Title: “What’s So Blessed About Mourning Anyway?”
Text: Matthew 5:4
Purpose:
To move hearers to spiritually mourn and turn toward comfort in Christ
A UNIVERSAL BEATITUDE--UGH
The second beatitude is the only one that feels completely universal in scope.
“blessed are those who mourn,” is just about everybody. There is no one who doesn’t mourn; no life lived is untouched by grief; no soul is unaware of pain. As Michael Stipe sang in that hauntingly weird voice of his:
everybody hurts,
sometimes,
everybody cries.
And everybody hurts,
Sometimes
Who doesn’t mourn? Only psychopaths never mourn because they don’t feel it. If you live and breathe and have any kind of a conscience at all; then you mourn.
Some people try and pretend like it doesn’t bother them or they never hurt and grieve. Christians, I fear, are the worse at this kind of sprayed on permasmile fraud. Somewhere we’ve been told in American Christianity that we must always be happy or we have let Jesus down or we might give a bad witness.
This has led to a couple of strange behavioral ticks in regard to sorrow or mourning. One, we deny our sorrow as we move through life, then suddenly one day it all rises to the top. So, some people handle mourning like other people handle anger. We are all familiar with folk hold back their anger suddenly erupt in Vesuvius, or Mt. St. Helens fashion. This type of eruption of mourning in the lives of believers almost invariably lead to a severe crisis of faith in which many people become disappointed with God because he did not make them happy all the time.
Many of these walk away from the faith.
The second oddball behavioral tick I have found when we try to repress mourning in other people. Our efforts to make the hurt go away lead us to cover up that mourning with really bad theological clichés which are true, but not always helpful. At one particular time in mine and Kim’s life we were hurting terribly because of loss. Our mourning was deep inside our souls. Over and over we heard from well meaning Christians, “Well, God has a plan and he knows what he is doing and it will all work out for the best,” and then they quote Romans 8:28 and say “all things come together for good to those who love him.”
All of that is true, but completely misapplied to the person who is suffering loss. Plus, when you say “all things come together for good to those who love him” and here I am sitting in my pain and Job like suffering you seem to be telling me I don’t love God enough. Not only is that painful, it is offensive and not to mention borderline heresy to imply our love for God keeps bad things from happening to us. People really need to read the whole Bible.
Speaking of Job, when we give poor counsel to people who are grieving, doesn’t it remind you of Job’s three friends? They did a far better job when they just sat there with their mouths shut.
(WHY) MOURN WHAT
“Blessed are those who mourn” and we underline that word mourn and think about how much psychological and emotional freight those five words are transporting. Usually, and this is true of the biblical word here, we understand mourn, or mourning, as sorrow or grief. We usually mourn because we have experienced grief. Another way is loss.
We mourn when we loose a loved one to death. That is a special kind of grief that seems to never go away. It stays with us and has its own life span of denial, depression, sadness, acceptance and then like shampooing our hair, once we’re done we find it repeats. This kind of grief sometimes turns to fear, fear of loosing more. The news, which is now nothing more than tabloid journalism, all of it, highlights 24-7 such things as swine flu because they know you’re afraid of dying and will watch.
There are other things we loose, though, that cause us to mourn. Loss of a job, for example. Especially in these troubled times a person may loose their job and find that there is more going on than paycheck troubles. Oftentimes emotional pain and grief go with it as a loss of meaning, purpose, long time relationships and so forth which go along with that job.
Oddly, the same type of loss often accompanies people who retire from their jobs. This is one reason I am more and more becoming convinced people should never really retire. Just transition into things you do that are different from what you earned your paycheck from. But let’s face it, for many people retirement is a time of mourning and loss. But some of the most content and pleasant to be around people I know are those who have retired but will tell you they have never been as busy as they are since they retired!
Keep pushing with me, and we will find other things we human beings mourn. Sometimes there is a mourning over the loss of innocence. Poet Jim Kavanaugh captures this innocence in his poem, “Little Boy, I Miss You”
"Little boy I miss you with your sudden smile and
your ignorance of pain.
You walked through life and devoured it—without anything
but misty goals to keep you company.
Your heart beat mightily when you chased frogs
And captured one too big for a single hand
You wandered through quiet woods with friends in quiet woods and were
startled by a shuffling porcupine.
Matches were a mystery that lighted fires and
Chewed up leaves in savage hunger.
There was no time for meaning—A marshmallow gave it
on a sharpened stick.
A jackknife in your pocket gave you comfort when your
friends were gone.
