(A) An empty promise?

These words are often quoted at funerals which is a sad, I almost wrote grave, mistake. They have such a confident ring. It is such an emphatic promise yet for many it turns out to be a hollow one.

Those that mourn are not happy. Grief is a highly unpleasant sensation. C.S.Lewis wrote after his wife's death, 'No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.... The same fluttering in the stomach. The same restlessness, the yawning. I keep swallowing.' Genuine mourners have an acute sense of personal loss - someone they love is missing.

Mourning does not inevitably lead to happiness however prolonged. Indeed, if indulged in it can spawn a devil's brood of miseries: morbidity, resentment, self pity, anger, gloominess and lethargy - what C.S. Lewis called the, 'the laziness of grief.' The despair at losing one dearly loved can be dreadfully destructive. Alan Lake, the husband of Diana Dors, could not face life without his wife and committed suicide leaving his son an orphan. Acute, unrelieved mourning ruins family life. Queen Victoria's obsessive grief following the death of her husband, Prince Albert, blighted the lives of her children.

Happiness returns when mourning ceases. Time may dull the pain - it can be a healer. Some take themselves in hand like King David who wept and fasted while his sick baby was alive but stopped when the child died saying, "Now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me." 2Sam12v23. It was common sense rather than the mourning process that brought David comfort. When my mother died suddenly in the night from a heart attack my father called from the top of the stairs, "John come quickly, John come quickly." I climbed the stairs with a sense of foreboding. I found my mother sprawled across the bed - dead. It was a great loss for my father and I - but we did not mourn. As I looked at what had been my mother I was overwhelming conscious of her well being. I was happy for her. How could I grieve when she was safe and secure at last. I was greatly comforted - by faith.

(B) Constructive mourning brings comfort.

The only true comfort for the mourning heart involves getting back what has been lost. I have a friend who lost a much-loved son of tender years. Sometimes his wife dreams that she is holding her dear little boy. My friend tells me that he can always tell when this occurs because his wife is so happy in the morning. For just a little while she has had her child back again. Now that is why I stated that it is wrong to quote this beatitude at funerals. Those who mourn at the graveside can never really repossess what has been taken from them.

So let us turn to what I would call constructive mourning. In the summer I enjoyed a walking holiday in East Suffolk exploring the heaths, estuaries and shingle beaches. I took a friend - an old walking stick. As I strolled along I shared the experience of the Northamptonshire poet, John Clare:

Jesus must be referring to this sort of loss. Perhaps another illustration will help. A gracious, caring and beautiful hostess lay on the party to end all parties. The setting was marvellous, the lighting exquisite, the music uplifting and the food mouth watering. The guests arrive. All without exception ignore the hostess. This is a great pity as she has the ability to bring out the best in people. Really the success of the party depends upon the interaction of the guests with the hostess. Why is the hostess ignored? Some of the guests are intrigued by the decor. They make notes for the benefit of their own homes. Others make straight for the food and drink. The younger ones are too preoccupied with one another to worry much about the hostess. Underlying this ungracious behaviour is the vague resentment that it is not their party.

The party degenerates. A quarrel has broken out over a photograph found in the corner of the lounge. Some say, "It is like the hostess"; others that, "It is the hostess"; the sceptics sneer, "There is no hostess". A group of hooligans are throwing food at the ceiling and a few older rowdies are wrecking the furniture. One man comes to his senses - it is not turning out to be much of a party. He thinks, "Where is the hostess?" He has heard vague rumours that there is a hostess. She must exist and he must find her. He knows that he can never really enjoy himself until he has found her. He begins to search and as he does so there is a dawning realisation of the true extent of his loss. He mourns his loss. He cannot find her. His search becomes more desperate. At length he sits dejected and alone. He has never felt more alone - will he never find her? As he thinks his heart will break there is a cool, slim, hand in his. What blessed comfort!

Jesus is saying blessed are those that mourn their loss of God, who miss him and who search for him, for they will be comforted.

(C) Oh! What comfort.

Jesus told a parable about a youthful spendthrift who fell on hard times far from home. Eventually he mourned his loss. He realised he would be better off as a slave back home than to remain where he was. Jesus says, "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father'." Luke15v17and18.

It was constructive mourning; it took him back to and into the arms of his father; it brought him back to honour - the father's kiss, the ring, the robe and the fatted calf; it restored him to comfort and joy - music, dancing and merriment.

As a small boy I suffered very badly from severe asthma. I was a brave little chap and fought hard to overcome it. There were summer nights, however, when the attacks were very distressing. I would sit up in bed, lean over my knees and struggle for every breath. My face would be suffused with sweat and tears trickled down my cheeks. Gasping and coughing there was just one thing I longed to hear - my father's footsteps on the stairs. Eventually he would come and sit on the bed and begin to stroke my hair. As he calmed me down so my asthma eased. How I mourned his absence and longed for his coming!

Jesus taught us to address God as, our Father, and as our Father he will comfort us. He comforted us when we became Christians. As we mourned our sin, that which distanced us from him, HE RAN TO MEET US. He comforts Christians who become aware of broken fellowship. This is always our fault and, perhaps, we despair of ever finding him again until we feel that COOL, SLIM, HAND IN OURS. Finally he comforts us in our struggle to be good. What an unrelenting, unavailing, battle this is. We make such little progress and wonder if we will ever be what we should be. But God speaks to us from his word. Jude writes, To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy ....Jesus Christ our Lord. v24 and 25. We hear HIS FOOTSTEPS ON THE STAIRS. Jesus is coming again.

Happy is the man who misses God, who mourns his loss and desires a remedy, for God will surely come and comfort him with his own dear fatherly presence.