Sermon on the Mount: What Does It Mean to Mourn?

 The first two Beatitudes are an interesting pair.  To be poor in spirit is to be spiritually bankrupt, having nothing of merit to commend ourselves before God.  If we do not receive the grace of God, we are loss.  To recognize that bankruptcy is to be poor in spirit.

The second Beatitude is like it.  To mourn is to grieve the nature and impact of sin in ourselves.  We see the consequences of sin in our own lives and we mourn the destruction.  It leads us to repentance.  Paul writes, "For godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death" (II Cor.7:10).  There is deep regret for our own waywardness- our sinful, self-destructive tendency to do our own thing, to act as if God did not exist.

When we mourn our own sin, it leads us to repentance.  It is not the morbid preoccupation with our own inadequacies.  I am not to wallow in discouragement for the rest of my life.  Mourning for sin leads me to my Savior.  Jesus takes my sin upon Himself and gives me His righteousness.  The task of mourning is finished with regards to my sin and its consequences.  Now, faith grabs hold of God's promise of forgiveness and cleansing.  To continue to wallow as a kind of penance is to deny the promise of God.

Another king of false mourning is the kind of mourning seen in the lives of Saul and Cain.  Saul is confronted by Samuel for his sin and he responds by admitting his transgression.  Yet, he wants to still be honored before the people.  There is no regard for the sin against God.  Cain, after God confronts him for killing his brother says "my sin is more than I can bear."  He decries his punishment, but does not repent of his sin.  That's not mourning.

We mourn our own sin, and we mourn the sins of others.  David mourns, "My eyes shed streams of tears because people do not keep your law" (Psalm 119:136).  God regards those who mourn for public, corporate sins:  "Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it" (Ezekiel 9:4).

Finally, the ministry of mourning is temporary, a part of this life.  Comfort is for eternity.  Note the order:  Mourning is first; comfort comes after.  Beware of reversing the order:  Luke warns "Woe to you that laugh now..."  Only in the final state of glory will our comfort be complete.