Blessed are those who mourn
Grace and Truth column
by Isaac VillegasPrint Article Email to a Friend
Her voice broke and left us in silence, except for the quiet sobs. Rebecca tried to regain her composure, but the tears wouldn’t stop. I wondered if she wished she had not tried to speak, if she wished she had not risked sharing. Too late now. It’s impossible to take back spilled tears. She broke the news, shared with tears and sobs. We waited with her as she suffered the pain of recounting the death of a friend’s newborn.
This didn’t happen at a weekly fellowship meal or during Bible study or in some other small group. These were tears shed at our church service, worshipful tears. As I sat and listened to her cries, I thought, What does it mean to give and receive these tears as worship?
I’m glad Dirk led the sharing and prayer time that Sunday and not me. My job was to join everyone else as we sat and patiently listened, then bowed our heads as he offered our prayers to God. Dirk lifted up this tragic pain to God without rushing toward a happy resolution. He didn’t force Rebecca and us to turn this mourning into dancing. He didn’t silence the cry with comforting words of impatient hope. Dirk offered her all we could genuinely give: our solidarity, the embrace of our corporate prayer, our sharing in her suffering. “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26 NIV).
Mourning is worship. Sometimes we worship with our tears. To worship any differently would be dishonest and deny what Paul affirms: We preach Christ crucified (1 Corinthians 1:23). We misunderstand the message of resurrection if we think it means we must always rejoice in our worship. Resurrection doesn’t mean we rush past the wounds of suffering in order to find hope. We too easily forget that the risen Jesus appears to his followers with open wounds. In John 21, Thomas can put his hand into the hole in Jesus’ side. The crucifixion is not erased at resurrection; Easter doesn’t rush past Good Friday. Instead, resurrection remembers forever the wounds of suffering and the pain of death. As Blaise Pascal put it, “Jesus will be in agony until the end of the world” (Pensée 919).
How can this be good news? It’s good news because it means church is a space for Rebecca and her friend, whose lost child testifies to the unfinished business of resurrection. Further, she becomes our worship leader. Why? Because those who mourn are uniquely gifted to tune our ears to the reverberations of the Holy Spirit, who groans with all creation as we wait for redemption (Romans 8:23). Groaning is how we transform our patient waiting into a prayerful invitation for God’s redeeming presence. Our worshipful weeping is our union with the Spirit of God, who “intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (v. 26). Mourning and groaning are the sounds of the Spirit. And if we want the Holy Spirit at the heart of our church, then we provide space for those who mourn to lead our worship. They show us how our body, if it is truly Christ’s body and not a facade, is wounded and still bears the marks of suffering.
Jesus said, “Blessed are you who weep now.” They are blessed because they teach us the language of the Spirit with which we communicate with God; mourners lead us into our communion with a crucified Christ. And the resurrection shows us that God listens to those who pray like Jesus did: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Church is the place where we learn this prayer, as the Spirit hovers over our darkness and groans with us. Our worshipful weeping is our hunger and thirst for redemption, for resurrection.
Isaac Villegas is pastor of Chapel Hill (N.C.) Mennonite Fellowship.
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Isaac Villegas is pastor of Chapel Hill (N.C.) Mennonite Fellowship.
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