The beatitude "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted"Matt. 5:4. can be reassuring to one in the depths of sorrow. That promise, however, can also seem elusive. Comforted how? Comforted by what? Comforted when? Comforted for how long?
Perhaps Christ Jesus' disciples asked themselves these questions as they mourned him after the crucifixion. After all, Jesus had made this very promise. But to them, he was gone, dead, placed in a tomb. They were disappointed and sad.
What the disciples and onlookers didn't realize was what was going on in that tomb. The remarkable book Science and Health, by a remarkable woman Mary Baker Eddy, explains: "His disciples believed Jesus to be dead while he was hidden in the sepulchre, whereas he was alive, demonstrating within the narrow tomb the power of Spirit to overrule mortal, material sense."Science and Health, p. 44. Obviously, death and the resulting sorrow were real only to the mortal, material view of those looking on. Jesus did not lose his pure, Godlike consciousness on the cross or in the tomb. His life was undying because God was his Life. And he was conscious of his unity with Life. Jesus' resurrection and ultimate ascension proved that he had not lost his life. Jesus' demonstration of eternal Life was not just for himself or his disciples, but for us as well.
