"A Blessed Circle"

I would imagine that by now, most of you have seen the long running game show "Family Feud." If you haven’t, it’s a show where two families compete by trying to guess the most popular answers to questions that were posed to a panel of 100 people.

I bet if you asked a hundred people, a hundred Christian people what their favorite Bible passage is, I’ll bet the words of our text, the words that many call the Beatitudes, or the Sermon on the Mount, would probably rank pretty high. A couple of Psalms might rank higher, but if you limited the passages to just passages from the New Testament, I would thing the Beatitudes would make most people’s top five.

Some people regard the Beatitudes as Law and not Gospel, and if they think of that list as things that we have to do, they probably don’t like those words as much as those who can identify with Jesus’ words. If you try to use the Beatitudes as a guide for living, you probably could. But then, that might make them seem more like Law. But the Beatitudes don’t particularly show us our sin and need for a Savior.

But if you want to look at them as Gospel, we can certainly see ourselves as poor in spirit, meek, merciful, pure in heart, or hungering and thirsting for righteousness. I can see the Beatitudes as a guide for living for a person who is already a child of God. A person who is not a child of God cannot really comprehend what these words of Jesus mean. The key seems to be that Jesus uses these words to teach the people. He doesn’t command them to do these things, and each Beatitude carries with it a Gospel promise.

Today we observe All Saints Day. You may wonder what we as Lutheran Christians do with All Saints Day. How should we celebrate it? In earlier days, the church emphasized the bold witness of the martyrs, those people who gave their lives because they were followers of Christ.

Today, the church tries to emphasize all saints, those who celebrate life eternal in God’s presence in heaven, and the faithful followers of Christ Jesus here on earth. For some, today is a day to remember with gratitude the lives of those who have gone before us in faith. It’s also a day to remember the loss of faithful love ones.

But I think we could look at it another way. Let’s look at it as a day to acknowledge two other things. First, we all share the condemnation of the Law. Under God’s Law, because of our sins, we are all condemned to eternal death. But we also all share in the Good News of the Gospel. We have all been ransomed and redeemed by the blood of Christ, shed on the cross as a payment for our sins.

Today, we celebrate the lives of those faithful who have gone before us, and we celebrate the fact that they lived their lives by Law and Gospel. This morning, I want us to take a look at the Beatitudes in light of Law and Gospel, taking great care not to confuse the two.

Each of us here this morning clings to the promise of salvation by grace through faith. Each of us is here this morning to feed our faith and gain strength for living in this sin-filled world. So let’s look at the wonderful words of Jesus, as he gives his disciples and early followers some things to think about as they struggle with life and sin. Let us also apply the words of Jesus to our lives, as we struggle with life and sin.

The Beatitudes read like a Psalm. Blessed, used again and again sounds like bells from heaven, ringing down on this world from the bell tower of a cathedral, inviting all mankind to enter in.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The word for "poor" in this verse means more than just poor. It means something more like cringingly poor or beggarly poor. The poverty referred to here is more than a state or condition. It’s an attitude of the soul.

It’s an attitude that grows out of the realization that we are nothing but wretched beggars who bring absolutely nothing to God except our sin and spiritual emptiness and our need for what he offers. This condition and attitude of true repentance was preached by John the Baptist and by Jesus as a starting place for all who would enter the kingdom of heaven.

It’s almost astonishing that Jesus would pronounce such people as "blessed," as fortunate in the highest degree. The world looks at repentance as unnecessary. But as beggars, stooping before God, bringing nothing to the table, and knowing it, we also know that the kingdom of heaven is ours. The kingdom of heaven is not for those who come before God with any other attitude.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." This second announcement is as much a paradox as the first. The verb denotes loud wailing or mourning for a severe, painful loss. The sorrow for our sins, true repentance, and the sorrow for the enormity of our sin could also be included in this type of mourning.

Our sin robs us of things more dear than relatives or possessions. Sin inflicts much pain on a godly person. A godly person sees their inability to fight sin or make any restitution for sin on their own. Our mourning is a constant cry to God in our distress.

So how can people who are in a constant state of contrition and repentance be blessed? It is they alone who are consoled, and it is God who is their consoler. The greatest comfort is the absolution promised and pronounced on every contrite, repentant, mourning sinner. Those who mourn over their sin are most blessed, because we are comforted with the promise of forgiveness.

