The Second Blessing of the Beatitudes: Those who weep will surely laugh!

The Second Blessing of the Beatitudes:

Those who weep will surely laugh!

 

 

 

 

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh” (Luke 6:21b).

 

 

      I want to receive the lesson given as I meditate on the words,

 

(1)   I wish to receive the lesson given as I meditate on the latter half of Luke 6:21, the second blessing of the Beatitudes, in connection with Matthew 5:4, which says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

 

(a)    In the latter half of Luke 6:21, the word “weep” comes from the Greek word κλαίοντες (klaiontes), which means “to weep aloud properly, to express sorrow with audible crying because it cannot be restrained (to cry out loud)” (internet).  This same Greek word also appears in the latter half of verse 25: “… Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.”

 

(i)               Ecclesiastes 7:3–4 came to mind: “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.” 

 

·        Therefore, I reread a meditation I wrote on Ecclesiastes 7:1–4 under the title “The Living Will Take This to Heart”: “… We like laughter more than sorrow.  To put it differently in light of Dr. Yoon-seon Park’s interpretation, people prefer indulging in physical pleasure rather than visiting the bereaved family of the deceased (Park).  But as King Solomon already said in Ecclesiastes 2:11, physical pleasure (sensual enjoyment) is meaningless.  In other words, enjoying worldly pleasure at a banquet is of no benefit in God’s sight.  Rather, Solomon says that what is beneficial in God’s sight is going to the house of mourning and tasting sorrow.  Why does he say sorrow is better than laughter?  Because by the sadness of the face the heart is made better (v. 3).  What does this mean?  It means that by worrying about the problem of death, our hearts are softened (Park).  And when the heart is softened, we do not waste our lives pursuing vain worldly pleasures.  Instead, with a softened heart, we humbly obey God’s word and live a life that is beneficial in God’s sight.  That is why the wise King Solomon speaks to us in today’s passage, Ecclesiastes 7:4: ‘The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of feasting.’  Our hearts must not be in the house of feasting.  In other words, our hearts must not be in the banquet house where physical pleasure is enjoyed.  Rather, our hearts should be in the house of mourning.  We should prefer going to funerals.  And at funerals, standing before the death of the deceased, we should reflect on our own death.  One day, when the Lord calls, we too must go.  That is because death is the destiny of all people (v. 2).  Therefore, as we think about our own death, we must consider how we should live today in a way that is beautiful in God’s sight.  We must leave behind a ‘beautiful name’ in this world—a ‘beautiful name’ in the hearts of our children and descendants.  What is the most beautiful name?  We must remember that it is ‘Jesus.’  As believers in Jesus, by living a life that becomes more like Him, we must leave memories of Jesus to our descendants and to neighbors who will one day attend our funeral.  Therefore, when our children, descendants, and even neighbors think of our name at our funeral, there should be true praise.  Furthermore, as people mourn our death, sounds of thanksgiving and praise to God should resound.”

 

(ii)             In John 16, when Jesus said to His disciples, “A little while, and you will see Me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see Me” (v. 16), some of the disciples said to one another, “What does He mean by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see Me, and again a little while and you will see Me,’ and by saying, ‘Because I go to the Father’?  What does He mean by ‘a little while’?  We do not understand what He is saying” (vv. 17–18).

 

·        Knowing what they wanted to ask, Jesus said to them: “Are you asking one another what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see Me, and again a little while and you will see Me’?  Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.  You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy” (vv. 19–20).

 

-        Here, the Greek word for “weep” is κλαύσετε, derived from the same Greek word used for “weep” in Luke 6:21.  Jesus was saying that because He would die on the cross and the disciples would no longer see Him, they would grieve and mourn, while the world would rejoice at His death.  However, He said that their sorrow would turn into joy, because He would rise again from the dead (be resurrected).

 

n  Under the title “Sorrow Is an Opportunity,” I would like to share part of a meditation I wrote on February 12, 2020: “… When we think of those who have fallen asleep (died) in Jesus, we can grieve sufficiently.  But the sorrow of those of us who believe that Jesus died and rose again is sorrow with hope.  That hope is that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him (1 Thess. 4:13–14).  In this way, the Lord does not waste even our sorrow in Him.  As we enjoy God’s grace of restoration that turns our sorrow into joy, we must walk the path the Lord walked, even as we weep.  As we walk, we must shed tears of gratitude, tears of prayer, and tears of dedication.  With tears of thanksgiving and prayer for God’s restoring grace, we must shed tears of dedication in obedience to the commands of the covenant God ….”

