Bible Text: St Matthew 5:1–12| Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christian Preus
If you look up the Greek word Jesus uses for “blessed,” makarios, in an ancient Greek dictionary, you’ll find that the first three definitions are “happy,” “blessed,” and “rich.” And that tells you all you need to know about what people have always equated with happiness and blessedness, it’s having stuff, being rich. In the eyes of the world, Jesus is speaking an oxymoron when He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit;” he’s saying, “Rich are the poor.” It’s like saying “one bright day in the middle of the night,” or “honest politician,” a total contradiction in terms. Oxymoron.
What is Jesus doing here? He is annihilating, totally overturning, the common, almost universal, and very naïve view of what it means to be rich and happy, and He’s replacing it with what is obviously the truth. So He gives you an oxymoron. Rich are the poor.
It’s kinda funny to see polls come out about what state or what country is the “happiest.” Have you seen these? They’ll say, people are happiest in Iceland or in Florida. How do they know who’s the happiest? Because they ask people, “are you happy?” and people answer yes or no. But what are people basing that answer on? How much money they have? Whether they currently like the person they’re living with? Whether they wake up most days feeling down or not? Whether they’re basically healthy or chronically sick? The problem is that people have very different definitions of what it means to be happy and very different reasons why they think they’re happy or not. So the poll is meaningless. It actually tells you nothing at all.
But Jesus is telling us something totally objective. It’s true of everyone. You’re all poor in spirit, whether you think so or not. You’re not happy, not blessed, not rich, in yourselves. This isn’t Jesus telling you how you feel. It might not be how you feel at all. It’s Jesus telling you what you are. You’re sinners, and that sin will cause your death, and you can’t do a thing about it. You’re poor. You can pile up all the money in the world, and it won’t save you. You can pile up all the good works, and you can’t climb them to heaven. Objectively, you are poor in spirit, with absolutely nothing to offer God to get what you need, which is the kingdom of heaven.
And Jesus calls you blessed. He calls you rich. Not because you’re poor. He doesn’t say blessed are you because you’re poor. That’s not blessed at all. That would be an actual oxymoron. It’s not a good thing to be a sinner. No. He says blessed are the poor, because theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. You are blessed because the Kingdom of heaven comes to sinners. It belongs to them. And this too is objective. It’s simply true. The Kingdom of heaven is God’s reign, His gracious rule that forgives sins and opens heaven and gives access to God and eternal life. And it comes to the whole world of sinners, to the poor in spirit, who cannot save themselves. Jesus Christ brings it, He is it. He is the One who reconciles sinners to God. He is the One who takes our poverty on Himself, our sin, our death, and bears it and faces it, and conquers it, and rises victorious from the dead. He ushers in the Kingdom of heaven.
Again, objectively true, whether you feel it or believe it or not. Jesus Christ the Son of God has taken your sin away. He presents His own righteousness, His own perfection, before the throne of God in heaven. That’s why the saints in the heavenly vision surround that throne and look with inexpressible joy on God, because He looks at them, and sees saints, holy ones, washed clean of every sin, immortal, deathless, sons of God.
To be a Christian is to know this. We don’t make it happen by believing it. We receive what is simply true. We receive first in faith the reality that we have nothing to give God. We own it. We’re poor in spirit; we’re sinners who deserve God’s punishment. And then we receive in faith the reality, that for sinners the Father sent His Son, for sinners, for me, for you, the Son lived and suffered and died and rose again. And that means that now you have eternal life. Notice that. Theirs IS the Kingdom of heaven. Now. Look at your Baptism. God doesn’t lie. He put His name on you. He joined you to His own Son. He washed away your sin by the blood of the Lamb. He gave you His Spirit. He speaks words of forgiveness that erase your poverty, make you rich with divine wealth, so that not only earth, but heaven belongs to you, because it belongs to God and you are His.
