Bible Text: 1 John 1:8-2:5 | Preacher: Pastor Dorry Newcomer | Series: The Beatitudes | “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”  I can’t think of a more important promise for us today than that.  There is so much to grieve right now, and it’s by and large stuff they don’t make cards for at Hallmark!  Life before COVID wasn’t perfect, but at least we could get together with our families and friends without worrying that we are spreading a virus.  At least we could go inside the bank and watch the teller count out our money right before our eyes.  At least we could make plans for the future!  We are used to feeling grief when someone we love dies, and we know what to do to offer comfort in those situations.  But how do you comfort someone who is sad because the world has changed, and it isn’t done changing yet?

The first step is to admit the sadness.  Last week, we began our study of the Beatitudes by noticing how Jesus says right of the bat, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  If you want to be close to God, you have to admit your need.  In the same way, if you want to be comforted, you have to admit your sadness.  We have to visit our grief to find relief.

The problem is, we are not always good at naming our sadness.  Sadness is such a tender emotion.  It makes us very vulnerable.  Instead of admitting our grief, we put on a brave face and insist we are “fine”.  Even in writing this sermon, I feel some pressure to be upbeat and positive!  We are people of the living hope, right?  No one tunes in on Sunday mornings to hear Debbie Downer.  But if Jesus ever felt pressure to be upbeat and positive, he didn’t cave to it.  He started this poignant Sermon on the Mount with blessed are the poor in spirit, and then moved right to blessed are those who mourn.  He did not give any motivational speeches.  He didn’t try to psych up the crowd with pithy positive thinking sayings.  No.  Jesus looked the bitter reality of life right in the eye and assured everyone, THAT is where God is.

That is where God is.  In the poverty.  In the sadness.  In the powerlessness.  If only we could embrace that, I believe the world would be so much less angry!  Wait, you might be thinking, I thought we were talking about sadness, not anger.  Well, I think they are very closely related.  Sadness that we cannot or will not name comes out as anger.  Anger is the “canary in the coal mine” of emotions.  It is a clue that something is happening deeper inside.  Anger on the surface is a sign of sadness deeper within.  And I am here today to tell you that Jesus wants to comfort us in our every sadness.  God wants to be our consolation.

And we actually all have more experience with this than we might think.  I purposefully chose our scripture lesson today from 1 John, which has to do with the reality of our sinfulness and what God does with that.  John tell us, “If we confess our sins”—in other words, if we are so bereaved about something we have done that we want to tell God and get out from under that burden—”God is faithful and just and will forgive us and purify us from all unrighteousness.”  The New Testament is rich with verses that promise, if we mourn our sins, God will comfort us.  Today you might not be all that worried about your own sin, compared to everything else going on in the world.  But here’s what I’m thinking.  If we trust that God is with us when we sin, then we can surely trust God to be with us in all of our grieving.  If God is with us even when we deliberately disobey God, if we can be sure of that, then certainly we can expect God to be with us when we didn’t do anything wrong at all.  Whether we mourn because of our own mistakes, or because we have lost something or someone important to us, God is with us with God’s compassionate and comforting presence.

Does that make sense?  I am going to assume I can see your heads nodding in agreement!  But knowing about God’s comfort and experiencing God’s comfort are not the same thing.  So let’s think for a minute about what God does when we sin, and see if we can move from there to how God comforts us when we are mourning something else.  John tells us that when we sin, Jesus advocates for us.  Sounds like a good court room word.  Advocates.  So I’ve got a court room story to tell you.

Many years ago—before children—and before becoming a minister—Phil and I used to travel on the weekends a fair amount.  He is a huge baseball fan and has a goal of getting to every major league stadium, so we made plans on a long weekend to go up to see the Phillies play the Expos in Montreal.  We were exploring Montreal and happened to walk by a court house.  Before he could even suggest going in, I said no way!  We’ve never been to Montreal before, and there’s so much to see!  I don’t want to waste an afternoon in a courthouse.  But Phil said, come on, it will be interesting.  I laughed!  Interesting?  Maybe for you!  No, he said, “This will be different.  In Canada they use the British system for their courts, so the lawyers will probably have on those goofy looking long gray haired wigs.  People hand them down when they retire, so some of the wigs are 200 years old!”  OK, I said, but just to look around.  I don’t want to spend my whole afternoon on boring law stuff.

So we walked into the court house and asked the security guard if there were any trials going on that were open to the public.  He said, does it have to be in English?  Apparently in Canada, the defendant has the choice of whether the proceedings will be in English or French.  We said we don’t speak any French, so English would be better.  The guard looked through the docket, and said, no trials in English today.  But there is one open to the public in French, if you just want to get a look.  It’s a rape trial, the guard said.  I looked at Phil.  Okay, I said, let’s go.

We walked into the court room, and it didn’t look much like any other court room I ever saw.  Since we didn’t speak any French, we had to rely on the visual cues to figure out what was going on.  The first thing I noticed was the judge.  You can always tell which one is the judge by who has the biggest leather chair!  He was up front, in the center and wore a black robe.  Then the two sides of lawyers sitting at tables.  But the tables didn’t face the judge like they do in our court rooms, they faced each other.  The lawyers didn’t have those wigs, but they did wear colored capes over modern business suits.  Strange combination!  There were other people at the tables, too, without capes.  I figured some of them were law clerks and such, but I wondered which person was the accused rapist.   We didn’t even know which side was the prosecutor and which side was the defense.  He could have been one of any number of people.

