There are different types of mourning.
I believe most of us think of mourning in terms of loss or separation. It could be separation from our loved ones through divorce or death. Or perhaps, less intensely, impersonal objects or items of affection that we lose or experience unwanted separation in our lives. Broken hearted lovers mourn over relationships that end. Pubs and bars are filled with people who are mourning for different reasons. Many of the Psalms are laments over hurts and losses and betrayal and even persecution. Poets and songwriters have sold millions of records that identify with human loss in music often called, “heartbreakers” and “tearjerkers”. One noted song has the lyrics of a mournful lover, “I’ve got tears in my ears, lying in my bed crying over you!”
The general principle holds true: the greater the emotional attachment the greater the depth of our mourning or sorrow. Put simply, those who love deeply will in turn mourn deeply. Psychologists have given charts or diagrams of how losses mentally and emotionally impact people based on the level of attachment. It is one thing to lose your car. It is another thing to lose your job. And it is yet another thing to lose your home. As you might imagine, the largest impact of grief is losing a child. As a pastor, I would concur, tragic and untimely deaths bring the highest levels of grief or mourning because of the level of attachment with the person and the suddenness of a life being taken so unexpectedly.
We know that mourning is inevitable. It is inevitable because all of us as humans will experience loss in our fallen world. Nobody likes the experience of mourning but sooner or later everyone will pass through it. By declaring a blessing on those who mourn, Jesus indicates that grief is a normal part of our human existence but also our Christian existence. Because we are Christians does not mean that we will not mourn. Mourning makes no distinction between race or creed or color. Grief touches young and old, rich and poor, male and female. None are exempt. Everybody grieves at different times. We remember the shortest verse in the bible, “Jesus wept”. He wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. Some of us are grieving now in our church family over recent losses of loved ones. The stories within the Bible indicate that people through the ages have experienced sorrow or mourning. From the first murder of Cain by his brother Abel to the last prophet killed, even to Jesus himself who was killed and then leaving to return to God. We’ll turn back to that in just a few moments in the sermon.
Thus far we have been talking about mourning over loss or separation. However, mourning in this context appears to have a different meaning. Most of the commentaries that I’ve read and studied give another perspective on mourning that Jesus appears to be talking about here. It refers to the spiritual aspect of mourning. While someone’s death is the most obvious cause of our mourning, Jesus taught that we also grieve over the living. One great example is Jesus weeping over the city of Jerusalem. (Luke 19:41-44). He wept over the city of Jerusalem because they refused to believe who he was. He wept over the city of Jerusalem because they rejected him as their Messiah. He said the city would be left desolate. That prophecy came true when it was destroyed at A.D. 70. But in this case, Jesus was grieving over the living, knowing that the future of the people in Jerusalem was going to hold a tragic ending.
In another instance, The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:21 says, “I am afraid when I come again my God will humble me before you and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of their impurity.” Much like Jesus was grieved over the city of Jerusalem, Paul was grieved over those who were unrepentant in the church in Corinth.
Sometimes we grieve over the sinful actions of others. We might even be appalled or deeply offended by the sins of others at times. We certainly live in a world that is very polarized. And there may even be a sense of mourning or even offense over those differences.
But I’m reminded of Matthew 7:3-4. Jesus put it plainly, “Why do you look at the speck of dust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye, when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” He says, “You hypocrite! First take the plank out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Either way you look at it, it is saying to us, before we grieve over the sins of others, we must first grieve over our own sins.
Most of us here have probably been on airplane flights on more than one occasion. We’re familiar with preflight safety instructions about where the exits are and what to do in case of an emergency. Use your seat as a flotation device. One of the noted safety instructions is a little bit different. Here the attendant or recorded message will be something like this. If the cabin loses air pressure, an oxygen mask will drop from the compartment over your head. IF someone seated next to you is having problems putting on their oxygen mask, what do you do first? Put your mask on first, right? After all, you can’t help someone if you’re unconscious. That’s the general principle there. Jesus is using the same reasoning here in this passage. We cannot help others deal with their sin until we first deal with our own sin.
This passage is speaking more directly concerning the spiritual element of mourning, what we might call, holy mourning. Does Jesus mean we should make a public display of our sin? That we come down to the altar and mourn or experience what we might call godly sorrow over our sins? This is a sign of true repentance. Millions have done this before us. This was the instruction of both John the Baptist and Jesus, “Repent (mourn your sins) and believe the gospel (good news of salvation). We do this more formally like we do tonight on Ash Wednesday. We even say the words, “Repent and believe the gospel”. But a key question would be…Is it only a formality? Is it ONLY the ritual and the motions that we go through or are we truly mourning over our sins?
One of the great Puritan preachers, Thomas Watson said, “It’s not so much the weeping eye that God respects as it is the broken heart.” The great irony is our broken heart often keeps us from embracing and truly mourning over our sins. After all, who wants a broken heart? Who wants to mourn? Nobody does! Yet this is the path to forgiveness and cleansing…and then the greatest comfort we will ever know.
Those of us who may have had a broken arm, foot, or leg, know there’s pain involved with those things, and we typically do not want to experience that pain or even go through the pain of surgery to repair the broken bone. But Jesus is saying there must be a broken heart over things that offend God in our lives. That’s the first step that leads to the comfort and assurance of our forgiveness.
But as we look at this statement of Jesus, it only makes sense when we look at the WHOLE statement. Jesus did not say only, “Blessed are those who mourn.” But he said, “Blessed are those who mourn FOR THEY WILL BE COMFORTED.” So, those who mourn are blessed for this reason, that they will be comforted. Surely, none of us want to mourn and even think about mourning without a measure of hope or faith that whatever we lose or suffer here and now, it is not the final word. As Thessalonians remind us, we do not grieve as those without hope. But our grief is tempered by hope in the knowledge that God will bring comfort and consolation way beyond what we have lost.
