| | I look onto the second line of the Beautitudes, and it says the most contradicting statement of all. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" (Matt 5:4) In the shallow context, i thought, surely you can't be blessed, you can't be happy, when you are mourning. Why say so? It ain't rite!
But after reading thru Jone's book, it made me realize just how important and true this seemingly paradoxical statement our Lord says is. The world says "Don't worry! Be happy!" or "Forget about your troubles!" Don't ruminate on your problems no more- move on. Be happy. No, "blessed are those who mourn" our Lord says. Those who are mourning, full of sorrow, are those who are truly blessed and happy. If you look at Christ, He was 'a man of sorrows', He never had a good laugh. He was angry, he suffered, he cried. And we as Christians are to be like that.. Mournful. How does mourning bring happiness? Well, let's look at what a man mourns about.
The typical person of this world mourns over things in life. Divorce, violence, loss of loved ones, war, abuse ect... The Christian man mourns much deeper. He mourns of all those things too- but all the more, he mourns of the root of the problem, man's sinful nature. Why does all the cruel things in the world happen today? Because of man's sinful nature. It is because of this ugly, bitter evil sin that lives in our hearts that we mourn, that we realize how ugly we are.
Yet unless we see that and mourn, we will never repent. It is because the Christian comes to that realization that he mourns, and is in effect blessed. Blessed, and happy because of the solid fact that Christ alone can save us. Christ alone can redeem us, and Christ alone we can rely on to help us repent. That makes a Christian truly comforted, and inevitably happy. So what picture of the christian does this paint? He's not someone miserable or gloomy. He's not sad nor jovial all the time. He is one who looks at this life and thinks it through a spiritual point of view. He sees sin and its effects and seriously considers them. The doctrine of sin plays a big part of their life, yet the indescribable joy of God's kingdom engulfs them.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."
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| | Posted 7/19/2008 9:27 PM - 14 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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