The Beatitudes | Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

Good morning. How are we this morning?

We're hanging in. There were doing, all right.

February is almost over moving into March.

You feel it? Yeah.

Little bit kind of mixed reviews anyways.

If we have a met - Rashaad one of the pastor's here, and so,

I'm joyed to be here with you today and just pray that God's

speaks to us and speaks to you wherever you are every at this

morning, however, you coming in. In and that he would meet you

and show. You is love.

So, let me pray for us as we start, father, we thank you that

this is the day that you've made and we have life and we have

breath. And we choose this data here

what you have for us and use our breath.

And her words to give you, thanks for life.

And we anticipate what you do through your word today.

It's alive. Active and you were changes

people. And so we ask that you would

would change us today as we encounter your word by your

spirit in Jesus name, amen. Amen.

I've been anticipating this passage for a while, not because

it's exciting, but because it's pertinent and I feel this

passage is is relevant for us. In this moment that we find

ourselves here. Not only in Boston, But just in

the world collectively and individually and I think I've

preached a lot of sermons over a lot of years and there's one

thing that most people can agree on that, don't give me any

pushback about is that being a human and experiencing loss of

stuff. And I feel like that's a

universal truth, that no matter what stream of you come from a,

what part of the world you come from, you agree, that loss is

stuff. That loss can be devastating

that having losing something that's meaningful to you.

Whether it's a person or a season or something larger is

sometimes hard to put into words.

It's hard to get our hearts in our heads around.

C.s. Lewis says that Losing a loved

one is like, an amputation. In other words you can you can

survive it but a part of you is gone.

And we're never quite the same afterwards, grief and mourning,

change us. Because it doesn't leave us.

Psychiatrists Elizabeth Kubler-Ross says, this the

reality is that you will grieve forever.

You will not get over the loss of a loved one.

You will learn to live with it. You will heal and you were build

yourself around the loss. You have suffered, you will be

whole again, but you will never be the same nor.

Should you be the same or nor would you want to?

I know this is no, I'm sorry, not very heavy.

I you sort of jokes, I know this is heavy and I've been feeling

the weight of this topic all week and I can and it makes me

reflect on my own upbringing and I remember since I was young as

I reflect that I've always experienced some type of loss.

Whether it was my great grandparents, or my

grandparents, or my parents, getting a divorce at a young

age, I experienced loss and then My teenage years, I lost a close

friend and I'm going to hold it together.

And the older that I get, I've continued to experience loss and

see people that I love not just people, I love season that I

love friends that I have loved cities that I have loved kind of

go away. And for the for the most part,

my default setting that I was raised and discipled and is you

got to keep going Dory. You get this guy to keep

swimming keeps swimming, keeps swimming keeps swimming and like

really what I was taught to swim away from the pain and go

towards. What feels good because That's

bad. And that's good.

And you don't want to go over there and so I'm like I just got

to keep swimming. I have to experience these

things like a young age and I'm the oldest of all my siblings.

So I gotta hold it together and I gotta keep going anyone

resonate with that. Yeah and so you have to keep

going because it's because to dwell on loss.

Feels like a death in itself. And in our world, there's no

time for that. But the only way to really deal

with the death and loss just to let it stop you in your tracks.

It's a let it stop you and to sit in it.

Part of the Jewish mourning process, they have what they

call a Shiva were after the funeral, all the family and

friends, they come over and they sit with those who have lost and

they just sit and they sit in the pain and community and

they're not trying to force it to go away, but they are

respecting the loss and what their friends and family members

are going through. So, I want you to remember the

context here in Matthew 5. And what Jesus is saying, Jesus

making an announcement about his kingdom, about God's kingdom

that's coming and he understands who he's talking to.

They've been through a lot. They're under an oppressive

Roman system. They were debating.

Should we give to Caesar shouldn't because this is an

unjust system and this is not what God has promised us.

They are under what's becoming an oppressive Of religious Rule

and Luke 20 Jesus talking about the religious leaders and they

how they like to take the place of honor and he says in verse 27

that they devour widows houses. In for a show, make lengthy

prayers. And he's saying this, these are

the leaders who are leading the religious communities to give

the Roman Community oppressing, you have the Jewish religious

community oppressing and taking advantage of people.

And so, there's a lot to be mourned.

There's a lot to be more and especially when you expect more

from God, there's a lot to be more and especially when they're

expecting more from God's leaders, things aren't as they

should be. And so right now, I just what I

want you to do, and you probably have already started this.

