Blessed are We Who Mourn

You will be comforted, because you allowed yourself to mourn. You allowed yourself to sorrow, with the living, for the dead. You allowed your heart to be broken that another’s body was broken. You allowed your life to be altered because another’s life was destroyed. The mourners will be comforted because they’re the only people who can be comforted. Those who allow themselves to sorrow are the only ones capable of feeling joy, in the end. Seal the well and it remains hollow. Leave it open even when it hurts, and only God knows the depths to which He will fill you with joy.

The violent man murdered at least eighty people, and was killed in turn. Those who live by the sword die by the sword. They cannot be comforted if they will not mourn. Of course, those who never take up the sword against their neighbors, sometimes also die by the sword. This is the mystery of sin and violence. But through faith we know that they are at peace, and they will be comforted.

They have guns, but we have flowers.

They are killers, but we are human beings.

They may come to kill us again, as we lay flowers for the dead. And for a time they will seem to have won.

In the end, though, the flowers will win, and all who dared to mourn will be comforted. This we know by faith.

Christ did not send the angel Gabriel to the San Hedrin, or to the crowds that cried for His execution; He did not send a message to Pilate or Herod or Caiaphas. There was no word for the soldiers who tortured, mocked and pierced Him. Their story ended when their deed was finished. The angel didn’t even come to the disciples hiding in the upper room.

Gabriel was sent to the myrrh-bearing women. Those who came to mourn, received the comfort of Heaven and were sent to give comfort to the Disciples. To this day, thousands of years later, that word of comfort is still being spread: that those who died in the hand of God are at peace, and that death is not the end for them. But it came to the mourners first, because only they were in the right place to meet the angel. It still comes to the mourners. It will come to us.

They have guns but we have flowers. And this is a mercy, because flowers for the dead will outlast every act of violence the world can produce. Blessed are we who mourn the dead, because mourning gives way to joy.

I don’t know that that’s what the man was thinking, when he told his son about flowers to fight guns. Likely he wasn’t. But it’s true nonetheless.

Blessed are we, who mourn and lay flowers. We shall receive the only possible comfort.

(image via pixabay)