 

(b)   In Matthew 5:4, the word “mourn” comes from the Greek word πενθοῦντες (penthountes), which means “manifest grief,” referring to sorrow so severe that it completely grips a person and cannot be hidden (Internet).

(i)               This verb appears ten times in the Greek New Testament and consistently describes deep sorrow, whether godly sorrow (associated with repentance and dependence on the Lord) or worldly sorrow (grief over the loss of worldly pleasure and prosperity) (Internet).

 

·        2 Corinthians 7:10 came to mind: “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation without regret, but worldly sorrow produces death.”  I believe that godly sorrow or mourning (pious sorrow) produces repentance that leads to salvation.  But worldly sorrow can never produce repentance that leads to salvation.

 

(ii)             According to Hokma, the Greek word πενθοῦντες (penthountes) for “mourn” is used in the Septuagint (LXX) to describe mourning for the dead or lamenting the consequences of one’s own sins or the sins of others (McNeile).  Truly those who mourn must deeply grieve over their own sins and go all the way to the position of one who truly “mourns.”  In particular, this mourning refers to spiritual mourning—mourning over the unrighteousness that separates humanity from God, mourning over the very morality and “self-righteousness” that people once boasted in, and mourning that earnestly seeks and ultimately finds God’s will (Hochma).

 

·        Indeed, it is said that those who maintained a devout life in Jesus’ time believed that Israel’s suffering and shame were due not first to foreign oppression but to the personal sins and collective national sins of the people, and therefore they shed many tears.  Jesus desires precisely such tears of repentance (Mt. 4:17) (Hochma).

 

-        From a meditation I wrote on July 27, 2017, under the title “Repentance Must Come First …” based on Isaiah 22:12–13: “God is now telling us to repent, but we are crying out to God for ‘restoration.’  The tears we should be shedding now are ‘tears of repentance,’ but instead we are shedding ‘tears pleading for restoration.’  There is no restoration without repentance, yet we do not even realize the need for repentance and only feel the urgent need for restoration.  That is how unaware we are of the sins we are committing against God.  We do not regard sin as sin and continue to repeat the same sins against the holy God.  Not only against God, but also against our family members and church members, we boldly repeat sins without recognizing them as sins.  Yet we do not even think that we need to repent.  We have become that insensitive to sin.  Meanwhile, we have become extremely sensitive to God’s blessings of restoration and material blessings.  To such people, God now commands: ‘Wail, mourn, shave your heads, and put on sackcloth’ (Isa. 22:12).  In short, God is commanding us now to ‘shed tears of repentance.’”

 

-        From a meditation I wrote on July 18, 2018, under the title “A Pastor’s Tears,” based on Jeremiah 8:18, 21 and 9:1: “We pastors must sink into deep sorrow.  We must weep bitterly for God’s people.  But there is an even greater reason why we must wail and weep—and that reason is ourselves.  We must weep because of our own sins: the sin of not rightly proclaiming God’s word to God’s people; the sin of forgetting the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ and preaching a false gospel; the sin of lukewarm faith due to a loss of gospel passion; the sin of saying that one soul is more precious than the whole world yet not truly valuing even one soul; the sin of pastoring amid greed and covetousness and thus failing to teach, through our lives, the secret of being content with the Lord alone as the Shepherd of the flock entrusted to us; … the sin of being stiff-necked and hard-hearted so that we do not even recognize our own sins and therefore cannot repent; and the sin of having dried up not only tears of repentance but also tears of gratitude and dedication.  Because of these many sins, we pastors must weep bitterly.  We earnestly pray that God would have mercy on us.”

 

(iii)           The apostle James says to “sinners,” who must cleanse their hands, and to the “double-minded,” who must purify their hearts (James 4:8): “Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom” (v. 9).

 

·        1 Corinthians 5:2 rebukes the Corinthian church for being arrogant when they should have been “mourning” over blatant immorality.  And 2 Corinthians 12:21 shows Paul prepared to “grieve” over believers who do not repent (Internet).

 

-        Pastoral and practical implications (Internet):

Worship: Confession and mourning must be offered together with praise, reflecting both the cross and the empty tomb.

Discipleship: Teaching believers how to mourn rightly cultivates humility, vigilance against sin, and longing for Christ’s return.

Counseling: Genuine sorrow need not be suppressed. Scripture acknowledges sorrow and leads it toward God’s comfort.

Mission: A church that mourns over its own sin and the lost souls of the world can authentically proclaim the gospel in a culture numbed by superficial joy.