I want you to get create a circle, not a physical Circle,

metaphorical Circle. And this begin to gather all

your disappointments. I want you to think about all

the, your timeline, all the things, where people have

ghosted you or people have left, you a people have walked away.

Were you had a season in that you didn't get to reconcile with

where you've lost someone close and I wanted to collectively put

it in that Circle. And then I want you to hear, did

you? But Jesus says blessed are those

who mourn answer the two questions.

I want us to reflect on together as what does it mean to mourn?

And the second question is how we mourn.

The things we've lost Seasons dreams.

People loved ones, Justice. One definition for morning is

inner attitude of lamenting. Too, well, to beat the breast to

cry out to rent, to be, well, to lament to grieve.

One commentator, assist the the word more and is in the Greek is

referred to as loud wailing. This Greek word is the strongest

term for morning in the Greek language.

Morning, I believe devastates else honest on a soul level and

I believe it moves into our hearts.

And I believe that it moves into our physical body From the

definition alone of what it means to mourn.

And to, well, to the examples that you see in scripture were

job as Lost David as lost and you see the losses and you see

the reaction of morning. It's, it's something that

literally can't be contained. Yet often here in the west were

taught to contain it. I think there's a lot here in

this passage for us as the church in the west to learn from

to glean from. I will share with with our

prayer group this week. We're talking about this passage

and I was saying and I've been a professional Christian for the

last twenty. First years of my life went to a

lot of great churches and educational institutions and a

lot of great conferences and I've heard a lot of great books

and I've learned very little about what it means to mourn.

What it means to lament and how to do it, how to lean into it.

I've learned more about mourning and lamenting as being a black

American. I remember in high school.

Yes. Went to high school in the 90s

people and the Rodney King verdict came out and I just

lived outside of Los Angeles and that was my first time I

experienced a communal morning. Where we just we didn't

understand it was too great. How can this, how could this

happen? We have video and then I didn't

know that I was morning but quickly moved to anger. and for

some people with moved into into their physical bodies, and how

they reacted to people Morning is important.

Morning is part of what it means to be.

Human, is part of the human experience.

And there's two distinctions and how morning is being used here.

One is, it's the loss over a loved one.

Another is grief over sin in the effects of sin in the world and

in our personal lives. And so the most frequent

occasions and moments of morning that we see through scripture

Our National calamities after a national calamity, me and death.

And so calamities are our catastrophes.

We can we can begin to name them as people who are who have been

on this Earth, less than 100 years.

We I mean, there was the Holocaust Medgar Evers MLK

assassination Katrina. Covid.

George Floyd, Syria and turkey, the list goes on and on we have

these Collective moments were like that's not how things are

supposed to be. We have this Collective moments

of morning and go, man, this is actually too heavy for my heart

to handle. And then death.

I feel this is the one that kind of Bullseye hits us all in the

heart. It's is actually a topic of

avoided most of my life. Some of you guys know this that

for the first time in my life, I experienced Bible level morning,

four years ago when I moved here, my brother unexpectedly

died. And I had to face it.

And then most of my life, I've been able to avert being

face-to-face with something that care about deeply that's gone.

And for the first time I was in a moment where I had to face it,

had to literally be in the room and I thought I had an idea of

what it meant to lose something. I thought I had idea what it

meant tomorrow and I thought I knew what it meant to comfort,

someone who went through something till I actually went

through it myself. I was cut open and in that

moment even though I know I have an understanding of scripture,

There's some passages that you haven't been challenged to trust

God on until it actually happens in your life.

And like I said, I believe in the resurrection until the

moment where the one of the things that I love most is gone.

And at that moment, I think God, I really want to believe that

the resurrection is real. I actually needed to be real

because the weight of what I'm experience is too.

Heavy to handle I cannot sustain the weight of my sorrow.

If we choose to brush over these things and these moments and

move on to fast to avoid pain or insulate our hearts, it can

actually atrophy our hearts It can actually stunt our growth

process to feel pain is to be human. it's what makes it

extremely difficult to be human and as what God beautifully uses

to draw us to himself, Some of my, some of my favorite movies

are the ones that make me cry, like, ugly cry.

Like, like Pursuit of Happiness, you know, like, we're just, like

OG like gut-level, man. You got me home and please, no,

don't look at me. I watch that on a plane with

some youth pastors. And I was like, oh my God, don't

look at me. No, I'm good, though.