That means you’re objectively happy, objectively blessed, objectively rich. If you don’t feel it, if you instead feel sad, and depressed, and poor and miserable, then claim again the Kingdom God has given you. Do it every day. When your own sin, when the state of this sinful world, when death and sickness and frustrations with other people, bring you down, realize that you are already up, your citizenship is in heaven, God’s eyes are turned to you now with no less love and no less affection than He looks at the saints gathered round His throne. Your praises, your prayers, come to His ear as loudly and presently as the prayers and praises of those who are already there. The Kingdom of heaven is yours. Now. Claim it.
Jesus isn’t naïve to the sadness and struggles of His Christians on earth. The first beatitude is in the present. Yours IS the Kingdom of heaven. The next six are in the future. You will be comforted, you will inherit the earth, you will be filled, you will receive mercy, you will see God, you will be called sons of God. All in the future. You are happy and blessed and rich now. But at the same time, you mourn now, you hunger and thirst for righteousness now, you have works of mercy to do, of peace-making and reconciliation, and it is a struggle to do them. And Jesus knows it. And He still calls you blessed when you go through it all.
Six of the beatitudes are in the future. Because there is something still lacking on this earth and in your life. Heaven is yours, but you’re not there, and there are tears here below, mourning here, a hunger and thirst for a righteousness we know God reckons to us but that we don’t feel in our lives. It’s not that you aren’t comforted here, it’s not that you aren’t filled with righteousness here, or that you aren’t called sons of God here – you are: that’s your Baptism, that the Supper, that’s the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins, and it is our joy and comfort and righteousness here below.
But heaven is better. And we should look forward to it. Every single day. In heaven all mourning is gone forever, and God wipes every tear from our eyes, because there is nothing to be sad about ever again, no sin, no death, no pain, no loneliness, no betrayal, no persecution or hate, all gone, forever. In heaven, we don’t hunger and thirst for righteousness, because God fills us constantly with the righteousness of His Son and there is no sin or evil anymore to soil it or diminish it in the least. Our communion with Him there is perfect and what the Lord’s Supper gives us finds its perfection there. There we don’t just look at the beautiful things God has made, and see reflected through them the beauty and goodness of our Creator, we look at God Himself, so that what we thought was beautiful here or good here we see was just a reflection of Who God is, and to see Him as He really is will be the source of everlasting happiness. In heaven, the doubts and fears and weakness that hold us back from doing good and being good are all gone, and without any hindrance whatsoever we love as we have been loved.
God gives us many joys in this life, and we would be ingrates for not thanking Him for them and enjoying them, but we should at the same time let them all remind us that what is to come in heaven is better and we should so use the joys of earth, a new baby, a good meal, a hike, a hunt, good health, whatever it is, we should use those joys not to cling to this sinful world, but to wonder that God will make good things better and will give things greater, when we see Him face to face. And when we are overwhelmed by the sadness and sin and pain of this world, then we should turn again to the same thoughts of everlasting life, that this is only a momentary affliction, and against it on the scale is an eternal weight of glory, because Jesus stands on that scale, and so pray that He take us soon from this vale of tears to Himself in heaven.
Today we remember those who have died in the Christian faith, whose bodies rest in the grave awaiting the resurrection, and whose souls are with God. Grandmas and grandpas, moms and dads, brothers and sisters, children, friends, who sowed in tears here and now reap heavenly joy. They are blessed forever. They rest from their labors. They see God. And if we mourn for them, if we shed tears and miss them terribly, we do it with tears of joy also, knowing what they have now and knowing that we will see them again in that heaven God has prepared for us. But it isn’t them our eyes will be staring at in heaven. We’ll be staring with them at our God. All three of our readings, that describe heaven, that describe what will be, instruct us where we will be placing our eyes there in heaven and therefore where we should direct them here on earth. To God, our Father, to the Lamb, His Son, and to the Holy Spirit, one God, to whom be blessing and glory and thanksgiving and power and might, forever and ever, Amen.