Joel M Bradshaw

21…Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
25…Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.–Luke 6

Let’s ask four questions.

1. WHY MIGHT A PERSON WEEP NOW? Verse 21 had humble disciples in mind. A weeper sometimes feels like a broken mess. A weeper is humbled by their situation. A weeper has no answer for their problem within themself. A weeper’s only hope for perspective is with God. We weep in times of loss, betrayal, hurt, rejection, and conviction or guilt regarding our sins.
2. WHY MIGHT A PERSON LAUGH NOW? Verse 25 had more arrogant Pharisees in mind. The laugher is proud. The laugher is arrogant. The laugher is the answer to their own problems. The laugher’s hope is centered in themself. The laugher is the hero of their own stories. The laugher laughs because they are enough or have done enough to get the kind of life they think they deserve. God might be on their mind, but is kept in his place.
3. WHY WILL THE MOURNER LAUGH? The humble, repentant, broken mess will be one day find forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace from God. The one without hope will find that hope centered in God. We picture Joseph once mourning and then one day laughing. He went through unimaginable rejection and pain only to find hope and purpose as God’s plan unfolded. What his brothers meant for evil, God meant for good (Genesis 50:20).
4. WHY WILL THE LAUGHER MOURN? The arrogant one who doesn’t think they need God will find out one day that they had rejected the only ultimate hope they ever had. I think this person mourns the selfish life they lived and where it has led them. If this life is treated as your heaven then don’t be surprised if what comes next is not heaven. It’s possible that this person is not that introspective and simply mourns the fact that they are now suffering and they don’t like it.

As you ponder your emotions and attitudes now, consider the reason for our hope. Jesus, the author and provider of the emotional reversal.

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:3-6)

Thank you for our new subscribers on this daily journey.–JMB