Some of my favorite movies, but only can wash them once or twice

in my life. Because the there's certain

things that just that feel too heavy to handle.

And I think for many of us, we want to, we Shield off the pain

of the world around us because we don't want to become undone.

And I think when Jesus saying blessed are those who mourn and

there's a place that what you get when you confront your

mortality, and you confront the losses, in the things that are

broken in the world and what you actually need and longing for

where that meets and you become undone.

I think that's often times in our world especially in our

culture. Like, I don't want to cry, I

don't want to do the right because because you know, if if

you open the blinds a little bit, you not going to be able to

close them. You don't know what's going to

come out and you really concerned about what other

people going to think. And God is saying that place of

being undone is actually the place where I meet you.

You with me? So there was there was mourning

customs and these Customs were weeping, ashes guard had morning

garments that they a sack cloth and Ashes and they would rip

their garments lamp to lament was a morning.

Custom. There wasn't a phrase, that

said, Don't Cry. There wasn't a phrase that says,

hey, tuck that back in because tears are powerful.

And the early Church Desert fathers believed in what they

called The Gift of Tears. And explain this way, it's a

phenomenon mentioned in spiritual writer since the early

since very early in the church and it refers to an intense

personal experience of God that overflows and abundant tears, it

is the Overflow of a spiritual experience in an emotional

physiological expression that creates a deep comfort in one's

soul and deep encouragement for the person who receives the gift

as well as sometimes for others who happen to witness it.

It. One of the most powerful scenes

and phrases in the Bible is Jesus wept.

Whether you're a Christian or a non-Christian or agnostic, you

that verse means something. It's quoted often because people

want to know that that God can feel their pain.

Jesus mourned with his friends. There are their heartbreak

touched his heart, the limitation of their perspective

on what God can do. Hurt his heart tears, enable us

to touch to get in touch with our deepest feelings, they help

us express our grief at endings and the loss of those who are

precious to us Grief helps us locate the pain.

It helps us name it. and it's a gift to be able to feel to

remember to empathize to form our hearts, our worship and our

intercession Some Chara says this the American Church avoids

Lament The Power of lament is minimized and underlying

Narrative of suffering that requires lament is loss.

But absence, does it make the heart grow fonder, absence makes

the heart. Forget the absence of lament in

the Liturgy of the American Church results in the loss of

memory. We forget the necessity of

lamenting over suffering in pain, we forget the reality of

suffering. Suffering and pain.

Blessed are those who mourn? Blessed are those who mourn is

not that morning is fun. It's not that anyone wakes up

and they set goals of like, what can I mourn today?

Who wants to mourn? I don't want to mourn.

I want to be happy, but there is a blessing and those who mourn

because the reality of the world is stings or broken.

And happiness isn't avoiding the acknowledgement of pain and

suffering. It's going through it.

It's going through the pain and the suffering hand-in-hand with

God and coming out the other side though.

He slay me, I will praise Him Jesus more than anyone who's

ever walked to Earth knows about sadness, loss and grief.

Isaiah talks about Jesus and Isaiah 53, and he says, he was

despised and rejected, Man of Sorrows acquainted.

With the deepest grieved, we turned our backs on him and look

the other way he was this. Spies then we did not care.

Jesus. Came to his own and his own

rejected him, they did not receive them.

Jesus comes to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday on the triumphal entry

and he laments and he's weeping, and he's mourning over the

condition of Jerusalem and he's like, man, if you would have

known the moment, if you would have known, what I wanted to do

with you right now, how I wanted to gather you up, but you would

not let me. one of the hardest things as a parent or being

someone in a relationship is seeing the other person,

struggle to trust you and see the other person's stuck in the

pattern of making poor decisions and not let anyone in And God is

saying when you leaving into your morning, when you lean into

your pain, when you lean in, to the things that are difficult.

That's when you actually get me because when you lean into it,

you're letting me in when you don't lean into it, you're

hiding it in bearing and he said, you can't touch this.

Jesus is saying in this announcement, blessed are those

who mourn? He's staying at your hardest and

worst moments of your life is where God wants to meet you.

Is where God wants to draw closer.

If you'll have him, Some 34 says, the Lord is close to the

Brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

So in a world of Sorrow, a people full of grief and

mourning. God says, you are not excluded

from my presence. There are people that are full

of mourning and grief and sorrow and injustice.