A flower in the woods hidden in an aging,
shriveled log.
A dog who danced and licked at your fingers and
chewed at your jeans.
A game of football you didn’t expect
a glass of cider, a crickets cry.
When did you lose your eyes and ears, when did taste
buds cease to tremble;
Whence the sullenness, this mounting fear, this quarrel
with life—demanding meaning.
That maddening search is leisure’s bonus—the
Pain that forbids you to be a boy.
I know sometimes I wish I could just be a boy again, innocent and free. You couldn’t pay me enough money to be 17 Again, but 7, yeah, I might do 7 again. Not because I am trying to shirk responsibility or because I am saddened by my choices. But more because life has, in some way I can’t explain, made me more than a little jaded and cynical, and suspicious of people. More than I want to be.
Sometimes I mourn that. I bet in your own way so do you.
Sometimes we mourn, or grieve, a loss of heroes. Not that they die, but that they fall. I know a man right now who, I think, is going through this specific issue. People he once looked up to as “Davidic mighty men of valor” and dignity and worthy of respect have shown themselves to be less than he thought. It causes grief and depression.
It also brings us to a lot of self evaluation.
Sometimes we mourn a loss of self-respect. This happens when we think we don’t measure up anymore.
We might mourn time such as mourning the past, wasted time or opportunities. We mourn the present over our current predicament, thinking things should be better than they are. Or we might mourn the future—fear and worry about the world we are creating.
The posterboy for all of this kind of mourning, all wrapped up into one is Arthur Miller’s tragic figure of Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman. His career is over, he can’t sell anything anymore, he has ruined his family and is deeply disappointed in his friends, or lack thereof. People he once respected have provoked his ire, and he’s so remorse of past loss of opportunity and relationship that he can’t keep himself squared in the present.
In his mourning he refused consolation.
Transition Sentence: Wow—the more I think of it, Jesus was really opening a proverbial “can of worms” regarding the variety of human experiences related to mourning. It is one of those things where, if we were Jesus advisors, we might say, “Jesus, you might not want to go there. I mean, blessed are those who mourn, that would be everybody.”
AHA (THE TURN)
But, Jesus knew what he was saying.
The question is do we know what Jesus was saying?
This form of speech Jesus is using, “beatitude” or “blessing” is kind of odd to us, we do not speak this way. But teachers of Jesus day did. He was using a pretty well accepted form of teaching. The Romans particularly enjoyed using this kind of speech pattern. You know the Romans were the ones who ruled Israel when Jesus lived on the earth.
When I was a first year Latin student at the University we spent a lot of time translating these kind of sayings. They start off with the Latin word, “beatus” which can me blessed, but usually in Latin we translate it “happy.” These sayings always went like, “Happy is he who ….whatever”
Happy is he who whose crops are planted.
Happy is he who has a pretty wife and strong children.
Happy is he who has a good accountant.
After a lot of hours translating these kinds of Latin phrases, you get silly with it. We students began to think about the formula used over and over again, “happy is he who” and we reduced it down to one character, the Happy HeeHoo. HeeHoo became a thing in and of itself and of course this leaves us with questions: what is a HeeHoo, and why is he so happy?
We are usually very suspicious of someone who is always so happy. It seems he is happy because he has stolen your wallet while putting the moves on your wife.
Where was I going with this? Oh, right.
But in Latin, the word for happy is “beautus” which should sound somewhat familiar to all of us—beatus, beatitude. In the Latin Bible, all of these “blessed” start with “beatus” and now we have something. It would be a perfectly legitimate, in Greek or Latin, translation of this text, removing all religious language from it, to render, “blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” as “happy are those who are unhappy, for they will be cheered up.”
Happy are the unhappy.
What a contrast? What a reversal?
I dare say no one else would ever have the gall to say what Jesus is saying. It is so counterintuitive. Happy are the unhappy? It is like saying:
Overweight are the starving.
Comfortable are the uncomfortable.
Healthy are the sick.
Now we know that Jesus is talking about more than we thought he was. He is referring to more than the gamut of human emotions. He is talking about something far different.
THE GOSPEL (WHEE)
There are three clues here in our text which indicate exactly what Jesus meant by “blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” and we find it is not only the realm of human emotions.
(1) Our first clue that Jesus wasn’t talking about just human emotions should have come early when we realized he made a promise of comfort to all who mourn. If everybody on earth mourns, then everybody on earth should receive comfort. But that is not what we find. Everybody on earth hasn’t received comfort for their pain.
