soul-bending grief? How do we touch lives now with the blessing Jesus pronounced?

When our youngest daughter was born, she had a twin brother. It was a crash C-section because he was in distress. He was resuscitated and raced to the NICU. A few hours later we were told the bad news. He was a trisomy 13. With aggressive medical intervention he might live for a year or two. Right now, he was being kept alive by a spider web of medical technology. What did we want to do?

We did not want to see this little, misshapen boy endure the torments of tubes and electrodes and breathing assistance when the only future was more of the same until he was gone. So we decided to end life support.

I sat in the NICU while they gently unplugged and untaped and disconnected. Finally, all the wires and tubes were gone, and the nurse placed him in my arms and I held my son while he died.

A doctor and nurse sat with me. They didn't say anything. They didn't go anywhere. They answered no pages. They didn't stir. They just sat with me while the minutes passed. For more than half an hour we kept silent vigil as Douglas slowly expired.

I have some idea of the demands on medical staff. They never have nothing to do. They don't have extra half hours. I was astonished that this doctor and nurse would lavish this kind of time on me. And deeply touched.

There was nothing they could have said that would make the situation any less painful. Talking about the medical realities would have been beside the point. We had already covered those. Talking about the incidence of this particular birth defect would not have been illuminating. Discussing the ethics of our decision to withdraw life support would have been inappropriate at that point. And certainly talking about heaven would have been a mockery of the loss we faced.

So this doctor and nurse offered me the richest, most powerful blessing they could—their presence.

Jesus, looking at crowds of thousands who included a majority of people who had experienced loss, pronounced them blessed. We who do not have audiences of thousands—we have friends and neighbors and relatives who are mourning. Maybe they are living with a forty-year-old grief like Sylvia. Maybe they have lost a child. Maybe they are living with a child who is a constant reminder of the parent's dream that will never come true.

No matter the nature of the grief carried by the people around us, all of them need the reassurance Jesus spoke: you are blessed. And we can be most effective in making Jesus' words real by giving to those who grieve our presence, our gentle attention. As we do this, we will communicate the word of blessing, and we will convey at least a hint of the eternal comfort to come.

Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted.

Keeping Jesus' Promise for Him

Sermon for North Hill, April 2, 2011
Live presentation streamed at http://www.northhilladventistfellowship.org

from about 11:15a to 12:15p.

Twenty-one years ago I sat in the neonatal unit of a hospital in Akron, Ohio, holding my tiny, misshapen son while he died. He had a chromosomal defect that was incompatible with life. For hours he had been living at the center of a dizzying network of wires and tubes. Now, all of the wires and tubes were disconnected. He lay in my hands slowly losing his hold on life. I watched his chest rise and fall with his breathing. I could see his pulse through his skin. There was nothing I could do to change his chromosomes. There was nothing I could do to improve his future. So I did the best I could. I held him. I loved him. I kept him company while he died.

A doctor and a nurse sat with me. Their medical skills were useless. There was no technology, no therapy, no medicine that could change Douglas' future. The doctor and nurse could not change his chromosomes. They could not work around his defects. They could offer me no hope. There were no words that could improve the situation. So they did what they could. They kept me company. And the three of us, wordless and helpless, kept Douglas company while he died.


My favorite stories in the Gospels are the stories where everything turns out okay. People possessed by demons are set free. People who are paralyzed go leaping and dancing about. People who had been blind see the faces of their friends. People who were deaf carry on conversations with the people they love. Those are the stories I like. But for those who have eyes to see, these pictures of dramatic intervention and change are surrounded by a larger story, a story that teaches us how to live in the real world. In the world with earthquakes and volcanoes, cancer and diabetes, depression and suicide.

What can the story of Jesus teach us about how to live in this world? In a world where miracles are rare, where good people die and the earth shifts disastrously? What guidance does Jesus' offer for this world, the actual world of hospitals and Prozac, plane crashes and budget crises? What does the story of Jesus teach us about living in this world?

