Comfort for the Mourning (Matthew 5:4)
Should a Christian always be joyful? Should a Christian never be joyful? Can he be joyful and mournful at the same time? Paul was when he described himself as sorrowful yet always rejoicing. The people that Peter wrote to in his first letter are described as those ‘rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials’ (1 Pet. 1:6). So it is possible for Christians to have sorrow and joy at the same time and for a prolonged time. An unusual incident is described in Ezra 3. The returnees from Babylon had laid the foundation for the new temple and were marked by joy at this sign of progress whereas those who could remember the previous temple built by Solomon were distressed. The outcome was that ‘the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away’ (Ezra 3:13). Maybe that is the way it often is with God’s people. Recollect