Good Grief

"Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted," Matthew 5:4. Mourning is grief too deep to conceal so how can someone who mourns be considered blessed? I have attended funerals where the deceased did not know Jesus Christ as Saviour and unless God had mercy at the last moments of life, they were in Hell. The family, themselves without Christ, were despondent mourners, without hope. Does Jesus say these mourners are blessed? No, I don't believe so. The particular kind of blessing comes from a particular kind of mourning. The gospel mourning that brings blessing is a Holy Spirit produced mourning over sin. There is a worldly kind of mourning that works death and has no good end and produces nothing but more sorrow. Judas mourned this way after betraying Christ and his self-centered sorrow led him to commit suicide. 2 Corinthians 7:9-11 gives us a clear picture of the two different types of mourning, "godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation…but the sorrow of the world worketh death."

Jesus is talking about mourning over our sin, what it is, and what it does. Sin is the true cause of all our sorrow. The wages of sin is death and when sin entered the world, so did the curse for it. We should weep over sin, because of its treachery, and the destruction it wreaks on humanity. Sin is rebellion and lawlessness. It is enmity against God and dishonors His holy name. Iniquity tramples on God’s law, makes light of His love, and grieves His Spirit. Personally, sin steals our joy and robs us of all comfort. Trespassing the law is the path of the Devil, it wounds us, hurts us, hardens us, and kills us. Sin is a reproach to any people and the filthy garments of a wicked people. And we do it willingly.

Do you weep over sin? Do you cry out like the Apostle, "Oh wretched man that I am!" and if you cannot weep, do you mourn it? Sin hardens the heart and worldliness sears the conscience all the while, pulling us down the broad path that leads to destruction. The wages of sin is death. Not only physical death, but spiritual death and those who die in sin will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire. The idea of the eternal night, where the worm dies not, is a horrid prospect. And the Bible says, "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."

Do you mourn? Then lift up your eyes, because there is hope. 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Don't follow the path of Judas, but Christ. Indeed, mourn over sin, but then go to the one who can cleanse you. Christ heals those wounded, and brokenhearted mourners. There is happiness because those who truly mourn over sin will find hope, help, healing in the blood of Christ.