Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain, and when
he sat down, his disciples came to him. And He opened his mount and taught
them…”
I wonder if, while Jesus began speaking the words we know as
the Beatitudes, He was looking at the crowd gathered around Him. They had come
out from Galilee and the Decapolis, from Jerusalem and Judea. They had been
struggling with sicknesses, diseases, aches and pains, demons, leprosy, and
paralysis. Jesus healed them. Who was this Man who could heal like this? They
wanted to know more, they wanted to hear more. So, they followed Jesus out into
the countryside.
Matthew doesn’t tell us the size of the crowd, but there must
have been plenty of people – Matthew says it was “crowds” of people. As He
looked around, was He was identifying them, not by physical characteristics –
the tall, the strong, the wealthy, the popular, the beautiful, the handsome –but
by what was in their heart or, rather, what was missing and, as He saw them He
spoke about the spiritually bankrupt, the grieving, awaiting God’s rescue,
showing God’s mercy, extending peace and restoration, and those who had been
persecuted for holding the faith in the promises of God instead of the work of
man. The world doesn’t have much place for people like that, instead preferring
health, wealth and happiness. But as
Jesus saw them, He spoke to His disciples and identified them as blessed.
It is important to note that Jesus says these are blessed,
not happy. Some translations try to make this read “happy,” but that’s not right
at all. Happiness is a feeling, an emotion. There’s nothing wrong with
happiness. A cup of coffee makes me happy; watching my dog race around the yard
makes me happy; my wife’s smile makes me happy; finishing a sermon Thursday morning
instead of during the sermon hymn makes me happy. While we often associate
happiness with being a Christian, Christians are not always happy. Thankful, yes;
joyful, yes; blessed, yes; happy, not necessarily. So, let’s read and
understand Jesus’ words the way said it: Blessed. That carries a much deeper
and richer understanding than merely happy. A blessing is a gift of God, a
declaration, a statement that announces to the world, “This is true.” In the
Beatitudes, Jesus declares His children are blessed in the situation, not from
the situation. In fact, when Jesus uses the word in Matthew’s
Gospel, it almost always means “Saved” or “Redeemed.[1]”
It’s as if Jesus is saying, “The poor in spirit are saved, therefore the
kingdom of heaven is theirs!”
Who might Jesus have seen? What led them to that hillside to
hear Jesus? What was their story? What did they hope to hear? What did they
need to hear? I don’t know. I wish I had been a fly on the shrub brush,
watching and listening. Perhaps Jesus saw the First Century version of people
like this:
Sue sat in her living room, weeping. It was the thirtieth
anniversary of the day that her ex-husband took her to an abortion clinic,
threatening her with all sorts of unpleasantries if she didn’t get rid of “it.”
She knows that she is forgiven, but still, every January 29, she is haunted by
what she did. To her, Jesus declares,
“Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.”
Rick’s wife died ten years ago. Well, actually nine years,
ten months and three days ago. Yes; he counts. Every afternoon since then, he
sits in a chair at her graveside, sometimes for hours at a time. Last week, he
buried their only son; well, actually five days ago. Now, he sits between the
graves of his wife and son. He knows there will be a resurrection reunion, but
for now, he sits there with a heavy heart as the sun goes down and darkness
sets in. To him, Jesus declares, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall
be comforted.”
Lou and Vi are retired and have a small, fixed income. Every
month, before they spend a dime on their personal needs, they give away almost
half between their church, a pregnancy crisis center, and a food pantry in
town. They don’t have much left, just enough, but they are happy and content
with what the Lord provides. To them, Jesus declares, “Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.”
