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.