The Beatitudes Pt. 2: Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

Matthew 5:4 reads:

                “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

How are you to be blessed if you are in mourning? That seems a little backwards to me, if we’re talking in terms of how the world would see it. But Jesus talks about it a little more in depth in the concept of fasting. In this passage of scripture, the Pharisee’s are trying to trip Jesus up by talking about fasting, and how John’s disciples fast, and Jesus’ don’t.

Matthew 9:14-15

“Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast…”

To mourn means ‘to feel or express sorrow or grief, to grieve or lament over.’ Fasting means ‘to abstain from all food; to eat only sparingly or of certain kinds of food especially as a religious observance.’ To apply mourning to fasting only makes sense (at least in my mind).

Spiritual mourning equals fasting (along with prayer and supplication). This act is one of desperation. Possessing this desperation is required to do whatever it takes to receive breakthrough. And this spiritual mourning is the emotional counterpart to being poor of spirit. (Whether a fast for you is classified under fasting food, entertainment, speech, or whatever it may be, you’re taking a daily pleasure and willingly giving it up like Jesus said you should. And He says that whatever you do in secret will be rewarded by the Father; so don’t go around with a prideful attitude and boast about your fasting! That’s what the Pharisees did…)

Think of fasting/mourning in this way:

When you are hungry, you eat. When you want to tell someone a secret, you talk. When you want to relax, you turn on the television, or get on your computer to goof off. But when you give any of those (or a number of other things) up, it’s like going on a diet: you take out the “bad.” But you can’t just take it out and think it’s fine. You have to substitute it with something that would have been better off for you in the first place. Say you eat a lot more sugar than your body needs. If you were to go on a diet, you would have to cut out that sugar and replace it with, say, broccoli, or carrots (or something to that affect). So when you give up any of your natural, daily pleasures in terms of a fast, the only way to fill that need is with reading the Word, listening to worship music and doing some hang-out time with Jesus.

This is the refusing of comfort from any other thing other than the comforting power of the Living God (for whom we were created)! Those who mourn are promised the comforting power of God.