Besides peeling onions, the price of gas and your favourite sports team losing in the playoffs, does anything bring tears to your eyes?
Sin should. That is the point Jesus is making when he says,
Mt 5:4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
The kind of mourning that he is talking about is fundamentally a sorrowing over sin. It is what the Psalmist speaks about when he writes:
Ps 119:136 “My eyes shed streams of tears,
because people do not keep your law”
It means moving beyond confessing that we are sinners and that we can’t fix our sin, to feeling sincere remorse and sorrow because that is our state. And not just our personal state, but the state of others and the state of our world.
This one caught my attention. I need to grow here. My heart is not broken over sin the way it should. That came home to me recently as I followed the story of seven year old girl that died while in the care of her guardian. My emotional response to the details of that story were shock, anger and disgust, but mourning over sin and the sinfulness that gave rise to this tragedy was not a response of mine. When it comes to my own sin again my response is muted. Too often I just feel regret or frustration, but I do not mourn as I ought.
In the day of Jesus, the nation of Israel was awaiting one who would come and deliver them from the bondage of sin, who would bring comfort to those that mourn (see Isa 61:1-3). Simeon, who blessed the infant Jesus in the temple court, recognized that Jesus was that one, the consolation of Israel (Lk 2:25). Paul in his letter to the Corinthians speaks of how believers will through Christ share abundantly in comfort.
That is the promised blessing for those who mourn, that we will know God’s comfort in the midst of the affliction that we face in this fallen world corrupted and polluted by sin.
Men of the Way 