mourning

every now and then i feel like i need to write about something spiritual, since that is a huge part of who i am. while preparing bible study this week for sunday school, i was looking at the second verse in the beatitudes, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Now, I don’t think Jesus was just talking about people who are sad about friends dying or loved ones moving away. I don’t even think he is referring to people who just have an ‘open heart’ and are easily able to mourn. Given the context of the spiritual nature of the beatitudes, I think he is referring directly to a spiritual mourning. He is referring to a mourning concerning sin. In the Old Testament, we see mourning and weeping representing the righteous people’s feelings about the sin around them. There’s a lot of talk in christian culture that we need to not judge and have a policy of “hate the sin, love the sinner.” While loving the sinner is certainly what we are called to do, it appears, at least in the context of the beatitudes, that we are to also mourn the sin. This is not a practice that I am used to at all. I certainly hate sin in my life and the life of those around me, but I rarely mourn over it or weep over it. This does not mean we should have a sense of ‘guilt’ over our sin, but maybe just sadness over our difficulty in sanctifying ourselves. Maybe this week I will try to really understand this idea of ‘mourning’ and what it means in my spiritual life.