According to Jesus, God blesses those who mourn by comforting them (Matt. 5.4). Two questions arise: How does God comfort those who mourn? And when? According to the Bible, God comforts the mourners personally and through the community of faith, and he comforts them now and in the future.
First, God comforts those who mourn both personally and through the community of faith. We see this most clearly in 2 Corinthians 1.3–5, which reads: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.”
Notice several things about this passage: (1) Comforting those who mourn is a characteristic act of God. He is “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.” (2) He constantly provides comfort to believers (“in all our troubles”). (3) He expects us to comfort others in turn (“so that we can comfort those in any trouble”). And (4) our ability to receive divine comfort and pass it along to others is directly tied to our imitation of Christ: As we suffer like Christ, so we are comforted like Christ. This last point suggests, of course, a close tie between divine comfort and Christian discipleship. A believer receives not only the blessing of divine comfort, but also the responsibility to comfort those who mourn. Just like Jesus. Just like Paul.
But when does God comfort those who mourn? Both now and in the future. Paul’s words, quoted above, speak of our present distress and our present comfort. At the very moment that distress overflows the lives of believers, God provides an overflowing amount of comfort. But in the second beatitude, Jesus highlights the future comfort we will receive from God. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted [note the future tense of this verb] ” (Matt. 5.4).
In our day and age, we do not speak much of the consolation of heaven, the blessedness of the future state when God redeems his creation and resurrects believers to an everlasting life. We do not ponder the promise of Revelation 21.4 that “[God] will wipe every tear from their eyes.” We are too much under the influence of Karl Marx, who taught that religion is an opiate of the people, a way to distract them from the need to change earthly conditions by focusing their attention on heavenly rewards.
Obviously, there is some truth to Marx’s observation, but not the whole truth. Some Christians are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good. But why, we should ask, can’t we be both? Why can’t our heavenly mindedness inspire us to do earthly good? It seems to me both that we can and that we should.
GeorgePWood.com 
Leave a comment