The “mourning” here is not about this or that thing, specially; still less is it over our own sins and failures. We have such no doubt to mourn over; but the Lord’s words here seem to indicate something much more than even the “godly sorrow which worketh repentance unto salvation not to be repented of.” Such sorrow will no doubt be found in the one who possesses the character above-named; but that is very different from giving to it any such meaning as “Blessed are the penitent.” No doubt there is blessedness in being such.
But the Lord never mourned in such a fashion clearly, and He was a mourner throughout His life, “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;” and I may say that the thing that fitted Him to know that sorrow which He did so well know, was the very fact that he could not know anything like penitence. Knowing no sin, –having nothing in Himself to mourn over, — He had fellowship with God unbroken and unclouded. He came from God, — went to God, — was in the world solely as the doer of His Father’s will, the seeker of his Father’s glory; in this to learn the whole extent of the ruin into which man had fallen, and bring help to one who had “destroyed himself.” What a scene for the Son of God to come to, upon such an errand! that He had nowhere to lay His head, — that men denied, blasphemed and crucified Him, — that was the manifestation of that lost condition which the death of the cross alone could reach. He bore it all in sorrow and in suffering in his soul all His life through, as at the cross he bore its penalty. Nay “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” Not a thing that He relieved but He felt it; and felt it as the fruit of the sin which had blasted a creation once so fair. That in itself, to Him who could detect it in its most hidden shapes and read it in the, very heart, — aye, in the hearts of those who followed Him most nearly, — what a constant cause of terrible suffering it must have been, we can little (alas) any of us understand.
Are they not “blessed,” who can mourn with Him? To judge sin, in a certain way, is very easy. The world itself can do so. Everyone can judge it, when it is his neighbor’s and not his own. On the other hand to treat it lightly is just as easy, and a thing too which we often cover with the precious but abused name of “grace.” But to mourn, — to weep in secret places over it, — to bear it as a burden only to be relieved by casting it on God: that is what is “blessed” indeed, for it is Christ-like. It is what true and divine love alone is capable of. It is what unites the real judgment of evil with long-suffering patience. It is one most real and necessary part of fellowship with God: a God so holy that He who knew no sin must be made sin for our salvation; a God so gracious as to give His own beloved Son that we might be saved.
Turn where you will in such a scene as this, and how shall we, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, not “groan within ourselves?” The world going on to judgment; the Church sunk down almost to the level of the world; the truth everywhere corrupted or opposed or neglected: where are our hearts, if we are not mourners? But if heaviness endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning, yea, with “the bright and morning star.” We sorrow not without hope. Soon shall the day break and the shadows fade away. “Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.”