- Comfort
Matthew 5:4
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
All people will mourn at some time during life; death is a loss of something or someone, and a loss produces mourning; everyone can mourn the loss of life. That loss is like a hole in the heart that needs to be filled. It is comfort that fills the emptiness left by the loss. Mourners will be comforted = the emptiness will be filled. The promise is that God Himself will fill the holes caused by losses.
The promise is that the more we lose from this world the more the losses will be replaced with the substance of the next world; spiritual truths will become more solidly entrenched and real and true. This is comfort. Hope replaces memory: the hope of seeing a loved one again eventually grows stronger and overwhelms the mourning as time passes. Comfort is in the words of the Gospel. Comfort does actually come through the clichés of comforting words of life.
This comfort is real and powerful. It is substantive and it really works. It is a “blessed” thing. The comfort is more powerful, more helpful, more useful, more substantive, and deeper than the mourning. The comfort of the Gospel is why and how mourners are blessed. The promise is that this comfort will sustain and strengthen. The clichés of the Gospel are really comforting and they bless: “Jesus loves you; God is good; there is a resurrection and a reunion; all things work together for good; let not your hearts be troubled, believe in God.”