 

(c)    Luke 6:21 says that the blessing of “those who weep” is that they “will laugh.”  The Greek word for “will laugh,” γελάσετε (gelasete), means “to laugh (as an expression of joy or satisfaction)” (Internet).

 

(i)               This verb appears twice in the New Testament, both times in Luke 6 in the blessings and woes (Lk. 6:21, 25).  Jesus contrasts present sorrow with future joy, and present frivolity with impending sorrow.  In each case, earthly circumstances are reversed by the realities of the kingdom of God—an eschatological reversal: Luke presents the coming kingdom of God as overturning present social conditions.  Those marginalized for righteousness will ultimately laugh, while the self-satisfied will sink into lament (Internet).

 

·        I reread a meditation I wrote on July 20, 2009, under the title “The Greatest Reversal Drama”: “In Esther 9:22, we see a scene from the Jews’ reversal drama.  The Jews, who were on the verge of annihilation, were reversed and now controlled their enemies who hated them (9:1).  The reason for this reversal was that Queen Esther approached King Ahasuerus with the resolve, ‘If I perish, I perish’ (4:16).  As a result, the sorrow of the Jews was turned into joy, and their mourning into a day of gladness (v. 22).”

 

-        This is a piece I wrote on June 10, 2018, under the title “From a Tragic Drama to a Reversal Drama!”: “No matter how much Satan tries to write a tragic drama, God writes a redemptive reversal drama (This is seen even through Haman’s tragic drama in the book of Esther, which in the end God turned into a reversal drama for the Jewish people through Esther and Mordecai).”

 

·        I was also reminded of Naomi in the book of Ruth. Naomi, whose name means “my joy,” once stood at the very height of sorrow (her husband and both of her sons died in the land of Moab) [(Ruth 1:20–21): “She said to them, ‘Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.  I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty.  Why call me Naomi, when the LORD has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?’”], yet the Lord reversed her life into the place of greatest joy [(Ruth 4:14–15): “Then the women said to Naomi, ‘Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel!  He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has given birth to him’”].

 

(d)   Matthew 5:4 says that the blessing of “those who mourn” is that they “will be comforted.”  The Greek word παρακληθήσονται (paraklēthēsontai) is a compound of “beside” (para) and “to call” (kaleō), meaning “to comfort, to encourage and strengthen, to console” (Internet).

 

(i)               The purpose of the Messiah’s coming was to be the “consolation” of Israel (Lk. 2:25), and the purpose of the Holy Spirit’s coming was to be the “Comforter” (Jn. 14:16).  However, this comfort of God will come to those who shed tears of repentance.  And the comfort already partially realized will be fully completed only in the eschatological comfort of heaven (Rev. 7:17; 21:4).  One who does not truly mourn cannot expect comfort in this life or the next (Hochma).

 

·        From a meditation I wrote on August 27, 2011, titled “How Can We Receive Comfort?” based on Lamentations 1:20 and 2:14: “The reason Israel fell into misery was their sin.  Therefore, for them to receive true comfort from God, the problem of their sin had to be resolved first.  Only then could their relationship with God be restored and Jerusalem restored again.  As a result, through God’s grace of restoration, they received true comfort.  Ultimately, to receive comfort from God, one’s relationship with God must be restored, and for that relationship to be restored, the problem of sin must be resolved.  As I meditated on this, I thought about how we, who suffer because of sin, can receive comfort from God.  I reflected on four ways the indwelling Holy Spirit comforts us: (1) The Holy Spirit exposes our sin (2:14).  (2) The Holy Spirit leads us to confess our sin.  (3) The Holy Spirit leads us to repent and return to God.  (4) The Holy Spirit frees us from our captivity and grants us the grace of restoration. When we experience this grace of restoration, we receive true comfort from God.”

 

·        From a short reflection written on September 5, 2018, titled “What Is True Comfort?”: “Saying ‘It’s okay, things will get better’ to a friend who is suffering because of their sin cannot be true comfort.  True comfort is believing the truth that there is forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ and receiving forgiveness through true repentance.  Only when we enjoy freedom from sin can we enjoy freedom from suffering.”

 

·        From a short meditation written on June 21, 2024, titled “When There Is No One Anywhere to Comfort Us …”: “When there seems to be no one anywhere to comfort us (cf. Lam. 1:9; Eccl. 4:1), we must look in faith to the God of comfort—who comforts us as a mother comforts her child (Isa. 66:13), who comforts the downcast (2 Cor. 7:6), and who comforts us in all our affliction (2 Cor. 1:4)—and cry out to Him, so that we may receive God’s comfort and endure our suffering, and also comfort those around us who are suffering.”