Wisdom in the House of Mourning

By Linda Boe’

“It is better to go to a house of mourning

Than to go to a house of feasting,

Because that is the end of every man,

And the living takes it to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter, 

For when a face is sad a heart may be happy.

The mind of the wise is in the house of mourning,

While the mind of fools is in the house of pleasure.”

Ecclesiastes 7:3-4

A strange scripture? Why would anyone prefer a funeral to a feast? The joy of celebration is from God to be enjoyed. Parties can be fun and make us forget our troubles – if only for a day – but a funeral is where all of life comes into clear view and we remember what is really important, what is really true. We tend to take our life for granted until someone loses theirs.

When I first heard this verse I remembered a time when I had seen wisdom come in the house of mourning. When I was 18, my dear and godly grandfather died. My mother grieved hard. She adored him, but at the time of my conception, their relationship had become strained. It was 1948 and an out-of-wedlock pregnancy was a disgrace. My parents married and moved away, separating themselves from family and faith. We lived a strangely isolated life, seldom visiting my grandparents, and, when we did, avoiding all aunts, uncles, cousins and family friends, those who had supported and loved my mother all her life.

At the funeral home, I saw my mother glowing as she received love from all the people she thought had abandoned and judged her. Her countenance was different than I had ever seen. In that house of mourning, wisdom was there. In that house of mourning, the peace of the God she knew in childhood flooded her. She was comforted by knowing her father was in His hands. She saw love and forgiveness were there all along. She saw God in a way she had not seen Him before. In that house of mourning, there was the joy that was missing from the party-times she loved.  I didn’t know about Ecclesiastes 7 then, but I knew my mother had seen things in the right way in her place of mourning. My mother and I – the living – took it to heart.

I saw the same wisdom again when my dad’s mother died suddenly. He saw the reality that any of us could die today, and it frightened him. He saw the end of every man, and rushed to meet with the pastor. He was wiser in the funeral home than in the bar room. 

Another time, members of our church gathered at the home of a young couple to pray. The husband had just been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. Doctors only gave him a few months to live. What a blow to this family and to us who loved them! But what wisdom was present there! In a room filled with over a hundred people, a hush fell as this young father shared about all God was showing him in his own “house of mourning.” He said he wanted only for God to be glorified through this, whatever the outcome. He said “I get it!” and everyone knew he was seeing something we don’t quite see yet. He gave us a glimpse. We who were blessed to hear wisdom speak hung on every word. We saw more, understood more, loved more, because we were in the “house of mourning.”

Americans do not know how to mourn. In our hurry-up microwave culture, there simply isn’t time!  Mourning is a two-day affair. Employers expect you back to work and productive, showing no signs of grief. Not so in other cultures of the world. The Jewish people are fastidious about mourning, “sitting shiva” with the bereaved for seven days. In Africa family and neighbors gather around for as long as it takes. There is no shame in expressing grief. The Bible contains many laments, including the whole book of Lamentations, where Jeremiah mourns in detail the losses of the Jewish people in the Babylonian captivity of 586 BC. Every year, the Jewish people read the book of Lamentations as part of a seven-day fast in remembrance.

A house of mourning doesn’t have to be a funeral home. It can be in our private prayer time when God shows us our sin in light of His holiness. Or times when He convicts of idols and ways of the world. At the church altar when we respond to His presence. The house of mourning is any place where we see His greatness and our weakness.

Sorrow can be better than laughter if it brings us closer to God. Mourning shows us life through an eternal lens. Let us take the lessons of the house of mourning to heart!