HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2013 / FALL / THE LIFE EXAMINED WITH CAROLYN MACOMBER
F A L L • 2 0 1 3
VOLUME 14, ISSUE 3
D E P A R T M E N T S
The life EXAMINED with Carolyn Macomber
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO
MOURN
Isat in church wondering, “Can God use a broken, grieving woman for His glory?”
Just minutes before, someone had stood on the church platform and had shared how he had come to Christ. He spoke of seeing the joy in a Christian brother and sister that had led him to desire the joy they knew. The new believer said, “They were so happy, and I wanted that, too.”
Internally, I groaned, “Lord, I’m sad, I’m hurting, and days are spent in tears. Can I not be used to bring others to You, even in the midst of my tears?” I feared my mourning would render me ineffective for God.
Psalm 42:3a described my life, “My tears have been my food day and night.” Mourning had become like breathing to me, and I felt isolated and guilty for my tears. My mourning was over things others couldn’t even imagine.
Several weeks went by after that Sunday, and one day I read a quote on the Former Adventist Forum (FormerAdventist.com) written by Ellen White, the prophetess of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Ellen was reprimanding a woman for grieving the recent death of her husband. In fact, Ellen White used her own experience of losing her husband to give the widow some advice.
The quote was reprehensible. She wrote, “It is sometimes hard for me to preserve a cheerful countenance when my heart is rent with anguish. But I would not permit my sorrow to cast a gloom upon all around me. Seasons of affliction and bereavement are often rendered more sorrowful and distressing than they should be, because it is customary to give ourselves up to mourning without restraint. By the help of Jesus, I determined to shun this evil; but my resolution has been severely tested. My husband’s death was a heavy blow to me, more keenly felt because so sudden. As I saw the seal of death upon his countenance, my feelings were almost insupportable. I longed to cry out in my anguish. But I knew that this could not save the life of my loved one, and I felt that it would be unchristian to give myself up to sorrow. I sought help and comfort from above, and the promises of God were verified to me. The Lord’s hand sustained me. It is a sin to indulge, without restraint, in mourning and lamentation. By the grace of Christ, we may be composed and even cheerful under sore trial” (Selected Messages 2, p. 267).
I was horrified. In fact, in the context of the book, the letters published both before and after the one quoted above were disturbing. In one letter she tells a man who lost his wife that she sought God in prayer about his loss, and she knew from God that the deceased wife was a part of the 144,000. I wondered how Ellen White could know who was a part of the 144,000. Furthermore, how could she know for sure this woman would be in heaven? Had she read her heart? Only God can do that!
On another page of this collection of writings, Ellen White does say that it is not a sin to weep. Two pages later, however, she calls unrestrained mourning and lamentation a sin. These statements appear to be in contradiction!
As I thought about what I was reading, I remembered a Christian woman telling me of a similar experience. She had a friend who had just lost her husband, and someone told her that her tears meant she wasn’t fully trusting in Jesus. The Christian woman vehemently told me, “That advise was straight from the pit of hell!”
I began to wonder how Ellen White’s influence and my Adventist upbringing had contributed to my feelings of guilt when I would cry or grieve.
Other former Seventh-day Adventists have reported a similar reaction of guilt to feeling negative emotions. One person writes, “My mother taught me it was a sin to be angry.” Another said candidly, “Even today, after many years of knowing better, I still have a struggle showing my real emotions. Others have trouble knowing whether I’m experiencing great joy or undergoing sorrow or feeling pain of any kind. While it is likely a part of my own personality, it is obviously also related to how I was raised as an Adventist” (Former Adventist forum).
Ellen White’s quotes above clearly teach that Christians are to restrain sad or negative emotions and purposefully display positive ones, even if one’s heart is breaking. This advice, however, is dishonest and unbiblical.
Another former Adventist shares her childhood experience with feeling sad: “If I was crying and sad over something, I could only cry for a short time before I was told to 'put on a happy face’ and move on. I was also told that Ellen White said that some things were 'for Jesus’ ears only.’”
Grief a sin?
In preparation for this article I watched an interview with Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman. They tragically lost their little adopted girl when their biological son accidentally ran over the child when she ran out to meet her big brother as he drove up their driveway. In the taped interview, Steven and Mary Beth portrayed their grief in real and honoring ways. There was nothing contrived or put on as these dear parents shared their loss and their hope in Christ. Openly they admitted that some days were good and some days were not good. In their grief they had yelled and questioned God. They were mourning, and yet they were still trusting Jesus. They grieved with hope. Tears trickled down my cheeks as I watched the interview. It reminded me of righteous Job’s grief. He questioned God; he railed in his grief, but he was found to be without sin. It was Job’s friends God reprimanded.
Then Steven Curtis Chapman mentioned a Scripture passage I had been pondering: “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, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ” (2 Cor. 1:3-5).
This Scripture provokes much thought. Christ is acquainted with grief. Before He went to the cross He said, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Mt. 26:38). Scripture records that Christ fell with his face to the ground (Mt. 26:39) as he crumpled under the weight of his sorrow. Three times Christ asked for “this cup” to be taken from Him. He lamented, and in anguish He prayed so earnestly that his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground (Lk. 22:44). Christ understands deep sorrow. He mourned without restraint. If anyone knows what a person needs in deep sorrow, it is Christ.
Ellen White’s statement that experiencing unrestrained grief is a sin contradicts the Scriptures that portray Christ’s grief. Jesus, the Son of Man, was sinless. Ellen White’s calling unrestrained grief a sin, therefore, is heretical. Jesus never sinned, but He felt sorrow so deeply that Scripture records He was close to the point of death.