Many people are completely inconsolable. They don’t want comfort. They choose bitterness or anger or despair.
(2) The second clue that Jesus is onto something unique is the context. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for there is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Jesus is speaking in spiritual language and implying spiritual realities.
He is also being messianic. Now we can put some pieces together that help us give full meaning to Jesus blessing here. Without a doubt, just like last week’s blessing, he is referring to Old Testament ideas and building on them. Isaiah 61:1-3 has interesting parallels with these first two beatitudes and also gives insight into the second one about mourning. Isaiah says:
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant tot hose who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
Jesus is pointing to those who mourn and saying that he, Jesus, is the fulfillment of their hope for comfort. This comfort comes to those who mourn; but not to all who mourn, only to those who mourn with their eyes on the Lord as the source of comfort. If we are looking anywhere else for comfort, then we are looking at the wrong place.
Curiously, there is a piece of Jewish literature, not found in the Bible, that refers to Isaiah as one who ‘comforted mourners in Zion.’ (Wisdom of Sirach, 48:24). If we add to this some of the recent scholarship on the Dead Sea Scrolls about the Isaiah passages messianic overtones we can paint a picture that comfort comes in the form a person. Jesus is saying that person is not Isaiah, but himself.
(3) But there is another component to this, and that all about what kind of mourning are we speaking of. This leads us to the third clue that Jesus is doing more than speaking about universal human emotional responses. That clue is the word “comfort.” To those of us who have studied the Bible a long time, bells and whistles should go off.
“Comfort” here in the New Testament is in the same word grouping as the noun used to describe the Holy Spirit. Over in John 16 Jesus says that after he leaves he will send another “Comforter”, that is the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit will lead his people and will do the work of convicting of sin.
One of the major jobs, or works, that the Holy Spirit does in our lives is to convict us of sin. Now we get an inside glimpse at what Jesus might be really talking about. Those who mourn, not necessarily universal mourning or sorrow in human life. It is those who have mourned their own sin.
“Happy are those who are unhappy about their sin, for they shall be consoled with forgiveness.” Following that John 16 text Jesus soon talks about sorrow turning to joy (John 16:20). Good Friday turns into Easter. Blessed are all who mourn, for they shall receive comfort.”
DENOUEMENT
(A) So one of the things we might ask, does that mean Jesus is not referring at all to the idea of comfort for anyone who is in pain, sorrow, or mourning? Is there nothing in here for the widow, the laid off, of the disappointed? Oh yeah, he is. Jesus is so amazing and economical with his words that he can be saying both at the same time; which is exactly what I think he is doing. Comfort is available to all people, but not all people avail themselves of it.
As Christians we look at that word “comfort” and we should sort of see a job description for ourselves. We have the sacred task of bringing comfort to other people. Remember those grand words of Isaiah 40 “comfort, comfort my people.” Our words, our presence, our prayers, our ministries should have a healthy dose of comfort to other people in them.
As a job description we must be careful to not try and repress other people’s grief and mourning, but instead love them and weep with them. I can’t help but wonder what some people today might tell Jesus when he mourned and wept at Lazarus graveside, or when he wept over Jerusalem.
It was the pagan stoics of the ancient world who believed we should repress our mourning and deny the emotion. But Christians believe there is something inherently blessed in our grieving.
(B) But we can’t leave it there, either. For while Jesus is referring to physical or emotional grief, he is primarily referring to spiritual mourning. This means we cannot reject the need for godly sorrow in our lives. Over in 2 Corinthians 7:10 the blessed Apostle talks about the role of godly sorrow in bringing about repentance in our lives. It is not until we grieve and mourn over our sin that we often are clear headed enough to walk away from it.
Paul contrasts godly sorrow with worldly sorrow. Godly sorrow is a pain that comes when we realize our sin. Worldly sorrow is the grief that comes when we realize we got caught, or that our opportunity to continue to sin is over. This worldly sorrow only brings destruction and death.
I think it is a very legitimate, evaluative question to ask each of us today: “When was the last time you mourned, grieved, over your own sin?” When did your heart break because you had broken the heart of God? When did you weep salty tears of brokenness because you realized you were not right with God?
If we as followers of the Lord do not come back to this frequently we find ourselves missing the blessings of those who mourn. We receive no comfort from the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Plugging this concept back into our beatitudes, think of the first one, “blessed are the poor in spirit” where we admit our neediness, think of it as “confession.” This second one, “blessed are those who mourn” would then be like contrition. Those are not the same thing. One of the things the Lord loves the most is a broken and contrite heart poured out before him.
