Luke 6:21 Blessed are you that hunger now: for you shall be filled. Blessed are you that weep now: for you shall laugh. It sounds a paradox l We are wont to regard mourning and tears as evil things that come of sorrow and suffering. But here we are told of a mourning that, coming from some hidden source, flows on until it pours itself into the ocean of everlasting consolation. What can it mean? Certainly not that God really likes us to be always sad. The world of seen things around us, so bright, so beautiful, tells a very different tale. And yet methinks it tells us, too, that tears and blessings have to do with one another. Nature has its storms and rain; it has the bleak winds of spring, the thunder-clouds of summer, the falling leaves of autumn, the cold, dark days of winter, and we know now that this sad side of things is not the evidence of the existence of angry deities who dwell in the unseen, but that under the overruling hand of a wise and loving God there is in these things a blessing brought to us, and to the world in which we live. Ah, yes, it is true. Continual laughter is not profitable. There are times when laughter is unseasonable. Even the world pronounces those happy who can weep. Too much ease, and pleasure, and happiness, as the world counts happiness, wean the spirit away from Him in whom alone true blessedness can be found. There is need of sorrow to bring us back to Him (Psalm 119:67). God chastens to bless. His punishments are always corrective, never vindictive. Test by this touchstone all that men say of God's dealings with mankind. Ay, answer with it the troubled promptings of your own conscience in the hour of trial and mourning. (C. J. Ridgeway, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. |
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