👉🏾👉🏾👉🏾(#Anqetse #Bitsuan )#blessed are those who #mourn. For they will be #comforted.(#Matthew 5:4; #Luke 6:21)
(Part 8)
Dear followers of the Orthodox teachings, we greet you with the peace and blessings of God.Today, based on the above-mentioned topic, we bring you this important lesson. We ask you all to read it carefully and learn from the examples of the saints and prophets who wept before God.
✍🏾 Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Tears
In his Gospel, Saint John records the death of Lazarus:
“When Mary came to Jesus and saw Him, she fell at His feet and said, ‘Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ‘Where have you laid him?’ He asked. They said, ‘Lord, come and see.’ And Jesus wept.”(John 11:32–35)
✍🏾 Jesus wept to show His full humanity perfect in both soul and body. He wept with Mary and the mourners to teach us that God comforts those who grieve. He wept to show that those who sow in the Spirit must also sow in sorrow. And yet, He also revealed His divinity by raising Lazarus, showing that He is God, the source of life.
✍🏾 Our Lord and Savior also taught that we should not only mourn our own sins but the sins of others. When He approached the city of Jerusalem, He wept over it. The Evangelist Luke writes:
“As He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, ‘If you had known, even you, on this day, the things that make for your peace but now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build a rampart around you, surround you, and close you in on every side. They will dash you and your children to the ground, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.’”
(Luke 19:41–44)
Through this, our Lord gave us a living example of righteous mourning how it is fitting to weep for the sins of His people.
✍🏾The Apostle Paul also reminds us that while our Lord was in the flesh, He offered prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears for all humanity:
“In the days of His flesh, He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears to the One who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered; and being made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, called by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.”(Hebrews 5:7–10)
If He, who was without sin, wept for our sins, how much more ought we, who have sinned against Him, to weep for our own sins and turn to Him in true repentance?
✍🏾Comfort in True Repentance
The Prophet Joel encourages us:
“Now, therefore,” says the Lord, “turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.”(Joel 2:12)
We are called to turn from our sins with genuine sorrow and heartfelt repentance.
The wise Solomon also teaches the value of mourning and humility:
“It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men, and the living shall lay it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for a sad countenance makes the heart wise.”
(Ecclesiastes 7:2–3)
Those who weep for their sins on earth and fail to repent will face sorrow in heaven. Our Lord warned:
“The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that cause sin and all who practice iniquity, and will cast them into the furnace of fire; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”(Matthew13:41–42)
Continues 👇🏾