Matthew begins his story of Jesus with a genealogy. Matthew carefully structures this genealogy to highlight the people among Jesus' ancestors whose lives could easily be featured as cover stories for The Enquirer. This genealogy is Matthew's way of emphasizing Jesus' connection with the raw, messy, complicated realities of regular human life.

By birth Jesus was part of a regular dysfunctional family. A family whose history included incest, murder, idolatry. Jesus did not minister from some remote place of tranquil purity. He was one of us. He spent the first 30 years of his life as an apparently ordinary Palestinian carpenter's son.

Then at age 30 Jesus begins his ministry. His first step in that direction was to get baptized. Baptism was a dramatic statement of his connection with down-to-earth, real human life. Not only was he born into an ordinary, dysfunctional family, at the very beginning of his ministry, he publicly declared his full, voluntary acceptance of his membership in that family.

For the next three and half years Jesus threw himself into a whirlwind of ministry. He healed blind people, gave hearing to deaf people, resurrected the dead, set people free from demonic possession. He preached to and taught crowds of thousands.

His life was chock full of miracles and good drama. One of my favorite pictures is of him standing at the door of a house on a Saturday night facing a street jammed wall to wall with people wanting to be healed. He stayed there, working miracle after miracle until there wasn't a sick person left in the village.

Then came the grand climax of his life. Or so it seemed at the time. On a Sunday he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey welcomed by crowds of thousands who acclaimed him king. Five days later he was on his face begging God to excuse him from his assignment. There was no response from heaven. After a while in prayer he got up and went to talk with his disciples, hoping for some encouragement, needing some company. They are asleep. He begged them to stay awake and pray with him.

God said no to his prayer. The disciples said no to his request.

He was utterly alone.

I wonder if this was in his mind when he gave his disciples his final words before leaving Earth to return to heaven, "behold, I will be with you always even to the end of the world." They had let him down when he asked for companionship in the most intense struggle of his life. He promised them he would not let them down. Not that he would rescue them from every problem. But he would be there with them in every difficulty.

By all his miracles of healing Jesus demonstrated what he wants for people. He wants them to be pain free, torment free. He wants them to use their legs to run, their eyes to appreciate beauty, their ears to hear conversation and enjoy music. He does not want them to suffer hunger. He does not want them to live under the scowl of God. He wants them to know God's smile, to live with confidence and glad hearts. Jesus promises that someday all of that will be reality. But what about now? What does Jesus have to offer now?

This promise: I will be with you always.

And our mission as Christians is to fulfill this promise of Jesus with our bodies. Let us make sure that we keep each other company… Always.

This week one of our members had surgery for cancer. The statistics on this cancer are very poor. It's scary. There are others here in our congregation who are living far to close to the ogre of cancer. What can we do?

Naturally, the first thing we think of are the stories of healing. We want a miracle. We want the cancer to go away. Hope for miracles and prayers for healing are entirely appropriate for the children of God. And, for those who are mature, for those who take seriously their commitment to follow Jesus, there is something more. This something more is expressed in Jesus' words: "I am with you always."

We cannot make pain disappear in this world. We cannot reverse all diseases. But we can make sure people do not suffer alone. With our bodies we can bring Jesus close to those who suffer.

When bad things happen, some Christians go crazy blaming God. I have read multiple statements from Christians in all kinds of denominations including Seventh-day Adventists arguing that the earthquake and tsunami in Japan were the handiwork of God. It was a message sent from God to wake us up.

This kind of talk is nonsense or worse. It is false. God is not so clumsy that he sends earthquakes that destroy 10,000 or a hundred thousand people in some far-off place vainly hoping we will get the message and repent. When God has a message he sends a prophet.

Most of the stories in the Gospels are stories of healing, stories of success. Dead people rise to life. Paralyzed people dance. Deaf people hear. But there are a couple of instances where Jesus specifically addresses the issue of people in trouble who are not delivered. In Luke 13 Jesus was asked about some people who were killed when a building collapsed on them. Jesus did not resurrect these people. What he did do was defend their reputations. He emphatically declared that those people did not die because they had defective characters. Jesus also defended God's reputation. God did not make the building collapse.

