Blessed are Mourners: Beatitudes Pt 7
I've been trying for two weeks to write this post. I knew what I wanted to write, but I did not know (the kind of "knowing" that really matters) what this beatitude means. After all, it is the most paradoxical of all the beatitudes. On the surface it makes no sense whatsoever. If a synonym for blessed is "happy," as some translations put it, and mourning is associated with unhappiness, then in some ways Jesus is saying "happy are the unhappy." At the very least, we must admit that Jesus' way of seeing happiness is absolutely different than the common ways that we view it in our culture. I think part of the insight we need comes from the shortest verse in the Bible: "Jesus wept" (John 11:35). Over what was he weeping? Lazarus' death? The fact that he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead? That his followers did not have faith? I've heard all of these reasons and while any of them might be true, I think there is something that ...