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." The meek are mild, gentle, and patient. It’s an inward virtue exercised toward other persons. When they are wronged or abused, they show nor resentment and do not attempt to avenge themselves. Jesus was the greatest example of meekness.

And the paradox here is again most startling – the fact that meek people shall inherit the earth. They may suffer, but the divine blessing constantly follows them. Psalm 37 says it this way: "Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong, for like the grass, they will soon wither, like green plants, they will soon die away. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath, do not fret, it only leads to evil. For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land."

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." Hunger and thirst are commonly used to express strong spiritual desires and needs. Daily, we cry for forgiveness. Daily, God satisfies us. We are blessed when our spiritual hunger and thirst continue. If they stopped, we would no longer be blessed because Jesus could no longer satisfy us.

No man, however powerful or wise, has ever discovered a way to turn a guilty, sinful soul into a righteous one. People try to justify themselves and proclaim their own righteousness, but this is no more than a criminal denying the crime he has been convicted of when all the evidence against him was caught on video tape. This is not the kind of righteousness when people try to live and do what is right either.

Righteousness is a fundamental part of the Gospel. It is the quality of someone who has been pronounced righteous by the Eternal Judge. It is a verdict that has been brought about by faith in the holy life and sacrificial death of Christ. It is through faith in what God has done for us in Jesus Christ that makes us righteous.

The first four Beatitudes look toward God. The next three look toward men. They look at three virtues that mark the godly as blessed. "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." This is not just the natural kind of mercy that is found occasionally among men.

It’s the mercy that grows out of our personal experience of the mercy of God. God’s mercy towards us makes us merciful too. This is not a promise of eternal mercy. We will need no mercy in eternity. God first makes us merciful, and then blesses us for being merciful.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Some regard this "pure in heart" thing as a reference to sanctification. Placed between mercy to our fellow man and peacemaking, it seems like purity in heart can only be a virtue. But purity of heart is only possible in a heart that is justified through faith and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Purity of heart cannot be achieved on our own.

The reward of being pure of heart is that those whose hearts are pure shall see God. Through the eyes of faith, we already see God. We see in through His Word. We see him in our daily lives. These words can also mean the "vision of God" that is promised to the glorified saints, those who clung to the promises of God and have gone before us to receive them, and the people like you and me, who are awaiting the fulfillment of that promise.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." At peace with God and at peace with themselves, living in the peace that passes understanding, a peacemaker works to make peace wherever it is threatened or lost. It is following in the footsteps of the Prince of Peace. Jesus came to make peace between God and man. He will acknowledge as his sons those who, in the spirit of his Son, also make peace.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 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 who were before you."

"Blessed" occurs twice in this final Beatitude. This repetition emphasizes the conclusion. The way Christ elaborates on this beatitude, make this one a little more special. These people are those who held out and who would hold out against persecution. They are the martyrs who stood firm. These are the people who suffered because of what they stood for and the character of their lives. They are the people who stand firm today. I thought it particularly neat to be promised the same reward as one of the Old Testament prophets. Standing firm under the test of persecution, by the grace of God, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

In case you have not noticed, the Beatitudes are circular and not linear. The last one, just like the first one, bestows the kingdom of heaven. Together, they cover the whole life of the Christian. Through each one we see a glimpse of what it means to be a child of God.

Each one also promises part of the kingdom, so that every child of God who has each part, also has the whole thing. When our souls are poor and broken, when we realize that we need what God freely gives, we have the kingdom of heaven. When life and our sins weigh us down, we are comforted by the peace that passes all understanding.

When we see our need for a Savior, we hunger and thirst for the righteousness that only God can provide. When we understand mercy, we become merciful. We become pure in heart through faith in the blood of Christ. When we understand that through Christ, we are reconciled to God, we seek reconciliation with our fellow man. When we stand firm in our faith, when being a child of God puts us in uncomfortable and even dangerous places, great is our reward in heaven.

We can rejoice that through what Christ did for us on the cross and by the power of the Holy Spirit working in our hearts, that we are numbered with the saints, we will be the one who have come out of the great tribulation of life, and that God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Amen.