By Pastor Brandon Young
In this second beatitude, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Like the first beatitude, Jesus seems to have it backwards here. “Blessed” really means “happy.” Happy are those who mourn. Now this seems to be a paradox. A paradox is a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that, when investigated or explained, may prove to be well founded or true. How can mourning be directly related to happiness?
This thought is contrary to the whole structure of human expectation. In fact, the whole effort of human life is the drive for pleasure, foolishness, amusement, entertainment, thrills, the mania that seeks the next high, the money, the energy, and enthusiasm in living it up. All these things are an expression of the world’s aim to avoid mourning completely. And yet Jesus said, “Happy are those that mourn.” In fact, in Luke 6:25 Jesus said, “Woe unto you that laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.”
Now this is really a new approach to life. It condemns the shallow, superficial laughter of life, the frivolous happiness of the world and pronounces true blessing and true happiness and true joy and true comfort and true peace on those who mourn, but mourn for what? Jesus was not talking about mourning any physical cares, wants, passions, lusts, greed, or longings. He was talking about spiritual mourning. Jesus spoke of a mourning that does not go away until a person believes that Jesus is God who died on a cross to forgive their sins, was resurrected and then asks God to forgive their sins. Jesus was speaking about us mourning over our sins, and this beatitude is directly connected to the first one — “Blessed are the Poor in Spirit.” When we see ourselves as broken, flawed, and wretched individuals needing a Savior we then mourn, and we are promised comfort.
The Greek word that Jesus used for mourn in the second beatitude is pantheo. It is the strongest word that Jesus could have used for deep inner emotional grief, sorrow, and mourning. It is a mourning that consumes the person. This means that Jesus was referring to repeated action, or an ongoing condition of mourning. He was referring to the person who is constantly mourning over sin. This type of mourning is the word used when someone passes. We should grieve over how we fail God each day. If we would mourn and grieve over our sins, it is likely that we would not continue to go back and commit them again and again. No person would want to relive the death of a close loved one, but often we ask for God’s forgiveness and do the same thing the next day. We weren’t truly repentant because real repentance includes mourning and sorrow. 2 Corinthians 7:10 says, “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” The Holy Spirit tells us there is a sorrow that is of this world and then there is a godly sorrow. This godly sorrow is the mourning that Jesus is describing in this beatitude. It is a mourning that should continue throughout our life time. Those who are poor in spirit will be mourning their sin. It is not possible to be mourning our sin unless we believe that we are spiritual beggars. These two beatitudes characterize the true followers of Jesus. This is the heart of the beatitude. True followers never stop mourning over sin, and then the comfort will come!
Happy is the man who confesses his sin. Happy is the man who repents. That’s the comfort he’s talking about. It’s the comfort that comes in the form of forgiveness. When the sinner comes to the place of recognizing spiritual bankruptcy with deep grief and sorrow over sin and comes before God in penitence and asks for mercy and grace, he receives the comfort of forgiveness. No person may say he/she hates sin, if he/she lives in it. Repentance makes us see the evil of sin, not merely as a theory, but experimentally — as a burnt child dreads fire. True mourning for sin will make us very jealous over our tongue, lest it should say a wrong word; we shall be very watchful over our daily actions, lest in anything we offend, and each night we shall close the day with painful confessions of shortcoming, and each morning awaken with anxious prayers, that this day God would hold us up that we may not sin against him. I would like to close with a story I found online that sums up what it means to mourn our sin.
Father Damien, a Catholic priest who lived in the mid to late 1800s, was a missionary to the lepers on Molokai for 13 years. In time, he contracted the dreaded disease. He first became aware of this one morning when he spilled some boiling water on his foot and did not feel the slightest pain. At that moment he knew he had leprosy, but it destroys the capacity to feel pain. Being unable to feel pain was the clue that death had come to his body and little by little would take possession of it. How much better for him if that boiling water had caused him pain because then he would know he was healthy and fully alive. If sin is not causing us pain, and we are so hard hearted that our words or actions does not bring sorrow, then we are spiritually a sick person. We must remember this, “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite (guilty and ashamed) spirit,” Psalm 34:18. When we find ourselves broken hearted mourning over our guilt and shame, we will truly find real happiness and joy because then we will be in the presence of Jesus!
(The Solution Column is provided by Pastor Brandon Young of Harmony Free Will Baptist Church, Hampton, and his associate, Hunter Greene.)