In
the Name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Grace
and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ and may our Lord
and Savior sanctify you in the truth, for His word is truth. Amen
The
Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany (2011)
We
are Blessed in Christ
Matthew 5:1-12
(ESV)
Seeing the crowds, he went up on the
mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
[2] And he opened his mouth and taught
them, saying:
[3]
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
[4] "Blessed are those who mourn, for
they shall be comforted.
[5] "Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth.
[6] "Blessed are those who hunger and
thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
[7] "Blessed are the merciful, for
they shall receive mercy.
[8] "Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.
[9] "Blessed are the peacemakers, for
they shall be called sons of God.
[10] "Blessed are those who are
persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
[11] "Blessed are you when others
revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on
my account. [12] Rejoice and be glad,
for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who
were before you.
The Gospel
Reading for today from Matthew is our Lord’s opening remarks from His famous
Sermon on the Mount. To say the
least, this sermon by our Lord has
created quite a stir within Christianity.
The earliest Christians considered the Sermon to be the guide for
Christian living. In fact, the Didache’, which was written as an early
Christian book on Christian morality and standards appears to have been written
from what the apostle Matthew reports on this Sermon. Other scholars have
treated this Sermon as purely a Law sermon. Martin Luther treated the Sermon as
Law, but he applied it to all Christians as an impossible demand. Later, in the
18th century, enlightenment scholars interpreted the Sermon as a
collection of moral truths that comprised Jesus’ simple religion, a religion which
they insisted was made complex through Paul’s doctrinal formulations. Yet
others see this Sermon as purely a Gospel Sermon, especially when read from an Christological
perspective. I must admit, I am in the latter camp.
However, regardless
of the interpreted view of the Sermon, laypeople have claimed admiration of our
Lord’s Sermon’s for its simple teachings, and Lutherans regularly use it as a
supply house for passages on the severity of the Law. Therefore, in a real
sense, the Sermon on the Mount belongs to the public domain. This is why it is
not surprising that its passages have been used to support views, and causes,
and programs that the evangelist Matthew would not have recognized. Misused in
a secular and civil context, our Lord’s Sermon has only fueled the common misunderstanding
among Christians that its message is chiefly Law rather than a lofty expression
of Gospel from the mouth of Jesus Himself. It’s truly ironic that the widest
disagreements exist over this portion of Scripture, which is better known than
any other, and there is little hope of resolving these disputes to everyone’s
satisfaction, even within the Christian community. Having said all that, let us
sit back and enjoy what our Lord does say of us in His opening remarks of this
most wonderful and most famous of all sermons ever preached. Let us see what
our Lord Jesus means when He says we are
Blessed.
Our Lord begins
by using the word blessed no less
than nine times in His opening remarks. Thus, this section of His famous Sermon
on the Mount is known as the Beatitudes.
The word beatitude comes from the Latin
word beatus which comes from the
Greek word markarios, meaning; blessed,
fortunate, or happy, in the sense of being the privileged recipient of divine
favor. Therefore, it denotes a joy, or peace, or contentment, or happiness that
springs from within. Moreover, it can only be enjoyed by a soul which is connected
directly to God through faith in His One and Only Son, Jesus Christ, by the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, this blessedness cannot be taken away from you nor will it leave you
regardless of outward circumstances. The new creature, which has been created
in Christ Jesus, has this blessedness from
God, even though the Old Adam is still in you causing you to sometimes fail to
reflect that blessedness.
With joyful
appreciation we hear our Lord Jesus speak us blessed, outlining specific virtues that are found in every
Christian. Granted this blessedness,
we know that even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we remain
confident through faith that God is with us, holding firm to those whom He has blessed. Furthermore, we also know that today
He leads us through the valleys of life; through the emotional highs and lows
of living on this side of heaven as He continues to guide us to the green
pastures, the still waters, and the overflowing cups of heaven. He is our
fullness and our hope and we are blessed
to be His children. We are blessed to
find ourselves in the green pastures of His true Church on earth where He
waters and feeds us abundantly through Word and Sacrament.
