Happiness while mourning (Matthew 5:4)

Bienhome Muivah *

Easter Sunday at MBC Church, Chingmeirong, Imphal in April 8 2012 :: Pix - Bunti Phurailatpam

There comes a time in our lives when good-natured, well-meant encouragement like “Hang in there, pal and cheer up, friend” fail to hoist us out of the doldrums. Because our needs are deeper than psychological, such suggestions only seem to make keener our feeling of helplessness.

The truth is: Regardless of our cleverness, our achievements and our gadgets, we are spiritual paupers without God.

Christ’s message was directed to one specific group to the “poor”, the poor in spirit. Christ said: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he had anointed me to preach good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18). This did not mean that Christ’s message was only for the financially poor, the socially poor, or the intellectually poor. It means that it was for those who recognized their spiritual poverty. That was the first beatitudes. It was the dominant note upon which the celestial anthem of truth was composed.

Of the Macedonian Christians Paul wrote, “Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity” (2Cor. 8:2).

If we would find genuine happiness, we must begin where Jesus began. If we would have meaningful lives we must live by the Beatitudes.

This second Beatitudes, “Happy are they that mourns”, at first seems paradoxical. Do crying and joy go together? How can we be possibly be happy while we are in the throes of mourning? How can one extract the perfume of gladness from the gall of sorrow? Bur rest assured that there is deep and hidden significance here, Jesus was speaking to all people of all beliefs and of all ages and was revealing to them the secret of happiness.

The present age is definitely not an age of mourning. Instead, people deliberately turn away from anything unpleasant, determined to fill their lives with those things which will divert their minds from anything serious. In their preoccupation with momentary pleasures and diversions, people settle for shallow and empty substitutes for reality. Millions give more thought to what programs they will watch tonight on TV or what videotape they will rent for the weekend than they do the things of eternity.

The century could well go down in the history not so much as a century of progress but as “the century of superficiality”. The popular exclamation “So what!” aptly describes the attitude of many toward life. Many think that so long as we have sleek automobiles to ride in, TV and movies to entertain us, luxurious homes to live in, and a million gadgets to serve us, what happens to our souls does not matter. “So what! Laugh, and the whole world laughs with you; weep and you weep alone”.

But superficial living will never help us stand against the pressures and problems of life. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told the story of two men. One decided to build his house on sand; it would, after all, have been easy to do. The other built his house on rock, although they would have involved more work. Outwardly both houses looked the same. But when the storms and floods came the house build on sand was destroyed. Only the house built on rocks withstood the pressures of the flood.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Mt. 7:24). Only when our lives are grounded in the eternal truths of God’s Word will they be able to withstand the storms of life. A superficial life which neglects God can never give us a firm foundation for true happiness.

Jesus did not mean, “Blessed are the morose, the miserable, or the sullen”. The Pharisees made a masquerade of religion, rubbed ashes on their faces to appear religious, but he strongly rebuked them for that. Be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance”, He said (Mt. 6:16).

Let us begin with the word mourning itself. It means “to feel deep sorrow, to show great concern, or to deplore some existing wrong”. It implies that if we are to live life on the higher plane then we are to be sensitive, sympathetic, tenderhearted, and alert to the needs of others and the world.

What is the opposite of mourning? Some might say it would be joy-and that is correct to a certain degree. But more than that, the opposite of mourning is insensitivity, lack of caring, unconcern, callousness indifference. When mourn it is because my heart has been touched by the suffering and headache of others-or even by my own heartache. When I do not care and am indifferent, then I do not mourn. The person who mourns is a person with a tender and sensitive heart.

Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted!