Blessed Are Those Who Mourn - Matthew 5:4

November 5, 2017
All Saint’s Day – Transferred
Zion Lutheran Church – Mission Valley TX
Rev. Jonathan F. Meyer, Pastor

Audio link here

“Blessed Are Those Who Mourn” – Matthew 5:4

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

When I was a boy, our evening walks were to the church cemetery. We lived just a couple hundred yards from it. So, with the animals fed and the dishes done and no homework for the evening, Dad would lead us kids on a walk to the cemetery. We would go under the overhead sign that read Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church and walk through the heavy, steel gates and enter onto the hallowed ground.

There, among the headstones, Dad would tell us the stories of the people buried there. Etched with names like Kokel, Buchhorn, Noack, Richter, Leschber, Kurio, and Mickan, you could follow the history of Zion and much of the history of the Walburg community as well. There is Mr. Oachs – my favorite Sunday school teacher. Lauren is there, the stillborn infant daughter of one of my confirmation classmates from 1988. Nancy was killed in an automobile accident on a foggy night in 1973. Robert, who sat on a bench at his wife’s graveside every night after she died, he fell asleep in Jesus and is now next to his wife. Their son, David, just a few years older than me, died from cancer and he, also, is buried next to his parents.

In their lives, on Sunday mornings, these saints of old, these people whose stones we would walk past and read, these saints would gather together and confess in the Apostle’s Creed – sometimes in German, sometimes in English - that we believe in “the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” Nowhere do those words more powerfully come to life than in a church cemetery. Now, etched into stone, for the generations to read, you can read their confession of faith even while they are asleep in Jesus. Many are written in German; many more in English. With Bible references like, “I am the good shepherd,” or “I am the way, the truth and the life,” or “Saved by Grace,” the headstones speak for them.

And what you see in a Christian cemetery is the church – well, part of it anyway. Even though they are asleep in Jesus, the people buried there are still part of the whole Christian Church. While you and I wait patiently, faithfully gathering around Word and Sacrament, the faithfully departed are at rest, worshipping in faithful and patient silence until Jesus comes and opens the graves of the faithful.

We refer to these people as saints: dearly beloved children of God who have fallen asleep as faithful. In a sense, it’s a disservice to reserve the name of saint only those who have died. The word “saint” comes from the Latin word for “holy.” They are not holy because they have died; they are holy because of Christ. They were made holy in the waters of baptism. And, while they bore witness in both in word and deed during their lives, they continue to make bold witness even in death.

That witness is important to those who gathered to lay their loved one to rest. For the witness of the loved one – their demonstration in word and action – of faith in Jesus is most important.

For without Christ, death is too terrible to ponder. But Christ has conquered death and, in His own death and resurrection, He controls death so that becomes His means to eternally rescue His people from the wages of sin. In Christ there is the sure, certain confidence that they will see their loved ones again on the day of Christ’s return. On that last, great day Easter will take place again. With the symbolic 144,000 – a symbolic number of completeness and fulness, not a literal head-count of who receives eternity with Jesus – these saints of old will join the church of all ages and stand before Christ – like Him, once dead, but now alive into eternity. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted in the resurrection of all flesh.

But that is in the day of the Resurrection. We are still waiting. And for some, that waiting – especially after losing a loved one – is terribly painful. To them; to you, Jesus speaks: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. He doesn’t mean those little pithy sayings we try to toss out to comfort our friends and family members: “Give it time,” or “It’ll get better,” or “It won’t hurt so bad in a few months…” While those may be true, they are not terribly helpful when you have just laid your spouse, your child, your parent, your best friend to rest in the earth. Jesus would have us receive comfort from Him – the giver of the blessing itself. He turns us, in our grief, back to Himself and away from ourselves and our own understanding. 

The last time we took a family walk to the cemetery was on April 29, 2000. We walked to the cemetery – but this time, Dad wasn’t leading us to tell us another story. He was there, waiting for us; his body in the casket. This time I was leading the way and the rest of the family was walking alongside and behind. It was six days after Easter. With Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter still fresh in our memories, we were now facing our own, Holy Saturday. In a very real sense, it was fitting to bury my Dad – or any saint who has fallen asleep in Jesus, actually – on a Saturday, for Jesus Himself was in the tomb on Saturday, His body also at rest awaiting His day of Resurrection.

You know what’s “funny,”  - I don’t remember anything of what was said to us that day, or in the days prior, or in the days after. I can’t remember a single thing that was said in Dad’s funeral sermon. But the morning he died, I preached in chapel at Seminary – it was Tuesday after Easter, the Festival of St. Mark, April 25. I didn’t get the message about his death until after the service. When Laura found me, we went to the dean of student’s office. You know what’s funny? I remember what he said. Dean Rockamann said, “Brother – you just preached a wonderful Easter message. Now, Christ calls you to live what you preached.” He placed his hands on our shoulders and he said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for you, too, shall be comforted in Christ’s Easter promise.”

On this All Saints’ Day, dear saints of God – for you, too, have been made holy in the blood of the Lamb, all of your sins covered in the blood of Jesus – blessed are you, for you shall be comforted. Whether you ache for your parents or children, for brothers and sisters, or friends, hear those words of Jesus for yourself. Blessed are those who mourn for you shall be comforted. 

In a few moments, you will come to the Lord’s Table. I’m glad our altar rail isn’t just a straight rail. In old, Scandanavian churches, the tradition was that the communion rail was a half-circle. Ours is a half-square and, for this purpose, that’s close enough. In the old Scandanavian churches, they taught that what we see with our eyes is the half-circle that is present this side of heaven, when you kneel with fellow saints of God to receive Christ’s body and blood. But the other half of the circle you can see only with eyes of faith – that side of the circle is present in heaven. You get an inkling of this in the communion liturgy: “Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify your glorious name, evermore praising You and singing “Holy, holy, holy…”” And, in that moment as you kneel, you – the saints of God on earth – are joined by the saints of God whose bodies are at rest. And the church – both living and at rest – gathered around Christ, who is the Word made flesh, and His Body and Blood given and shed for the forgiveness of sins – the church is blessed in His presence.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him; that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.