“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
As we celebrate All Saints tonight with a lot of people mourning being present, I believe it will be worthwhile talking about which comfort is given. What did Jesus mean when he stood upon the mountain stating that mourners will be comforted?
At first, there might not seem to be a lot of comfort in mourning. Mourning is terrible. Loosing a loved one is – despite it being an all-natural thing – one of the toughest things that can happen to us.
Loosing a loved one creates a void. A void that cannot be filled. Emptiness is found when birthdays are no longer celebrated, when holidays are celebrated with one less person around the table.
All the love we once directed into our loved one now has become somehow homeless. What earthly focal point should we know direct it to?
For sure we find substitute focal points: Plaques in honour, belongings we hold on to, maybe even memories we try to relive. But these substitutes will forever be substitutes. Good substitutes, but they never will completely fulfill to void of a lost loved one.
Therefore, the question stands: What comfort is found in mourning?
I have several approaches that can help us understand the comfort. The first has to do with the essence of mourning.
Mourning. All though it for sure is not fun, I believe it to be a healthy reaction. It is a reaction that shows how one has truly understanded the vulnerability of our existence. Life and death will forever walk hand in hand.
As we mourn, we learn that mourning is no disease. It is a part of living. We cannot simply take some pills and cure mourning. It is a part of us. The only ‘cure’ is to learn to live with and accept deaths part of life.
Of course, mourning can take over. We can almost drown in it. Yet I believe it is better to drown for a while acknowledging it, than it is to repress ones mourning.
After all, repressing only leads to anxiety because one deep down knows how one is repressing a part of reality. Also, if you repress, your well-being – you coming to ease with death being a part of life – cannot grow. At least only grow in anxiety.
Therefore, mourning is healthy. It leads to growth through acknowledgment of death. Hence, there is comfort in mourning.
A second approach to answering the question is to consider the alternative. That one did not mourn. Would it not be worse?
I believe it to be so. The most terrible memorial service is not the one where a lot of people cries. It might be the one where the passing is most unexpected. But the most terrible memorial truly is the one where no one comes.
Every tear we shed is a sign of love. We mourn because we had love. A love that with the passing – with the void – have become, as I said it earlier as well, homeless.
A homeless love. I like that perspective on mourning. The love we had never disappeared. It still is around. But in another way. Homeless. As it no longer has its earthly focal point, it is unsettling.
Yet still it is love. And a love turning homeless is a lot better than no love. That is why the most terrible memorial truly is the one where no one comes, where only God’s love seems to have existed.
That is another reason for comfort being found in mourning. Mourning is an expression of love.
These to approaches to answering the question – that mourning is healthy and that is an expression of love – can be linked.
When I talked about mourning being healthy, I said that mourning has no cure. An nor should it, because as an expression of love that would only mean, that love also would be curable. And would that not just be sad?
“There ain’t no cure for love.” Leaonard Cohen sang this in a song back in 1988. Cohen believes it would be sad if love could be cured. But more than that, in his song he even argues that God does not want us to cure it either. After all, all God did was to act out of love.
In his song, it goes like this:
“I walked into this empty church, I had no place else to go
When the sweetest voice I ever heard whispered to my soul
I don’t need to be forgiven for loving you so much
It’s written in the scriptures
It’s written there in blood
I even heard the angels declare it from above:
There ain’t no cure
There ain’t no cure, there ain’t no cure for love.”
I cure for love would be somehow dreary. That is yet another argument for mourning being good. Mourning bringing comfort.
Before I came here, when I was interviewed by the at that time board of the church, I was asked what I liked the most by being a pastor. To the surprise of many, I replied that I loved conducting memorials.
Why would a young person like you find joy in that? Could have been a follow-up question.
I cannot remember if such a question was asked, but if it was an answer could have been – in the light of my sermon today – that for sure baptisms and weddings are about love, but memorials are so as well. In a sometimes hidden, yet beautiful way.
We celebrate lives because of love. Just as we mourn because of love.
With that said I would like to wish all of you who are present here today a happy mourning. At first, it might seem contradicting to wish you a ‘happy’ mourning.
But after listening to my sermon, I hope you not only understand why I wish you just that. I hope you feel encouraged and uplifted to wish it for yourself and others as well.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” I find that oh so true. Mourning is a sign of health. Mourning is a sign of love. Therefore: Happy mourning.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.