When I was an Associate Pastor, a young man in his 30s died after battling cancer. The Senior Pastor invited me to participate in the Celebration of Life and Funeral Service for the young man. In the pastor’s message at the funeral he stated, “We grieve today for our loss, while also grieving today for what could have been in this young man’s life: the missed milestones, celebrations, and shared experiences.” The pastor’s words struck a deep place within me because of my own experience of loss of friends in my late teens and early 20s. I had always tied my mourning to the loss of the friend but had not tied my mourning to the loss of opportunity and shared experiences.
In another experience, a man’s son who was a law enforcement officer was killed in the line of duty. I was no longer living in the community, but this man’s phone number was still in my phone. A few months after the tragic death of his son, I reached out to the father. When I told him the purpose of my call, he said, “It is good to hear from you. Everyone else has moved on and I fear they don’t realize I am still hurting.” Mourning a loss wanes and flows as the days, weeks, and months march on in life. We are invited to reenter the daily flow of life and at times to act as though everything is back to normal. Yet, we know it is not.
In Matthew 5:4, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Jesus’ inclusion of our emotions speaks volumes to the reality of our God’s presence with us in the celebrations and in the mourning. We can have a tendency in our faith to rush people through mourning back to happiness, missing out on the gift mourning can be as part of our healing and our memory. When we emphasize happiness as the only acceptable emotion in our faith, we may miss out on the comfort and peace of Jesus during our present struggle. We are blessed in our mourning because we have One who comforts us.
In Isaiah 61:1-3, we read of the coming Messiah that he will, “bind up the brokenhearted” and “comfort all who mourn.” Jesus reads from this section of Isaiah in the Nazareth synagogue in Luke 4 proclaiming this passage is fulfilled in his life. I am grateful that we have a Messiah who comforts us when we mourn and places an emphasis on the blessing of our mourning. It encompasses more than we know we have lost; it also encompasses all the possible experiences we were unable to share. Jesus’ comfort goes beyond the world’s comfort of our mourning, as we know we have a God who stays near to us and comforts us during our mourning whether it is one day later or one year later or ten years later…Jesus is there.
When you are mourning, do you know God is there to comfort you? Even when those around you believe you need to “move on,” do you know God is there to comfort you and walk with you? I give God thanks for Jesus not only emphasizing our mourning, but experiencing the emotion as well in his life, demonstrating to us the validity of our mourning.
Prayer: Thank you, Lord, that you comfort us in our mourning. Sometimes it seems our mourning sneaks up on us, flooding us with emotions. Thank you that you are there to walk with us and comfort us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.