“Be Healthy, Happy, Wealthy, and Wise!” – Is that how we choose to comfort the afflicted? Where does that leave the “Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief?”

In Paul Louis Metzger’s “Uncommon God, Common Good” blog (The post in question is found here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/uncommongodcommongood/2015/01/blessed-are-those-who-mourn-not-those-who-are-spiritually-comfortable/.), he has embarked on a series of posts on The Beatitudes (a part of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” as recorded in Matthew 5:1-12). This series is of special interest to me since I believe that the Sermon on the Mount most clearly explains the foundational ethics of our lives as subjects of God’s Kingdom. The Beatitudes fall behind only The Great Commission and The Great Commandment as priorities for the life and ministry I pursue in answer to the question, “What would Jesus have me do?” I recommend the same for you, and offer here a little of how that works, at least regarding this particular Beatitude.

Some afflictions are obvious, except that we hide them away.

For a long time I have considered The Beatitudes as counter-intuitive statements. In them, I see Jesus stating what is not immediately evident, or what is, in fact, contradicted by the patterns of our attitudes and behaviors. But some might see an exception in His second Beatitude, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” After all, who can look upon someone who is mourning and not feel compelled to comfort them? Unfortunately, as I've written elsewhere, our attempts to comfort others often result in unfortunate misstatements. But it is not our compulsion to comfort the mourning that supplies the contrast in this Beatitude.

The “normal behavior” being confronted by Jesus is this: we avoid the causes of mourning as much as possible.

Even those who make deposits get significant withdrawals.

The inescapable reality of grief does prompt us to mourn our own losses. Even then, however, our closest supporters often try to alleviate their own discomfort by encouraging us toward “closure,” imagining that we can “get over it and get on with life.” Through a variety of means, we may also self-medicate, employing various means of denying the truth of our loss. Eventually, we find that there is a blessing in mourning; we reminisce over aspects of our loss and gradually integrate both the valued existence and its loss as equally true aspects of our ongoing lives. Again, though, I don’t think that’s all that Jesus has in mind here.

Sometimes we have to really hear what's being said around us.

In addition to our individual losses and personal spiritual brokenness, Jesus regularly addresses the world’s structural and systemic brokenness and its endemic effects on us and others. Here, He does so in confronting our avoidance of mourning. We need to recognize and accept the intense contrast between the blessing of mourning and our desire for its opposite. This contrast is most evident when applied among those who live as though the Christian’s "default" experience is being “healthy, happy, wealthy and wise.” Too many of us view anything less than a life of continuously triumphant celebration as an aberration, a malady to be confronted and corrected, generally through prooftexts and other platitudes.

The "widows and orphans" include orphans and their children.

In such an environment, it becomes far too easy to imagine that I am free to be comfortable, so long as I share some portion of that comfort with the afflicted. When I am afflicted, it's easy to imagine that somehow the comfortable are responsible to share some portion with me. In either case, the goal we seek is a return to that “good life” in which our robust health, giddy enjoyment, material wealth, and creative imagination are ever-escalating.

But the "Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief" willingly took on the brokenness and pain of a damaged and dysfunctional creation. If I am His follower, then it stands to reason that I will end up in those places where the comfort I have received in the midst of my affliction must be made available to those I find in any affliction. (That's the logic of II Corinthians 1:3-5, as I see it.) So when I openly acknowledge and mourn the reality of this life, I do receive comfort, but not for the sake of my own return to "the happy norm." Instead, the comfort I receive is to be applied to the hurts of others, so that they, too, may share comfort with all those they find (indeed, seek out) in any affliction. This is what I understand to be the pattern of Christian ministry, a cruciform, sacrificial servanthood pursuing solidarity with the afflicted, at least until we all find ourselves comforted in the immediate presence of Christ.

Intervene today in the "supply-and-demand" equation.

So, comforting the afflicted does not increase the ranks of the comfortable. (Would they then need to be afflicted?) Instead, it draws even those being comforted into solidarity with others who have yet to experience anything but the affliction. But it all starts by being willing to mourn the current conditions in a sin-damaged world, even as we look forward to the ultimate comforting when all our afflictions are over.

On a personal note: Amidst a life devoted to the contemplation of bereavement, grief, and mourning, the past eighteen months have been a season in which my desperate dependence upon Christ’s comfort has reached depths that were previously unimaginable. For all the condolences and sympathies that have been offered, the greatest comfort I have received during this time has been found in the lives of others. It has been the comfort that God has provided to others in the midst of their afflictions through me in the midst of my afflictions, and seeing their comfort, that has most comforted me.

Especially if your recent experiences have tended toward triumphant celebrations, but even if that has been far from the case, I would urge you to follow Christ into the lives of the afflicted around you. As you do so (or have done so), I would welcome your comments, stories, and experiences of what He is doing through you in this area. Feel free to email them to me at deathpastor@frontier.com.