Matthew 5: 4, 6
The next parallel we will explore are verses 4 and 6. Here we will discover how to truly be comforted and how to find real satisfaction.
4a – Blessed are those who mourn; 6a Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel very “blessed” when I’m mourning. All I can think about is the thing that is causing my great grief, not how I could possibly find a blessing in it’s midst. I know God can and will comfort me in my grief and I pray He comforts others who are grieving, but, blessed – not even a little. Not that blessings can’t come from this kind of mourning, they do. Nevertheless, I am not convinced this is the definition of mourning Jesus is talking about here. I believe He is taking us in a different direction altogether. I believe Jesus is talking about a mourning that needs to originate in the deepest part of us. Mourning that goes beyond sadness and goes directly to the very thing God grieves most; an unrighteous sinful world. That’s right, sin. A very unpopular word in today’s society.
I was talking to a friend one day about this. She commented that in today’s world, the word sin just isn’t used anymore. She told me about her daughter who was disciplining her son one day. Her daughter told him that what he was doing at that moment was sinful. It struck my friend profoundly. We don’t want to tell people that they are doing something sinful. It isn’t very politically correct. Instead, people don’t sin, they make “mistakes” or, we blame it on their past, or they were influenced by someone else, or they find themselves in difficult circumstances and that’s why they do what they do. The philosophy of, “It’s not my fault, it’s (fill in the blank’s) fault”, is as old as original sin. Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the snake and the snake… well, he was left holding the bag. God set them all straight. They had all sinned and had to pay the consequences.
Why is it that people don’t own their own choices? (That is the bottom line – sin is a choice we make.) My actions are mine alone. I can’t blame it on how I grew up, or what is currently going on in my life, or even that I didn’t “know” it was wrong. I have to own my choices and call it what it is. It is not a mistake, it is sin. It is not something in my past, it is sin. Nobody made me do it, I chose to sin. You see, when I begin to own my sin, I can then finally come to a place where I can mourn my sin. If I continue to blame others or the circumstances in my life for what I do, then I can’t grieve it. I just try to place the blame somewhere else. And when I don’t grieve my sin, I lose out on the blessing that Jesus promises. You see, true grieving means true repentance. True repentance leads to forgiveness which finally leads to a hungering and thirsting after righteousness.
Have you ever been really hungry or thirsty? Stomach rumbling to the point of aching? Mouth so dry your tongue sticks to the roof? All you can think about is getting that drink of water or that bite of food. One day a year, the Jewish community comes together and does a total fast. A total fast is different than just an ordinary fast. It means no food, no water, no work, no nothing. The day is Yom Kippur, which means Day of Atonement. It is a day to come before a holy and awesome God to repent and seek forgiveness for sin. The ten preceding days are called the Days of Awe. In this time you have the opportunity to get things right with those around you. To seek forgiveness, to forgive, and to realize the choices you make have consequence. But it is the day that is significant. The Day of Atonement is when you get things right between you and God. My husband and I began to fast on that day a few years ago, and let me tell you, it’s hard. Surprisingly, it’s not really the lack of food that grabs our attention as much as the lack of water. There is nothing in the world like not being able to drink anything for 24 hours. All you can think about is a giant glass of water. I often wonder if Jesus is referring to the Day of Atonement here. I can’t be sure, but it fits. The total fast gives you a physical picture of what Jesus is talking about. We should hunger and thirst after righteousness in the same way as we hunger and thirst after food and water on Yom Kippur. Should we not seek after the bread of life and the living water more than anything else? When Jesus was tempted in the desert to make the stones into bread, his response was “man must not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (HCSB) Was he hungry – absolutely! But in that fasting experience, he knew what was more important. It is only when we truly mourn our sin that we can be ready to be blessed by the bread of life and the living water.
4b – For they will be comforted; 6b For they will be satisfied
And what is the great blessing? We will be comforted and we will be satisfied. Isaiah 61:1-3 says, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion — to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.” (HCSB) Jesus quoted this passage in his hometown synagogue. He proclaimed that He was the one who can do this. The hometown crowd wasn’t too pleased by this proclamation and tried to throw him off a cliff. Nonetheless, this is the fulfillment of the promise. When we mourn our sin to the point that we turn from it and follow God, those ashes turn into something beautiful as God restores and redeems us. Then when we hunger and thirst after righteousness we will receive a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair and then we will be fully satisfied.
When you look at being comforted in the context of being satisfied, it changes the way you think about what comfort actually is. So often we equate comfort with the physical things around us. What kind of house we live in, what kind of car we drive, what kind of things we surround ourselves with. We want to live “comfortably”. However, I find when I put my focus on the things of this earth, I tend to become less satisfied. I want more stuff. I want a better car or nicer clothes or a bigger house. I want, want, want… Suddenly, I’m not comfortable anymore. In Romans 12:1 Paul said it this way, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, do not be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” You see, when we renew our minds to conform to the mind of Christ, then we can understand true comfort and true satisfaction.
Psalm 23 gives us a beautiful picture of this. “The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I lack.”(HCSB) The Psalmist redirects our focus onto the One who will really give us satisfaction. He says, The Lord is my shepherd. Then I love the way this translation puts the next phrase: I will lack nothing. From this we understand that if I’m a sheep, all I need is the shepherd. The shepherd will make sure I have food, water, safety, and am sheared (pruned) so I won’t be carrying around this big heavy coat. In other words, a great sheep life. That’s all a sheep needs. In the same way, when I put total trust in the Shepherd, He lets me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters; He renews my life; He leads me on the right path; He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies; He anoints my head with oil; His goodness and faithful love pursues me all the days of my life; Then, when all is said and done, I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This is the description of comfort in view of total satisfaction. When we mourn our sin and then thirst after righteousness, the outcome will be a life where the Shepherd of all shepherds – the King of kings, Lord of lords, Almighty God, will move and lead us toward a life everlasting with Him. It doesn’t matter what happens around us, to us, against us or for us. He promises that His rod (discipline) and staff (guiding hand) will comfort us and take us through the valley of the shadow of death to a place that will total satisfy our every need.
Questions to Ponder:
1. Have you ever been really hungry or thirsty? 2. Is there any sin in your life you need to mourn? 3. Is there someone you need to forgive or someone you need to ask for forgiveness? 4. Have you discovered true satisfaction?
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