I need to be very clear because the implications of this contradiction affect how I have been taught to understand my own life. Either Ellen White is lying, or the Son of God was a sinner. There cannot be a middle ground. Trying to find a way to harmonize Ellen White’s condemnation of expressing grief with what Scripture records our sinless Savior experienced is like throwing dynamite at the very foundation of the gospel. If Ellen White is right, then Jesus sinned. Jesus, however, had to be without sin; otherwise, we have no hope. Jesus, though, was a man of sorrows (Is. 53:3). Ellen White is wrong.
To be fair, Ellen White describes Jesus’ suffering in other of her writings, and she does not imply His suffering was sin. Nevertheless, her own writing contradicts itself. Expressing extreme grief cannot be a sin for herself and others but not a sin for Jesus.
Mourning in the Bible
In the Bible mourning and sadness were displayed, not hidden. During times of mourning people often wore sackcloth, an uncomfortable fabric which was made of goat’s hair and caused skin irritation (Gen. 37:34; Ps. 35:13). Moreover, in Biblical times clothing was very expensive and valued. “So important were clothes that it was a sign of intense grief or mourning to tear them into pieces (Gen. 37:29; Job 1:20)” (Ralph Gower, The New Manners and Customs of Bible Times, p. 17, Moody Press, Chicago, 1987).
Wailing was often an announcement to the neighborhood that someone had died (p. 71). Micah describes this wailing like the howl of a jackal and like the moan of an owl (Mic. 1:8). Often there was a specific time for mourning (Gen. 50:3; Numb. 20:29) when people wore the scratchy sackcloth and fasted. There were times when people cut themselves or shaved their heads as a sign for grief (Job 1:20; Jer. 41:5; 47:5; 48:37), although cutting oneself was forbidden by the law (Deut. 14:1). Putting ashes on a person’s head was also a sign of grief (2 Sam. 13:19; Jer. 6:26; Job 2:12). In short, mourning was public in Biblical times and was never condemned as a sin.
There were, however, a few special times God did tell some people not to weep or mourn. These times are recorded in Nehemiah 8:9; Jeremiah 16:5; 22:10,18; 25:33; and Ezekiel 24:17, 23. Jeremiah, a prophet of God, was told not to mourn, marry or raise a family as a demonstration of the break in relationships which would come at the demise of Jerusalem. So great would the devastation of Jerusalem be that Jeremiah was told not to display normal emotion or grief. Jeremiah was to be a living example of the utter destruction and death that was coming to Judah’s capital city. There would not be enough people to bury the dead.
Similarly, God told Ezekiel not to mourn the death of his wife as a demonstration of the prophesy of destruction on the Israelite people. Since Ezekiel did not display the normal grieving process, the people took note and asked Ezekiel to explain his prophesy.
These were special incidents, however, when God’s message for the people was given through a prophet’s acting out the judgment God was bringing on the land. These unique instructions not to mourn were exceptions, not the norm.
In Christ’s Sermon on the Mount He specifically said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” “Blessed” in Greek is makarios and can depict someone who receives divine favor. “Mourn” in this verse is pentheo and can be translated “to lament, to bewail one’s self”.
The beatitudes seem to describe the internal attitude of a person, not one’s external life. In other words, Christ was speaking of the heart. Many Biblical commentators, in fact, believe that this verse refers to people who are aware of their neediness. They are poor in spirit (unable to do right); they mourn (understand their inability to do right and are sad). They are meek (forgiving, for they themselves understand what it means to be forgiven), and they are merciful (for they understand what it means to receive mercy).
Hope for those who mourn
When we mourn we feel the pain that sin has brought. Sometimes we mourn our own inability to do right, and sometimes we mourn another’s actions that hurt us. Still other times we mourn the effect of sin—death. To feel the reality of these things is to be grounded in the reality of the world we live in and in our own neediness of a Savior. Those who have chosen to believe in the simple gospel of Jesus Christ, however, will not mourn forever (Rev. 21:4), but those who depend on themselves will mourn eternally (Matt. 25:46).
There is only one difference between those who will cease to mourn and those who will mourn forever. 1 John 5:11-13 tells us that those who have believed “in the name of the Son of God” have eternal life: “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.”
Revelation 22:15 tells us that those outside the city “are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.” Every human in the history of the world has participated in at least one of the things practiced by those outside the city. Those who will be inside the city with the Lord are those who have mourned over their sin, have repented, and have been washed and forgiven by the blood of Jesus. They have received Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
Have you mourned over sin? Do you see your utter need for a Sin Bearer? Have you received the cleansing of Jesus’ blood? If you have never received Christ as your Savior, don’t waste another minute, but repent of your independence from God and admit your desperate neediness for His saving mercy.
Mourning will someday turn to dancing for those who have placed their faith in Jesus. Jesus proclaimed in Luke 4:18-19 what was written in Isaiah. It reads, “The Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor” (Is. 61:1-3).
Blessed are those who mourn. He is faithful! †
Copyright 2013 Life Assurance Ministries, Inc., Casa Grande, Arizona, USA. All rights reserved. Revised October 2, 2013. Contact email: proclamation@gmail.com
Carolyn Macomber was a doctoral student at Andrews University when she discovered inconsistencies between Adventism and the Bible. She withdrew her membership from the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 2009. She is a member of The Chapel Evangelical Free Church in St. Joseph, Michigan, where she is the leader of a Former Adventist Fellowship. She works helping families prepare their children for school readiness.