How do we receive the blessing of consolation and comfort beyond our mourning? Three things I would share with you wherein we receive comfort before we come for the imposition of ashes.
First, we receive comfort from God’s Word, through His promise. 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us or purify us from all unrighteousness.” In the Communion ritual we experience a corporate confession. Some of us may even have this confession memorized. That public confession reads: (Let’s say it together) We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have failed to be an obedient church. We have rebelled against your love. We have not done Your will. We have broken your laws. We have not loved our neighbor. We have not heard the cry of the needy…and then it reads…forgive us we pray…free us for joyful obedience through Jesus Christ our Lord. It’s a powerful moment when we confess our sins. But it isn’t the end of the ritual, thanks be to God.
Right after that confession there are the words of forgiveness and absolution. God pardons us. God absolves us, if we truly repent. Those who mourn over their sins will be comforted in the promise of God. Those who confess, God will forgive. That is the promise of God. Indeed, if God did not forgive, as the Psalmist stated, who can stand? Nobody. We would all stand condemned if God did not forgive upon our confession. We find comfort in the Promise of God that if we confess, He will forgive.
Secondly, God comforts us through other believers. In a book about a seminary professor in Europe, William R. White shares the story of a contemporary seminary professor named Hans whose wife Enid died after they had been married for many years. Hans was so overcome with the sorrow and loss of his wife; he couldn’t even leave the house. He was not eating and not resting well. The seminary president paid Hans a visit along with three others of his colleagues at the seminary. Hans, as they greeted him, was very truthful about his state. He said, “I am no longer able to pray. Grief has taken my heart, and it has challenged my faith. And right now, I’m not sure exactly what I believe.” And after a moment, the seminary professor said, “Hans, we will believe for you. We will pray for you.” The four men formed a covenant that day that they would pray for Hans. They would visit with Hans, and they would pray that God would restore the gift of faith in his life. And after weeks of meeting together and praying together on this one-day Hans said, “Today I would like to pray with you as you have prayed so faithfully for me over the course of these weeks.” That’s a powerful demonstration of how comfort comes to us through the gift of others around us.
A professor from the Moody Bible Institute said these marvelous words, “Comfort is either something we give to others or something we receive from others. It is not something we do for ourselves.” I want to read that again because I think it is one of the most profound things I will say today in this sermon as it relates to mourning. “Comfort is something we give to others or something we receive from others. It is not something we do for ourselves”. It’s especially true of the kind of mourning that Jesus is talking about here. It has been my experience that when people try to numb or repress or ignore or doctor their pain or sorrow by themselves, there are deeper problems created. They only add to their pain with unnecessary or sometimes impulsive actions to find comfort. Here people get drunk or engage in illicit sex or experiment with some chemical agents to try and bring comfort or make them “forget their problems” or “drown their sorrows”. But that only causes more unnecessary mourning and at times tragic addictions or splintering of relationships within family and friends. God comforts us through the gift of others around us. This is one of the reasons why I think God created the church community itself. As the body of Christ, we are called to “weep with those who weep”. I’m sure each one of us could tell our own story of how God brought someone in our lives like a Barnabas to encourage us and comfort us when we needed it most. So, we find comfort through his Word and promise of forgiveness and cleansing. We find comfort through other Christian believers.
Third and lastly, we receive comfort through the Holy Spirit. Even the name for the Holy Spirit in the original language means “Comforter”.
One of the most important elements of the Spirit’s ministry is to bring a sense of assurance in our lives that we are the children of God. In Wesley’s famed Aldersgate experience he received that assurance in his own life, that his sins were forgiven, that he was a child of God. It was the ministry of the Holy Spirit that brought assurance into his heart about his position before God. In his words he said, An assurance was given me that my sins were forgiven, even mine. And that I was a child of God. I think Wesley’s words echo what is true in every child of God who has the assurance of the Spirit because great comfort and consolation came through that assurance of the Spirit which again, is a primary work of the Spirit. Do you have that assurance in your heart tonight?
Listen to Romans 8:15, “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are the children of God.” And earlier in Romans 8:1 “There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
But ultimately there is only one remedy for our grief. It’s the comfort of being in God’s presence which the Holy Spirit makes real in our lives. It was certainly demonstrated by Jesus that night of the Last Supper. Jesus was referencing to the disciples that he was going away. But He was coming back to them. And he said to them in John 16:19-22, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said in a little while you will see me no more and then after a while you will see me. Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices.” (Again, Jesus affirming the reality of our mourning). “You will grieve but your grief will turn to joy.”
A woman giving birth to a child has intense pain because her delivery time has come. But when the baby is born, her anguish is overcome with the glorious joy that her child is born into the world. What a marvelous analogy about the temporary nature of mourning or pain. Note what else Jesus told his disciples, “So, with you, now is your time of grief. But I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.” Jesus is showing us the permanent solution to grief or mourning. When He returns, He will make all things new. And we will rejoice eternally and permanently in his presence. As the modern song I was listening to this week was echoing the truth of Jesus words… “Earth has no sorrow, heaven cannot heal”. Blessed are those who mourn, for they WILL be comforted PERMANENTLY and ETERNALLY!
May we pray. Lord, as we come to have these ashes placed on our foreheads, may they remind us of our mortality. Even more, let us repent of our sins and mourn our wrongs. Lord, we grieve the sins of our world and the pain created by hurtful actions. In whatever ways we grieve or mourn…we know that sorrow may last through the night, but joy comes in the morning! Blessed are those who mourn for they WILL be comforted. Amen!