Yet we know that
as we go about our daily living we experience difficulty related to those blessed virtues mentioned in the Beatitudes. Truth is, when we’re in the
middle of some of those virtues, we often don’t feel very blessed. We are apt to ask, “Why me Lord?” Yet, in retrospect, and
often after the fact, we see God’s guiding hand has
When our Lord
Jesus began His sermon on the mount with the Beatitudes, He was, by way of His sermon, singing the Psalms to the
crowd, for therein our Lord speaks His blessings to us, saying: “Blessed
are all who take refuge in him” (Psalm 2:12 ESV) . . . “Blessed is the one whose transgression is
forgiven, whose sin is covered” . . . “Blessed is the man against whom the Lord
counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit” (Psalm 32:1-2 ESV).
. . “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor
stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers” (Psalm 1:1 ESV)
. . . “Blessed are the people to whom
such blessings fall! Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord!” (Psalm
144:15 ESV). . . “Blessed
is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God” (Psalm
146:5 ESV). To be blessed by
God is a marvelous thing and Holy Scripture testifies that ever since the day
of Adam and Eve God has been blessing
His people.
Truth is, not
one of us here today would choose the opposite of being blessed, because the opposite of blessed is cursed, yet so
many readily choose that option. They choose to ignore or deny the blessedness procured for us by our Lord
on the Altar of the Cross. Oh, to be certain, that’s where our blessedness comes from. We are blessed with salvation and robed in the
righteousness of Christ because of His vicarious death which reconciled us to
God. However, for us to receive the gift of blessedness,
God had to curse His One and only Son. He laid on Him the iniquity us of all
and abandoned Him to die, alone on the Altar of the Cross to carry our sin with
Him to the grave. This is the reason He cried out, “My God, My God, why have you
forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). Yet there, in His greatest moment of anguish,
God blessed all who had believed and
all who would believe in His One and only Son as the Messiah, the Savior of the
world. We are blessed in Christ
because His heavenly Father’s heart was turned; His wrath was swayed and He was
reconciled to all mankind because of the death of His Son, our Lord, Jesus
Christ. We are blessed in Christ
because the Son of God was obedient, even to the point of death, earning our
salvation by His perfect life and death. We
are blessed in Christ because the Holy Spirit entered our hearts and gave
us the gift of faith to believe in the vicarious satisfaction of the death of
our Lord Jesus upon the Altar of the Cross.
Are you poor in
spirit, do you mourn, is your personality meek and humble, do you hunger and
thirst for righteousness, are you merciful, pure in heart, a peacemaker,
willing to be persecuted for righteousness sake, and subjected to ridicule and
persecution because of your faithfulness to the Gospel. If so, then count
yourself among the blessed. Count
yourself a disciple of Christ, for it was our Lord Jesus who said, “If
anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his
life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25 ESV).
If
one is to “come after me,” that is, if
anyone is to follow Jesus they must attach themselves as a disciple of His;
they must exhibit the virtues of a disciple, those virtues spoken of by Jesus
in the Beatitudes, and follow Him to
the Cross. Furthermore, whoever follows Christ must deny themselves; they must
reject their ego and their desire to follow after the world. They must reject
the things of man and desire the things of God. This is true conversion, the
very first essential act of the Christian life. Granted the gift of faith and
filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, the heart sees all the sin of self
and the damnation and the death bound up in this sin and turns away from it in
utter dismay, seeking rescue in Christ alone. Therefore, the self is cast out
and Christ enters in; and you live not unto yourself, but unto Christ who died
for you. Thus, you deny your old self and enter into a new relation with
Christ; you become one who is blessed.
Denying
yourself, you now take up the Cross of Christ and willingly suffer with our
Savior for the proclamation of the Gospel. Although the earthly prospects of a
disciple are not alluring, you are emboldened by the Spirit to, “Rejoice
and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the
prophets who were before you” (v. 12).
Blessed, ever so blessed by our Lord to believe in Him, to worship Him, to rely
solely on His merit for salvation; this is the greatest gift man has ever
received, the gift that continues to give, the gift that lasts for eternity.
Oh, to be sure, we who have been given the gift of faith to believe are most blessed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
May the peace
of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus. Amen.