They Will Be Comforted (Matthew 5)
Introduction
Hello, and welcome to the Will Preach for Food podcast. I’m Doug, a pastor here at Faith Lutheran Church, based out of Shelton, Washington, a congregation of the ELCA. You can learn more about Faith at our website, www.faithshelton.org. Thanks for listening today.
I have to say that this has been a very emotional week at Faith. All week the church has been buzzing with church members preparing for our annual holiday bazaar, which is taking place even as I record this podcast! It is also my daughter’s birthday—Happy Birthday, Hannah!
But even as we have been enjoying the fellowship, the baking, and the decorations of the week, we are grieving, too. We can’t help but notice the people who aren’t here. For years people would come to the bazaar to buy Geri’s cinnamon rolls. At the door they’d be greeted by Ron and Pastor Neil decked out in tuxedos and welcoming grins. But Geri and Ron have died, and Neil is in hospice care. We miss them. We grieve.
And this week our hearts broke again when another saint—Linda—fell on Monday and died rather unexpectedly only a couple days ago, at the hospital, with Herb at her side.
There’s a lot of grief and loss all around us—in our families, our congregations, our communities. Even at a national level it feels like something that was once healthy and good has passed away. What do we do with grief? What does God do with our grief? That’s what we’re going to consider today. Open your Bible to Matthew 5:1-9.
Matthew 5:1-9
Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them. He said:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who mourn
This is the gospel of the Lord. Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you and peace, from God our Father and the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Blessed are those who mourn, Jesus says, for they will be comforted. Technically speaking, “grief” is the emotional response to the pain of loss, while “mourning” (with a “u”) is how we express and process those emotions. While it is true that everyone experiences and works through grief differently—there is no “right way” to grieve or mourn—it is also true that every one of us experiences grief and loss at some point in our lives—including Christians.
If you thought that faith in God was some sort of “get out of grief free” card, you were sorely mistaken. What a pathetic existence it would be if we never knew the sorrow and ache of losing someone or something precious to us. Grieving is natural, normal, necessary, and really hard. It is the healing process of the heart, soul, and mind. You don’t get OVER grief—you get through it.
Blessed are those who mourn, Jesus says, for they will be comforted. It’s not that some how mourning is a good work that God rewards with comfort. Nobody wants to grieve. We don’t “try” to mourn. Rather, Jesus is saying that our experience of grief is not a sign of God’s disfavor or absence or wrath. God doesn’t use grief to punish us.
On the contrary, grief is one of those “thin places” in life where God promises to meet us, hold us, weep with us, come alongside us, and give us the faith and hope we need to journey through our grief into the peace that passes understanding. “Yea, thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” This word of hope in the 23rd Psalm is as much a promise and comfort for those who mourn as much as it is for those facing their mortality.
What, then, is Jesus saying when he says that those who mourn will be comforted? He’s talking about a comfort that comes from God, from one another, and one that is based on a future hope.
God is with you
The first comfort we receive, then, is the comfort we receive from God. Nothing, not life or death, height nor depth, and certainly not the pain and anger and heartbreak and loneliness of your grief. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. God’s love and faithfulness is stronger and deeper and more enduring than your pain and loss. God will never give up on you, even when you are inclined to give up on God.
The strength, the faith, the will to endure and make the journey through faith IS what the Bible calls “the peace that passes understanding.” Jesus IS our peace. The Spirit is the great Comforter. God is the father of all compassion and healing. God is with you in your grief. God is faithful, the scripture says. And will not let you be tested beyond what you can bear. There’s nothing you and God can’t get through together.
Mutual conversation and consolation
The second comfort we receive is from one another. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible says, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).
We receive supernatural comfort from God, to be sure. And God also comforts us is through the comfort and consolation of one another. We show up for each other. We cry and share casseroles and recite the 23rd Psalm and gather at the graveside because this stuff is really hard and God put us here on planet Earth to be there for each other, ESPECIALLY when we are grieving. We are Christ to one another, even as others are Christ for us. So often we think we need to tell somebody ABOUT Jesus when in fact the most important witness we can do is to BE Jesus for that person. We bear the image of God. Christ in me meets Christ in you. We receive comfort from others. We comfort others with the comfort and consolation we ourselves have received from God.
“Lord, make us instruments of your peace,” the prayer goes. “Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.”
The Hope of Heaven
And the third comfort we receive truth is something called hope.
The Bible tells us that this life is not all there is. There is a new life, a new heaven and earth in store for us. Christ has defeated sin, death, and the devil. The Bible recalls and points to the hope of a resurrection to a new and, well, glorious life in Christ. One example of this is from 1 Thessalonians 4:
Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
And Jesus brings this promise to a very personal level, when he assures his disciples that there is hope on the other side. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:1-3).
And the Bible ends with the vision of a new heaven and earth, where God will wipe away every tear. No more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away. The death of death itself.
The Communion of Saints
This is All Saints’ weekend, remembering “all the saints, who from their labors rest”-- loved ones and friends who have died, those who fought the good fight, those who were once washed in the waters of Baptism, whose names were written in the book of life, those who accepted Christ as their Savior, whose sins were washed clean in the blood of the Lamb, who now sleep in the Lord until the glorious last day, who have gone before us, who now occupy a place in the great cloud of witnesses, the communion of saints.
This week we rejoice that Linda has been received into the arms of Jesus, to her heavenly home, even as we grieve with Herb and their family her death. We miss her. We miss Barby and Ron and Doris and Rich and Julie and Jerry. We miss Geri and Guy and Sandy and Ron and Tyke and Fred, and so many others. We grieve a changing world, a dying way of life, a wounded planet, an aging congregation.
The call of faith is to do the work of mourning. To lean into our grief, to take that journey through that valley of the shadow of death, and to do so with courage, with compassion, and with the anticipation and faith that God is there, God is faithful, and God will see us through.
We need to be there for each other, too, to be Christ for one another. A hug, a handwritten note. Maybe even help with the bills, the bank accounts, or cleaning out a garage. We need each other.
And one other note. Sometimes we need extra help through our grief. That’s why Faith is blessed to have Terry Oliver on staff leading a weekly grief support group. Terry, Pastor Brenda, and I are available to talk. And sometimes you need to get in contact with your doctor, or talk to a therapist or grief counselor.
Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. This comfort comes from God, from one another, and from the hope of heaven: the communion of saints. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.
All glory be to the Father…
Conclusion
Thanks for listening, folks. For more resources about grief and loss, for information about grief ministries at Faith, go to our website, www.faithshelton.org. While you are there, like us, subscribe, donate, or sign-up for our newsletter. You can subscribe to this podcast on most podcast platforms, including Spotify, Apple, and Google. Thank you, Chas and Nadia, for your production and tech support for this podcast.