Mourning

At the tomb of Lazarus, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). The verse is the shortest in the English Bible, and readers have long wondered at it, because Jesus already knew he would raise his friend within the hour. He wept anyway. Mourning is the outward expression of grief over a loss, especially the loss of someone by death. The English word comes from the Old English murnan, which meant both “to grieve” and “to care for.” The Beatitude “Blessed are they that mourn” (Matthew 5:4) uses the Greek pentheō, a word associated with public lament for the dead.

A God who weeps

The Restoration adds a remarkable scene to this picture. In the book of Moses, Enoch watches as “the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept.” Enoch asks how a God who is holy, and from all eternity to all eternity, can weep. The answer is that God’s children are “without affection, and they hate their own blood,” and the heavens weep over them (Moses 7:28⁠–40).

The God of Restoration scripture knows grief. He feels the loss of his children, and his sorrow follows from his love. Of course, this does not make grief good for its own sake. It shows how much persons are worth to God. Where love is great, loss is felt deeply, and the tears of heaven testify to the value of every soul.

The Book of Mormon adds that Christ took upon himself the pains and sicknesses of his people so that he would know “according to the flesh how to succor his people” (Alma 7:12). The Savior’s own suffering equips him to comfort those who mourn. When we grieve, we are known by one who has grieved.

The covenant to mourn

At the waters of Mormon, Alma described what those entering the covenant were promising. They would “bear one another’s burdens,” “mourn with those that mourn,” and “comfort those that stand in need of comfort” (Mosiah 18:8⁠–9). Mourning, in this account, is a shared obligation. Those who make the covenant agree to enter into one another’s sorrow.

This is why a Zion people cannot be indifferent to loss. The Lord told the early Saints to “weep for the loss of them that die, and more especially for those that have not hope of a glorious resurrection” (D&C 42:45). The instruction assumes that believers will grieve, and it directs their deepest sorrow toward those whose losses seem final. Grief that is shared becomes a form of care, binding a community together in its attention to the suffering of each member.

Latter-day Saint practice gives this covenant ordinary forms. Ward members bring meals, sit with the bereaved, dress the dead for burial, and carry caskets. Funerals typically join grief with testimony of the resurrection, and those who speak are encouraged to honor both. The covenant to mourn is kept mostly in these modest acts, repeated across generations.

Must death be mourned forever?

Grief confirms that our love was well placed. We mourn because the person we lost mattered, and the depth of the grief is a measure of that worth. Mormon Transhumanists take this seriously. If persons are as valuable as our mourning suggests, then death is an enemy to be overcome. Efforts to extend healthy life, to rescue the dying through medicine, and to preserve what makes each person who they are all follow from the same love that grief expresses.

Restoration theology strengthens the case. Joseph Smith taught that “that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory” (D&C 130:2). Relationships are meant to endure. Every death interrupts something God intends to last, and mourning registers that interruption.

That said, some care is needed. Mourning teaches empathy, and technologies that dull or bypass grief could weaken the very capacity that makes covenant community possible. Simulations of the dead, assembled from their words and images, raise further questions about memory, consent, and the line between remembering a person and replacing one. The aim is to overcome the causes of grief while honoring grief itself.

Toward the end of mourning

The scriptures look forward to a day when “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying” (Revelation 21:4). Mourning, in the meantime, keeps that hope honest. It declines to treat death as acceptable, and it moves those who mourn to work for the day when death will end. Jesus wept at the tomb and then called Lazarus forth. Those who follow him are invited to do both.

See also: Bereavement, Dead/Death, Grief, Immortality, Mysteries, Resurrection, Suffering