Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Mourning Motivates Contemplating Mortality
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Psalm 51:17
This verse echoes the beatitude in Matthew 5:4: "Blessed are those who mourn." It mentions one of the sacrifices that God accepts: the contrite spirit, the broken heart. What is mourned here is spiritual in nature, and the sorrow is likewise spiritual, a kind of contrition or remorse. Those who mourn like this are desperately sorry for their own sins and unworthiness. It is pointed directly at one's own heart, in which we see great sin, and because sin inhabits our heart, we know we are unworthy. People who have a contrite spirit feel grief for how much they have contributed personally to the world's evils. They have a sense, like David, of sin in themselves and how deeply rooted it is, and its continuing presence breaks them. Their sorrow goes beyond sad. It is an abiding sorrow that it is there, and they are upset, even angry, at themselves that it keeps coming out when they want to be rid of it and spiritually clean. But it keeps popping up because of their own weakness, bad habits, and rebellion. They want it out and work to get it out, yet it keeps showing up, like a fabric stain that just cannot be washed out. When we clean a stained piece of clothing, and it is wet and soapy, we think it looks good. We tell ourselves we finally managed to rub the stain out! Then we let it dry, and . . . it is there still. How frustrating! Yet, those who possess an internal disposition of brokenheartedness, of a contrite spirit, will be comforted through God's complete redemption.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Those Who Mourn
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Ecclesiastes 7:1-4
In terms of wisdom, Solomon unmistakably comes down on the side of sorrow and mourning as the more important. They are to be preferred because mourning motivates a person toward sober contemplation of his own mortality, which tends to affect the wellspring of our thoughts, words, and conduct effectively and positively. The wellspring of conduct is the heart, which is why “heart” is mentioned four times in these verses. The heart is truly the center of a human being. Recall that Jesus reminds us that our words and conduct spring from our hearts (Matthew 15:18-19). Therefore, we need to search out and reinforce some important truths regarding death and its direct connection to our hearts and thus our conduct in life. A number of years ago, The Denial of Death won the Pulitzer Prize for the best of nonfiction in a certain category. In it, the author, Dr. Ernest Becker, made this telling comment, confirming what the Bible clearly states: “The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is the mainspring of human activity—activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man” (p. ix). Here in Ecclesiastes, Solomon is subtly urging us to take steps to confront the truth of death's influence on our overall conduct in life. Death was set in motion during the Creation Week. The way things now are in this world, it is an almost daily factor in life. It has become the curse of curses, the last enemy to be destroyed. As we will see shortly, it dogs our existence. The specter of death is so dominant in some people's minds that it virtually destroys their lives. Their actions are focused on avoiding death and overcoming it by somehow denying that it is the final destiny for man. These people are really downers in their effect upon others. Conversely, many people, while living, do not prepare for the obvious reality of death. It and its accompanying sorrows are major events of life that everyone must deal with. Solomon exhorts us to face in a balanced way what this issue means in terms of God's truth so we are prepared for its inevitability. He does this partly because he understands, perhaps as well as anyone ever did, that pursuing laughter, as he shows in chapter 2, and relishing enjoyable situations are easy compared to experiencing sorrow. However, mirth is almost useless in terms of leading a profitable life. A person must almost be forced to seek out involvement in sorrowful circumstances. Paradoxically, death and its sorrowful circumstances have far more to teach us about what is valuable to a meaningful life compared to mirth and laughter, passing pleasures that are here today and gone tomorrow. Author Susan Sontag wrote, “Death is the obscene mystery, the ultimate affront, the thing that cannot be controlled. It can only be denied.” Our language of death clearly shows society's attempts to soften, hide, or even deny it by using euphemisms, such as calling the dead person “the departed” or by saying that he “passed away” or “is not with us anymore.” This is done to avoid saying the words “death” or “dead.” God deals with it in His Word by showing that it is best for us to deal with it directly. This allows us to understand more fully that death is indeed the way of all flesh and to lay it to heart, shifting the balance of our thoughts about its reality toward more serious thinking on it.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Ecclesiastes and Christian Living (Part Eight): Death
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Lamentations 1:10-16
The book of Lamentations opens with Jerusalem being depicted as a princess who had it all, but due to calamity, she is widowed and has become a slave. She is Jerusalem personified, which the armies of Nebuchadnezzar have destroyed. Most of her people are dead, and her life seems to be overwhelmed and consumed by death, particularly the death of her inhabitants. The reader is expected to know that her sins are what brought on this disaster. Her destruction was a judgment from God because she refused to repent. As a result, all her people are either dead or in Babylonian captivity. She tells us that even the few survivors are starving and miserable. They have nothing because they have bartered it all away for what little food remains in the area. So Jerusalem is in a deep state of grief. She experiences the kind of mourning that occurs just after a calamity strikes. A person cannot think straight because of the magnitude of what has just happened. Nothing makes sense. No one and nothing can bring comfort because shell shock has set in. She is reeling from the destruction, chaos, and death that has just ruined her world, and her mind cannot piece together the reasons—not at this point. Only later in the book, in chapters 3 and 5, does the author begin to find perspective, tentatively acknowledging the lessons God wants His people to learn. That is how grief works; that is its pattern. Modern studies have found that grief is a lengthy process. It is not just something that happens and quickly recedes. Instead, it is a process a person must move through in stages, each of which takes time. In this way, a grieving person can get a handle on what he or she is feeling and how it affects daily life. It takes considerable time to come to terms with what has happened. The book of Lamentations illustrates this process.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Those Who Mourn
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Matthew 5:4
Commentators often suppose that Jesus refers to the sorrow that comes from realizing all the suffering, destruction, and death in the world. This sorrow is a step beyond considering it the result of a personal, emotional wound upon the death of a loved one. This new perspective contemplates all the evils that cause suffering and death on earth. Those who grieve for the terrible wrongs occurring all over the globe have a soft heart for people, even people they do not know. They are often called humanitarians: They see trials and suffering, and they want to give aid if they can. While they care for others, they are heavily weighed down by the sheer amount of woe humanity experiences worldwide. Lamentations 5:1-15 contains a prayer that describes all that has occurred to Judah and Jerusalem due to its overthrow by Babylon. The author of Lamentations is actually reminding God about what had happened, setting the scene for what he writes toward the end of the chapter. It takes the form of a dirge, a sad song telling us how much death and destruction had befallen God's people. Everything is bad! In the aftermath, life is hard, and there is no hope in sight. Their lives are terrible. All they see ahead of them is drudgery and famine and disease and death. They cannot envision any rescue in their future. Similarly, Ezekiel 9:3-5 illustrates a more intense and spiritual mourning for the abominations, perversions, cruelties, and sins that cause suffering, destruction, and death in society. We can commiserate with what is written in the passage, seeing the perversity happening in the world, all the things God hates and condemns, calling them abominations. In Ezekiel 9, God says He will spare those who grieve over the depth of sin in the world and the havoc it causes. These grieving people show empathy for those who suffer from it, but their expectation is that only God can cure society's ills. They express sadness, mourning for the rotten state to which the world has fallen. Yet, they know that the only answer to the problem is for people to repent. They also know human nature and that people cannot repent unless God grants it to them (Romans 2:4). These realizations mean that these evils will go on to affect more people, part of a terrible cycle of horrible things that will continue replaying in this world until God intervenes.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Those Who Mourn
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