SUNDAY MORNING SERVICE 9th September, 2001.

What makes you sad at the moment?
What makes you want to weep and mourn?
Perhaps someone close to you has died and you miss them
perhaps you have had some terrible disappointment, some other great loss
redundancy, even retirement, or a relationship break up
and it feels like a death, you grieve.
Or you feel crushed and numbed by the appalling things in the news:
Ardoyne, Jerusalem Afghanistan
It makes you want to weep at the misery that people go through.
When you feel like that would you agree with the idea that Christians are
"The Happiest people on earth!"? (title of book about experiencing Holy Spirit).
A friend of mine saw this on a church bookstall
as he was going in to the funeral of someone who had died tragically
He was furious, he thought it so inappropriate.
But in the sense of the Beatitudes, 'beautiful attitudes'
Christians should be the happiest, happy in sense of deep down joy

2 misunderstandings to avoid
(1) Christians are always happy, & (2) Christians are never happy,
[happiness being seen as a feeling rather than an attitude of contentment].
In fact we can be "most realistic people on earth"
we know reality of sorrow, we know a deeper reality
so we neither scowl our way through life,
never mind the child who remarked
'That horse must be a Christian, it's got such a long face.'
nor feel obliged always to have an inane grin.
Paul does not write "Never grieve"
but "don't grieve like those who have no hope".
Comfort encouragement in believing that 'Jesus died and rose again'
which gives confidence that
'God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him'
which guarantees that 'we will be with the Lord for ever'.

No need to be embarrassed by tears at a funeral.
Let tears fall, let hurt loss shock anger be expressed.
Beware false comfort, forced jollity denying pain, cracking inappropriate jokes, the chatter & cliches when people feel they must say something to deaden pain.
If we have nothing to say, let's say nothing,
leave space by our silence for those who mourn to speak or weep
and space for God to speak his strong comfort in the hope of Christ gives.

But if there is no hope, then there can be no real comfort.
And there can be no hope
if the reality of sin is not dealt with behind the reality of death.

Must not restrict mourning to grief in bereavement.
At another funeral in the North
an earnest man button holed me after the service.
He thanked me for the sermon but took issue with my quoting these words
'Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted'
That he said meant only those who mourn for their sin
not those who mourn in bereavement.
I don't believe he was right to say only for sin.
The grief that people feel in bereavement is real grief
and not only in bereavement -as we saw at the start --
the mourning we feel for those things is real and Jesus can comfort --
so long as we can enter the deep down mourning for sin
of which the Bible does speak.
There is a deeper mourning than the mourning
for death or disappointment or redundancy or human conflict.
The comfort that Jesus gives to those who mourn is ultimately
the comfort of knowing that our sin can be forgiven
grievous though it is to a just and holy God
So we can affirm these words at the darkest moments of human experience
even at the grave side, or wherever people are crushed
because the comfort that Jesus offers
is more than the comfort of an aspirin or Calpol
something that will deaden pain but does not get to the root of pain
but it is the cleansing sometimes stinging comfort of an antiseptic
which will root out the infection.

Look at the two occasions when Jesus wept:
Jesus weeps at Lazarus's grave John 11.17-44
Jesus knows his close friend is dead,
he goes to Bethany to wake him from sleep of death,
he is the resurrection & the life,
meets Mary & Martha in deep grief
'Lord if you had been here, my brother would not have died'
They do not/cannot/will not believe in Jesus power.
Jesus is deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
Why should he weep for a friend he knows will live again?
Is he sharing in the grief of others? Perhaps.
Is he not also sensing anger & profound disturbance in spirit
as he encounters the powers of evil, death, unbelief, incomprehension, cynicism
so rife in that situation.
Jesus's grief went deeper
grief for sin which brought death into world,
grieving over the lack of faith & hope even among his own friends.'
grieving for people under judgement
That becomes clear in the other occasion when we read that Jesus wept.
Jesus wept for Jerusalem. Luke 19:41-44
'If you, even, you, had only known on this day what makes for peace -'
Do we weep for Jerusalem today? For Macedonia? Belfast? Cork?
Watch folk in our streets harassed lonely searching wandering.
How many truly happy .. faces strained & upset ..
looking for meaning & friendship & not finding .. hardened & careless ..
Do they know what makes for peace? Do we weep?

As we enter into Jesus's grief for people under judgement
we will find profound comfort.
Not soft comfort like aspirin deadening pain
but challenging Christ centred realism
that will sting and disturb like an antiseptic.
Initially we may be uncomfortable,
ultimately it will bring health strength comfort
only found in faith in Jesus who died for us to be set free from judgement,
in Jesus who is the resurrection & the life.

In quiet prayer bring to God the things that make you mourn
Know that he hears your grief and shares it
but let him also gently probe, why you grieve
and do you believe in him who can bring hope who is the resurrection?

And ask God too for a greater sense of what grieves him.
'Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God'

and let there be the comfort of Christ in such mourning

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our father, who loved us
and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope,
encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.