Woe to you that now laugh, for you shall mourn and weep (St. Luke 6:25).
I. Consider first, how justly the Lord rebukes in these strong words such as now laugh without moderation, surrendering themselves an easy prey to idle conversations, singing, dancing, carousing, and impurity, and endeavouring to make life one round of pleasure. It will be enough to note where they laugh, when they laugh, and why they laugh. If you observe the place where, you shall see that they laugh “in the valley of tears,” where there is nothing but misfortune and wickedness, which with good reason call for our tears instead, if only out of compassion for our neighbour; and hence it is, that this wretched earth has been justly called “the place of weepers.” If you observe the time when, you shall at once see that they laugh at the wrong time. For God assigned the life to come, and not the present life, for laughter; He said: “A time to weep, and a time to laugh.” Weeping must precede laughter, and laughter comes after; but they would invert this fair order, and would as it were turn night into day. Lastly, if you examine the cause of their laughter, you shall find that they laugh precisely at the very things which should move them from their inmost soul to tears: “They are glad when they have done evil, and rejoice in the most wicked things.” The more evil grows apace, the more ought sorrow to grow; and yet with them the case is reversed: they rejoice at what is bad, they are jubilant when wickedness is at its worst. Now you see that the laughter of the wicked is ever thus; its place is the abode of misery, its time the crisis of sorrow, and its subject-matter unmixed sinfulness. And can it be that you envy such laughter?
II. Consider secondly, the terrible retribution here announced by Christ to these wretches: “Woe to you that now laugh, for you shall mourn and weep.” The mourning is of the soul, the weeping of the body, both suffering grievously from the punishments conjointly inflicted on them in the depths of Hell; one suffering the pain of loss, the other the pains of sense. Observe then first the mourning which afflicts the soul through its pain of loss; ah, mourning beyond compare! No one can understand this before he has learned what God really is. Multitudes in this world are not to be comforted when they have sustained the loss of their birthright, of an estate, of an honourable place at Court. What then must it be with those who have sustained the loss of an infinite good for eternity? The thought of this will for ever torture the imagination with the vivid picture of the good which is possessed in Heaven, exceeding even the greatness of the misery endured in Hell. How all the passions are let loose together — anger, envy, anguish, desolation, terror, despair, rage. How the memory is present to torment, with its vivid recollection of that time when so great a good might have been won so easily, and instead was thrust aside; how the understanding, now darkened, troubled, and tempestuous, clings pertinaciously to the thought that God is supremely unjust; how the will, now fixed in evil, adds its consent and approval of all sins committed, malevolently wishing that they had been still more numerous, holds in abhorrence God, and all who love Him and adore Him, or call upon His name, except in blasphemy. Oh, picture to yourself what must be the state of the heart wherein such mourning dwells.
III. Consider thirdly, the weeping which affects the body by reason of the pains of sense. What tears are wrung from the eyes of an unhappy wretch by the horrible pangs which rack his vitals, and make him writhe and twist like a snake upon that bed of anguish! Who has ever felt within him what is felt by each one of the damned — a raging fire: “In the belly of the unwise there shall burn a fire.” Passing now to the exterior of the body, observe how all possible evils, even the most opposed, gather with one accord around this wretched criminal: pains that torment the head in all its parts, the eyes, ears, teeth; pains insupportable in every nerve and limb, and loathsome sores. And then to all these ills, as if they by themselves were not much, are added the tortures which the devils inflict without intermission. What floods of tears the damned will shed, when they feel their limbs dislocated or crushed as upon the rack, their flesh lacerated, their bones wrenched from the sockets, their bodies all rent and bruised in divers ways, which may be faintly sketched, but are beyond the power of language to express. Then indeed it is that they will pay dearly for their former laughter; all the more that the laughter was of short duration, like flowers that bloom before their time, whereas the weeping shall endure for ever.