Sermon on the Mount

Week 05 – Blessed are those who Mourn

Review
The Sermon on the Mount is the core of Jesus’ yoke and if we want to be true Jesus followers, then we
need to understand how to live out his yoke. The main purpose of the Sermon on the Mount is to show
how to live a life that God finds pious, that is, how to live out the righteousness of God here on Earth.
To do this, Jesus begins his sermon with the “Principles of the Yoke,” the Beatitudes. Last week we
learned that the while the word “Blessed” literally means “happy,” it is much more than that. It more
closely resembles something akin to “Held in honor by God” or “In a righteous relationship with God.”

Last week we studied the “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and we learned that those are people who are
completely spiritually broken. They recognize that they absolutely can not achieve righteousness on
their own; they desperately need the grace of God. We also talked about what the Kingdom of Heaven
is. We realized that the Kingdom of Heaven is contrasted to the “kingdom of this world” where sickness,
death, sin, hate, and selfishness abound. The Kingdome of Heaven is wherever we see healing, life, love,
acceptance and forgiveness/mercy/grace. The Kingdom of Heaven exists both now (as a shadow of
things to come) and in the future (where it will be perfectly fulfilled). We are to be bringing about the
Kingdom of Heaven by being ambassadors of healing, life, love, acceptance and forgiveness. Whenever
we see a hurting person and step in to offer healing in the name of God, we bring a little bit more of the
Kingdom of Heaven to this world. The interesting thing is that it takes broken people to see other
broken people and offer the healing.

Introduction
Today we are going to continue our journey into the Principles of the Yoke by looking at the second one,
“Blessed are those who Mourn for they shall be Comforted.”

Ice Breaker Question: What was your most heart-wrenching lost that caused you to mourn?

Mourn
Discussion Question

1. When you hear the phrase ‘those who mourn,’ what do you think? What images or people
pop into your head?
2. What do you mourn about?
3. How can a people saved by grace with a hope of the resurrection mourn?
4. Does it matter what we mourn? Is all mourning “honored by God”? What things do you
think God wants us to mourn? ( 2 Corinthians 7:8-11, esp. 10b)
 5. What do God and Jesus mourn (Genesis 6:6, Luke 19:41)?

Mourning is about loss. We experience this not only mourning for the death of loved ones, but for the
loss of things, places, times, abilities, hopes, dreams, and many of the other goods of this passing world.

One of the characteristics of the true people of God is that they lament the present condition of God's
people and God's program in the world. This is the community that does not resign itself to the present
condition of the world as final, but weeps for the fact that God's kingdom has not yet come and that
God's will is not yet done. When we give alms because we see those who are poor due to no fault of
their own, we display a mournful heart.

Mourning is deeply personal and individual. When we mourn, we don’t want to hear platitudes and
“hang in there” speeches. At the same time, mourning is communal. Everybody mourns. Often, when
we are in the depths of our mourning, we may believe that when we mourn we are utterly alone. But
that is not true. Many who have come before us have lamented. Among us now are those who cry out:
cry out to God, cry out for God and cry out before God.

Raising our complaints, protests, and sorrows before God in an honesty not constrained by protocol or
convention can lead us to the affirmation of that sovereignty, the very thing we find so frustrating at the
moment. It is a holy path, this way of lament, an unavoidable path leading to praise.

Turn, O LORD, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love. No one remembers you
when he is dead. Who praises you from the grave? I am worn out from groaning; all night long I
flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears. Psalm 6:.4-6

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How
long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? Psalm 13

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but find no rest. Psalm 22

Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no
foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my
crying; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. Psalm 69

How long, O LORD, must I call for help and You do not listen? Or cry out to You, ‘Violence!’ but
You do not save? Why do You make me look at injustice. Why do You tolerate wrong? Habakkuk
1:1-4

Comforted
Discussion Question

1. How will the mourning be comforted? Who does the comforting?

2. How does the community offer comfort?
 3. How does God offer comfort?
4. How does lamenting turn to praise?

Those who mourn know how little they are without God. In their sorrow, they will be comforted. But
their sorrow helps them see the many around them who are much worse off - the poor, the abused, the
hungry, the discriminated against, the victims of crime and war and disease and prejudice. Their sorrow
can move them to lend a helping hand to those who suffer and be Jesus' instrument of comfort to
them."

Some laments are internal, when we cry out to God over our hidden hells, the inner pain of our hearts.
Some, as in Habakkuk, Lamentations, and psalms like Psalm 73, are external, protests over world
conditions, intolerable circumstances, and injustice. Whatever the circumstance, the petition of protest
is directed toward God, registered before God, in an appeal to God to do something!

Those who lament over their sinful, sick, poverty-laden spiritual condition and humble themselves
before a holy God find healing, mercy, grace, love, and comfort. Lament leads us to a deeper
understanding and relationship with God. Lament opens our hearts to receive God’s healing touch.
Lament moves us from the great "I" to the greater "I AM." Lament removes from our souls all that
emotional energy before God so that we collapse before His Presence.

God was there all along. We knew that. We were just frustrated waiting, watching for Him, and
wondering how things would turn out. Pouring out our emotions in an appropriate manner clears our
minds and hearts to turn to the Lord our God. The Holy Spirit gives us the grace of lament—the words,
the path, and the example of Jesus.

Jesus walked the way of lament. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the One who could save Him
from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission. Although He was a son, He
learned obedience from what He suffered… Hebrews 5:7, 8

Jesus wept. He cried in lament over Jerusalem. He suffered in a real world of pain. Jesus was touched
with the feeling of our infirmities. On the cross, taking our sin, Jesus cried out, "My God, My God, why
have You forsaken Me?" And yet He bowed His head and committed His spirit unto the Father as He
died. Jesus shows us it’s okay to call upon God for help in the face of pain, injustice, sorrows, and grief.
And He didn’t stay there! He rose from the dead in power!

After the catharsis, lament turns us to humble submission before the Presence of a Holy Father in an
encounter of worship where we affirm our reliance upon a sovereign savior who does, in fact, love us.

But I have trusted in Your mercy; my heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing unto the
LORD, because He has dealt bountifully with me. Psalm 13:5, 6
 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The LORD God is my strength,
and He will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and He will make me to walk upon mine high places.
Habakkuk 3.18, 19

Conclusion
Blessed are those who mourn is the feeling of grief for the sorrows of other people. I can hardly feel
someone else's pain without first being poor in spirit. Otherwise, I am on always on guard to keep what
I have for myself, and to keep me for myself. If I begin to feel for someone, to feel and not just pretend
to feel, I will want to share with him what I have, and even share myself. The immediate consequence of
being poor in spirit is to become sensitive to the losses of people around us, not just those whom I
happen to know and like but strangers.

We must mourn the presence of evil in the world - injustice, cruelty, violence, greed, oppression. It is
easy to become accustomed to social evils because they are so prevalent in the world around us. We
become inured to them. We take them for granted. We hardly give them a second thought. We see the
hungry and the homeless and pass by. We hear about the victims of violence and oppression but do
nothing. We find excuses for not getting involved in efforts to solve these problems. We do not mourn
because we do not care deeply enough about the human consequences of evil. Those who are in a
righteous relationship with God do.