Matthew 11 recounts a conversation between Jesus and the disciples of John the Baptist. John the Baptist had been put in prison by King Herod. Being in his prison was a dangerous business. He was a notoriously murderous tyrant. John had been for some time and Jesus had done nothing to get him out. Finally John the Baptist sent some of his disciples ask Jesus what was up. "Are you really the one we were waiting for? Are you really the Messiah?"

Early in his ministry, Jesus had announced that part of his mission was to set the captives free. John the Baptist couldn't help but wonder, "Hey, what about me? What about springing me from prison?”

It didn't happen. Jesus did not release John the Baptist from prison. John the Baptist was executed.

But notice the one thing Jesus did do for John the Baptist. He defended his character. When John's disciples were there with Jesus, Jesus spoke to the crowd about John the Baptist. "There has never been any human being greater than John the Baptist."

John the Baptist was not in prison because he had failed. John the Baptist was not in prison because there had been something wrong with his ministry. John the Baptist had not made a mistake. In fact, John the Baptist was in prison precisely because he was a great man, because he was a good man.

So in these two instances of unrelieved suffering, what does Jesus do? He defends the reputation of those who suffered.

In the one other picture where we see Jesus deliberately allowing suffering to happen, we see Jesus weeping. It's the famous story of Lazarus. Jesus was alerted that Lazarus was sick, but he did nothing about it. He showed up at Lazarus' house only after Lazarus had been dead for four days. Jesus went with the sisters out to the grave. And there he demonstrated his identity, his empathy with the sisters by weeping. And I don't mean to suggest that Jesus was weeping for the purpose of making a statement. These were not the tears of an actor. Jesus was weeping because he felt the pain of the sisters and was himself deeply wounded by their pain. Jesus' tears were powerful evidence of his connection with the women.

Lazarus' story does not end there, of course. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. But first he entered deeply into the pain of those who loved and lost Lazarus.


So what should we do in the face of human suffering? First, resist the impulse to blame someone. Sure, if someone has been smoking three packs a day for 40 years and they get emphysema, the cause-and-effect relationship is pretty clear. But what good does it do to talk about it? Will it reverse the 40 years?The time to talk about cause-and-effect is before people get sick not after. And most of the time the cause of our illnesses is not nearly so obvious and direct. Even when it is there is little to be gained from us talking about it.

Our first call in responding to trouble in the life of our friends is to defend their reputations. We don't imagine that God is punishing them.

Second, we defend God's reputation. We don't imagine that God is sending us a message by giving them cancer. Or allowing them to have an automobile accident. Or allowing them to suffer depression. We don't blame God for trouble.

Third, we do something for Jesus. We go and keep them company. By keeping company with those who suffer, we are keeping company with Jesus. We're doing what the disciples failed to do for Jesus that last night before he died. We keep Jesus company by keeping company with those who suffer.

In that neonatal unit 21 years ago the doctor and nurse nurse who sat with me while Douglas died were helpless as medical professionals. But in their role as human beings – by keeping me company through suffering that they could not change – they were acting truly in the role of Jesus. With their bodies they were living out the promise of Jesus, I am with you always.

I am sure that God would rather heal disease than keep us company through it. He would rather cure our grief than keep us company in it. But for whatever reason, disease and death, disaster and catastrophe have not vanished from the world. For now, they are an essential part of the human experience. So what does the story of Jesus teach us to to do, given this reality? Certainly to do what we can to heal, to cure, to prevent disaster. But there are decided limits to our capability in these efforts.

What can we do most most constantly? What can all of us do? Keep one another company. Defend one another's reputations. We can step into one another's lives in the dark times, with our physical presence carrying the spiritual presence of Jesus, making real with our bodies the promise of Jesus, "I am with you always, even to the end of the world."