In a far-off country, a traitor alerts authorities to a secret,
underground Christian church. The service is raided and the pastor and six
members are hauled into the street and forced to kneel in front of their
community while masked men scream at them to apostatize, deny Jesus as Savior,
or else they face a certain and painful death. Quietly, they begin to pray the
Lord’s Prayer together. To them, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are
persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
These are the kinds of people Jesus speaks about. They,
these people who seem to have so little in way of earthly blessings, whom the
world would look right past and go right by without a second glance, Jesus
describes them as being in the present state of blessedness. Some of the
particular gifts of blessing are present tense. The poor in spirit are those
who realize they cannot save themselves. The burden of their sins is simply too
great, too heavy, too damnable to be humanly overcome. They are humbled,
realizing how desperately they need Jesus, they need a Savior, and just how
willingly and lovingly Jesus went to the cross to save them from their sins,
from satan’s guilt, and from the grave’s depths. The poor in spirit find their
richness in spirit in Christ and, in Christ, as baptized children of God, their
present tense reality is that the Kingdom of heaven, with all of it’s eternal
riches of forgiveness, life and salvation is theirs, right now, even if they
still struggle with memories and suffer from earthly consequences of what was
done. The fact is they are blessed and heaven is theirs now.
Other beatitudes are still to come, a promise now for a
future consummation. For some, this side of heaven, mourning may never turn
into dancing until Jesus raises them from their own grave. Those who hunger and
thirst for righteousness, for the rightness of God to be manifest on earth, it
may not come until the day of judgement when God separates the faithful from
the unfaithful, rewarding and punishing, setting right what was so often wrong
in this lifetime. The pure in heart and the peacemakers may never know the
fullness of their desire until there is a restoration on the last day and we
see God face-to-face through the death and resurrection of Jesus. But the
promise is there. And, for God’s children, by grace through faith, all of God’s
promises are yes and right now in Christ, even if we have to wait for the
consummation of that gift until we see Jesus with resurrected eyes.
So, Jesus has spoken to the disciples about the crowd, but
He wasn’t done. He speaks to you as well. You, the 21st century
disciple, the baptized believer, the child of God, the kids of the Kingdom - He
speaks to you as well. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute
you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and
be glad for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets
before you.”
Blessed are you when others revile you, persecute you,
slander you because you bear the name Christian. Blessed are those Christians
in the Middle East whose worship services are interrupted with bombs and
gunfire at the hands of Muslims. Blessed are those Christians in communist lands
who are driven deep underground. Blessed are those who are mocked and ridiculed
by the “woke” people of this world. Blessed are you when people laugh at you
for believing in Christ, when people exclude you for being a Christian, when
your own family or friends or coworkers mock you for speaking the name of
Jesus. Don’t be sad, be glad! Rejoice! You are walking in prophetic sandals and
you are blessed, even as you journey down the valley of the shadow.
I said it a minute ago, but let me say it again: Jesus
blesses you in the situation, in the need, in the brokenness of the world, in
the moment in which you find yourself. He does not bless you by separating you
from it, snapping His fingers and teleporting you to a safe place with a warm
blanket, a cup of coffee or tea, surrounded by friendly and loving hands. He
blesses you in the moment with the reminder that He has saved you, even in
this.
How is it that Jesus can proclaim such blessings, such
eternal promises of salvation to us in the midst of our struggles this side of
heaven? Because first and foremost, these beatitudes are about Him. He is the
Blessed One from whom all blessings flow. He is the One who became poor in
spirit, though He was rich. He is the One who mourned over our Sin, the man of
suffering, acquainted with sorrow. He is the meek One, who turned the other
cheek, who gave His back to the whips of this world, who went as a Lamb to the
slaughter. He hungered and thirsted for our righteousness, and in His hunger
and thirst we are filled. He is the Merciful One, whose mercy knows no bounds.
He is the pure-hearted One, innocent of Adam’s sin, whose heart overflowed with
nothing but love. He is the peace maker, the One who did our peace to death on
a cross that we might have shalom, peace that surpasses our comprehension,
peace that that world cannot give. He is the persecuted One, who absorbed this
world’s hatred and buried it in His death.
Jesus is and does all these things. He is the Blessed One.
And you, baptized into Him, are blessed.
No comments:
Post a Comment