The Comfort of God

The Beatitudes "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Matthew 5:4 There is a mourning every human heart knows- the grief of loss, the ache of love torn open. You may not know this about Jesus, but He is comfort. Not just the giver of it- the embodiment of it. He mourned when He wept with Mary and Martha at the grave of their brother, Lazarus (Jn 11:33-35). He wept over Jerusalem because of the suffering they would face for rejecting the One who came to save them (Lu 19:41-44). But there is also a mourning that rises when we see the truth about our sin, about the world's darkness, about the distance between what is and what God intended. It is the mourning creation feels, groaning for the day when everything broken will be made whole again (Ro 8:22). And to these- the grieving, the repentant, the ones who refuse to numb their souls- Jesus speaks a promise no one else can give: "they shall be comforted." This comfort is not thin or sentimental. It is the comfort of the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort, who comforts us in every affliction and teaches us to comfort others with the comfort we have received (2 Co 1:3-4). It is the comfort sung in the Psalms, where the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit (Ps 34:18). It is the comfort promised by the prophets- the day when God will wipe away tears and swallow up death forever (Isa 25:8). This is the comfort Jesus gives because this is who He is- our comfort when we mourn. He is the gentle whisper like Elijah heard. He is the faithful friend like Jonathan was to David. He is a hope strong enough to carry us into tomorrow. And He is the promise that one day every tear will be wiped away by His hand (Rev 21:4).