God says, you were actually in Prime position to encounter me

and encounter my kingdom. Whether you mourning over the

loss of a loved one. Are you lamenting the state of

the world or your own soul? There is a balm in Gilead.

Isaiah says, in Isaiah, 61, we're talks about Jesus coming

in the spirit of the Lord is upon.

It says this to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and

the day of Vengeance for God. But listen to this to comfort

all who mourn. To provide for those who grieve

in Zion to bestow on them. It crown of beauty instead of

Ashes, the oil of Joy, instead of mourning, in a Garment of

Praise, instead of a spirit of Despair, God shares in your

heartbreak, and says, I'm the Healer of your heart.

And I give in exchange for morning, I give comfort and in

exchange for your ashes. I make it beautiful in exchange

for your morning. I bring enjoy joy and exchange

for your despair. I've written songs of praise and

put them on your mouth. Jesus said that we would have

heartache that we'd have trouble in the world but he said, take

courage, I have overcome the world Jesus was grieved in the

garden to the point of blood, but he went through it.

He went through it and he took on the grave and sin and death

that we might have hope. So that we don't grieve as the

world Grieves that we don't grieve.

As those who don't have. The hope that the darkest and

heaviest thing that we can go through, the it can, the gospel

can handle, it can shoulder, it can give you hope in the place

of Despair can give you Joy. In the place of grima can give

you comfort in the place of loss.

Blessed are those who mourn for they will be?

Comforted God does not leave us alone in our morning.

If you get anything, God does not leave you alone in your

morning. What does he do?

He promises his presence. and if you ever been to a place where

people are grieving and Mourning, What's better than

words? But the Embrace of a loved one.

That covers all the words and all the phrases and it

transcends the moment. And the God of all creation of

the universe says at your lowest point of grieving and loss and

morning, I bring in my comfort. They don't leave you alone.

I draw near with you. When I sit Shiva with you.

Henry. Now on says this, when we

honestly ask ourselves, which person in our lives means the

most to us. We often find that it is those

who instead of giving advice solution or cures have chosen

rather to share our pain and touch our rooms with the warm

and tender hand, the friend who can be silent with us in a

moment of Despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour

of grief and bereavement who can tolerate not knowing not curing,

not healing and face with us, the reality of our

powerlessness. That is a friend who cares.

It's a beautiful thing that we were called in to as the church.

We go God, why would you do that?

I don't understand. And he uses the pain, the losses

in our life that we might be those people who can go and sit

with other people and go ahead, know what you're going through.

That transcends word is time-space.

Ethnicity social brackets. Paul says, I'm second

Corinthians 1. He says this praise be to the

God and father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the father of

compassion, and the God of All Comfort, who comforts Us in all

our troubles that we can comfort.

Those in any trouble with the Comfort we ourselves receive

from God. He's the God of All Comfort.

The spirit of God, the paraclete the comforter is with us now in

the God of All Comfort says, I will wipe away every tear from

your eyes, because the renewal of all things is coming

everything that you put in that Circle, I'm renewing at the

resurrection. I said I'm going to heal them.

I'm gonna fix that. I'm going to restore that.

There's going to come a moment where you going to meet me and

I'm in tears. Won't be necessary.

That's the hope that we point to.

My last Point morning is temporary.

Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.

Cornel West is this to live is to wrestle with despair.

Yet, never allowed despair to have the last word.

Revelation 16 17 said, look, he's coming with the clouds and

every eye will see him, even those who pierced him and all

the peoples on the earth will mourn because of him.

So, shall it? Be amen.

So, if you've been in the world of grief, just, no Comfort.

Awaits you, in the arms of the father of comfort as alluded.

You know, that Jesus promises to restore all things in that.

The god of comfort will meet, you know, that there's moments

where you feel like you're in. Dark.

But just lean into God and he will restore you and rescue you

and strengthen your heart because he Comforts those who

mourn. Blessed are those who mourn for

they will be comforted. So, whatever you need today, I

believe God wants to strengthen your heart.

I believe the comfort is here to remind you, that, you are gods,

that you are his children that you were his daughter, that you

were his son, and that he sees everything.

And what he wants to do, what he does best is bring comfort and

hope. Amen, let me pray for us.

And what he wants to do, what he does best is bring comfort and

hope. Amen, let me pray for us.