Is There Room for Your Tears in the Kingdom of God?

By Pastor John Erickson

There is something strange about the way we talk to people who are grieving.

We mean well. We really do. Someone says they're struggling and we go searching through our mental file cabinet for the most encouraging sentence we can find.

It will get better. Everything happens for a reason. Stay positive. At least…

Now, any time you begin comforting someone with "at least," you may want to reconsider what is coming out of your mouth.

Sometimes people don't need an explanation. They need someone willing to sit with them.

Jesus begins the Beatitudes with a series of surprising announcements about who is blessed in God's kingdom. And right there, near the beginning, he says in Matthew 5:4, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."

Blessed are those who mourn?

That is not the kind of advertising slogan you'd expect for a new kingdom.

A friend once told me about a nonprofit facing difficult financial decisions. Among the people losing their jobs was the head janitor. As we talked, I was thinking about the Beatitudes and how easily we rank people by the importance of their position.

Jesus keeps directing our attention toward people the world can overlook. A job title does not measure someone's place in his kingdom. Neither does the ability to look strong while carrying pain.

Mourning is not failed faith

Somewhere along the way we can get the idea that being a good Christian means being fine all the time. If you trust God, shouldn't you be cheerful? If you believe in resurrection, shouldn't grief have an expiration date?

But the Bible doesn't speak that way.

The Psalms are full of lament. The prophets weep. Jesus weeps at Lazarus's tomb, even though he knows resurrection is coming. When we encounter suffering, Scripture doesn't ask us to become emotional robots.

It gives us language to bring our whole selves before God.

And that includes tears.

There are different reasons to mourn. We grieve people we've lost. We grieve relationships that have broken. We grieve our own sin and the harm we've caused. We grieve injustice and the suffering of others. Sometimes we grieve something we cannot even name neatly.

Jesus does not separate the "acceptable" kinds of sorrow from the rest before offering comfort.

He simply says mourners are not outside his kingdom.

Tears can become a kind of prayer

Christians throughout history have spoken about the spiritual significance of tears. Some early writers described tears as a kind of washing of the heart-a physical expression of the Spirit working in places that words cannot reach.

I find that beautiful. Not because crying itself makes you holy. And certainly not because anyone who can't cry must be spiritually shallow.

It's beautiful because it gives permission for sorrow to be brought into God's presence rather than hidden from him.

There is an image I find meaningful: the mourner's bench. In some Christian traditions, a simple bench provided a place for people to come forward and grieve, repent or pray. It was a way of saying, There is room here for what hurts.

What would it look like if our churches embodied that welcome without needing an actual bench?

What if someone could say, "My marriage is struggling," or "I'm afraid," or "I'm angry," and instead of fixing them in three sentences we listened?

There's another temptation here. When someone finally shares their grief, we can feel responsible for fixing it. We jump into problem-solving mode and start offering solutions they didn't ask for. I understand the instinct. It's hard to sit with a problem we can't solve. But a ministry of presence is not a second-rate ministry. Saying, "I'm sorry. I'm here. I don't have a great answer, but I love you," can be a beautiful expression of the comfort Jesus is describing. Our calling is not to be the Holy Spirit in somebody else's life.

Comfort is more than a quick solution

Jesus promises comfort. Notice he doesn't promise that every loss will be immediately reversed or every question answered by the time we finish praying.

When I hear a promise of comfort, I want immediate relief. A good cry, a reassuring hug, and then perhaps we could be finished with this difficult part.

But Jesus does not put a timetable on grief. The comfort he promises is deeper than getting our emotions tidied up quickly.

The promise begins with the presence of God.

Psalm 34:18 says the Lord is close to the brokenhearted. That is a different kind of good news than "You should be over this already."

Think of someone you deeply love who is hurting. Your first instinct may be to take the hurt away. And sometimes you can help. But often you cannot repair the situation. What you can do is be there.

We sometimes underestimate the power of presence because it doesn't feel productive. There is no box to check. No visible accomplishment. Just a person sitting with another person.

But this is part of how God's comfort becomes tangible in the world.

Grief can open our hearts outward

Mourning also has a communal dimension. We are invited to grieve what harms our neighbors, not just what harms us.

Jesus doesn't tell us to become numb to injustice because the world is complicated. He forms people who can look at suffering without turning away.

And when we allow ourselves to feel the pain of others, mercy becomes possible. Compassion stops being a nice idea and turns into something we practice.

If you're carrying grief today, you don't need to pretend before God. He is not frightened by your questions or offended by your sadness. Bring the real thing.

And if someone near you is mourning, perhaps your assignment is not to explain their pain. Perhaps it is to sit close enough that they don't have to carry it alone.

Blessed are those who mourn.

What if Jesus means it? What if the kingdom of God has room for the tears we've been trying so hard to hide?