IN our vulnerability, we can find happiness

​In the book of Matthew, as part of his sermon on the mount, the bible tells us that Jesus once said, "blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

If you dig into that word 'blessed' - you will find it comes from the Greek word "makarios" - which can mean happy.

So I re-read those words this morning, I said them out loud, happy are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

I think of Jesus as the great dichotomist. The man of contrasts that from a worldly perspective often make little sense. They are indeed often quite counter-cultural.

The first shall be last.

Lose your life to find it.

Strength in weakness.

Gaining by giving.

And now this, this whole happy are the mourners.

But you know what, I have come to understand this one, Jesus. Deeply.

When Jesus talks about mourning in this sermon, it's easy for us to immediately consider the mourning that comes with losing a loved one. Culturally, that's how we most often think of mourning.

But I think Jesus is talking about a much broader sense of emotional pain. Certainly the deep sense of sorrow associated with losing a loved one is included here, but there's also profound regret and sorrow over sin and the incessant wrestling with unresolved hardships and traumas.

And more.

I think Jesus recognizes here just how prone we are to keeping our emotional challenges to ourselves, to bury them deep within us, so he is publicly calling us to an honest and authentic expression of our grief.

Calling us to acknowledge it and embrace it with others.

Calling us to mourn.

I think he's telling us that happiness is found not in the emotion of mourning, but in the release that comes after the mourning. The mourning that is ideally greeted with comfort from those around us.

I happen to think that because that has been my experience. I have experienced the deepest mourning of my life the last 8 years yet have pushed ever closer to happiness. A push fueled by acknowledging and embracing my struggles, no longer burying them.

A push fueled by vulnerability.

In the vulnerability, I have found comfort in the form of others. A comfort that has ultimately pointed me closer to a preacher delivering a sermon on a mount.

A comfort that has felt more like happiness than I've ever felt.

So many signs point to an unhappy world. Escalating drug overdoses and suicides no small part of those signs.

Many might see those signs and see a world in mourning.

I personally don't believe that. I believe we have a world longing to mourn but increasingly, in our growing disconnection, we struggle to find our people to mourn with.

Happy are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Unless, that is, they can't find the comforters.

Which side of the dichotomy was Jesus calling us to here? Was he calling us to be happy, or to be comforters. Or, was he suggesting there's no dichotomy there at all?

Maybe he was suggesting they are one in the same.