But then I saw him.  I knew instantly that he was the defendant, because he sat in a special seat all by himself.  His was a hard wooden chair, exiled off from the rest of the room by wooden railings.  The courtroom was pretty small by our standards.  Everyone else was all huddled together, but he was off to the side by himself.  And as soon as I figured out who he was, I decided that he was guilty.  What a rash judgment!  First of all, I’d been in the room for less than 60 seconds.  And secondly, I don’t speak French!  Even if I stayed long enough to hear all the evidence, I would not be able to make a determination.  About the only French I remember from my two years in high school is “Bonjour!”  But in my gut I felt it:  this man is guilty.

Since we don’t speak French, we didn’t stay that long.  As soon as we got to the sidewalk I told Phil about my reaction.  I realized that I had come to that conclusion based solely on the way that court room was set up.  Because he was all alone, because he was walled off, because he clearly looked uncomfortable, it was obvious he was the one on trial.  And it made him look guilty!  When your own lawyers won’t even sit beside you, that sends a message, and I don’t care what language you speak.  That sends a message that you deserve to be all by yourself.  That sends a message that you are guilty, and no one wants to be near you because what you have might be contagious.

Now here’s the thing.  We might not commit crimes that get us arrested.  But all of us have sinned.  All of us have done things that are wrong.  All of us have failed to do what is right.  We have certainly broken the laws of God’s kingdom.  Again, I am going to assume you are all nodding your heads in agreement!

But what happens when we sin?  We can choose to pretend our sin doesn’t exist and just go along as if everything is “fine”.  Or we can take Jesus up on his offer and practice something called Godly sorrow.

Godly sorrow.  You want to know how it works?  Basically, you walk to the court house and sit yourself down in the hard wooden chair of the accused.  You face the judge in his or her big black leather chair.  You summon your courage, and you confess your crimes.  You admit you are guilty.  You express your regret.  You mourn.

And you know what God does?  God comforts.  As God sees you approach the seat of the accused he summons Jesus and says, “I don’t want my beloved child sitting alone.  Go and stand by her side so she’s not by herself during this trial.”  God comforts by being present with you.  And as you confess your sin, God gives you his full attention.  Not so God can remember every detail and use that all against you to declare you guilty.  No!  God gives you his full attention because God loves you!  What you have to say is important to God because you are important to God!  God comforts by listening to you.  And after you are done confession, Jesus says, “Get up out of that seat.  I need to sit there.”  God comforts by taking our place.  And God says, “There’s no need to declare you guilty, my beloved child, for my Son Jesus has taken your punishment for you.  The charges are dropped.”  God comforts us by forgiving us.  And then, God says, “My beloved child, I need you to go back into the world and get back to work.  Get back to helping others.  Get back to enjoying life.  Go and sin no more.”  God comforts by giving us the freedom to celebrate and savor life.  God comforts us by sending us our to serve.

I don’t know when, but sooner or later we are all going to arrive at the Day of Judgment.  We’ll find ourselves sitting in the seat of the accused.  There will probably be people speaking in languages we don’t understand, and maybe some angels in special robes or capes, and it will take us a few minutes to get our bearings and figure out who’s who and what’s what.  But even if it’s not familiar territory, we don’t need to be scared.  First of all, we know that when we sit in the seat of the accused, we won’t be sitting there alone.  Jesus will be right there with us.  And if we get into the habit of mourning our sins on earth, the Day of Judgment will be just another day for us.  The comfort, grace and forgiveness that we experience now will be there for us then, too.  Do you believe that?  I know you do.

And so I ask you:  if God is with us and comforts us when we do something wrong, can we not trust God to be with us when we are innocent?  What can separate us from the love of God?  If not even our own sin can separate us from God’s love, there’s no way God would let anything get in the way of God loving us and caring for us.

When we are suffering, we are often tempted to assume God has left us on our own to deal with our pain.  But that is the exact opposite of what Jesus promises.  Jesus promises a blessing—a sacred gift—for people who mourn.  Mother Teresa experienced this truth in her life.  She said, “Suffering, pain, sorrow, humiliation, feelings of loneliness, are nothing but the KISS of Jesus, a sign that you have come so close that Jesus can kiss you.”  A holy kiss!  That’s quite a blessing.  To be embraced by God in our pain.  That is Jesus’ promise.

By giving us the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is giving us a new model for how to live.  He is showing us that we can face the bitter realities of life head on, and find out, that is where God is.  We do not have to pretend everything is fine.  We do not have to stay stuck in our anger, or our sin, or our sadness.  We can choose instead of become vulnerable, and admit the truth of our poverty, need, and fears to God.  It is from there that we will be able to embrace the blessings God has for us and know, in the words of Julian of Norwich, that “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”  May you experience the holy kiss of Christ today and in the days ahead.  Amen.