Get Up; Don't Be Afraid!

[This message was shared yesterday morning during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Matthew 17:1-9

Ann and I had lived in the house we rented from our home church in Columbus for only a short time when, early one Friday evening, an emergency squad went to the house across the street. 

Later, I saw EMS personnel pack up their things and leave. 

I had just returned to faith in Christ. As I saw the squad pull away without taking anyone from the home on a stretcher, I prayed, “Lord, what should I do?” My thought was that someone was ill and that maybe I could run to a drug store and pick up a prescription for them. I didn't want to be a busybody, but God kept impressing on me the need to cross the street and find out what I could do.

Within seconds, I found myself crossing the street to the house of neighbors I hadn’t yet met. 

The elderly man who answered the knock on my door looked dazed, in a state of shock. 

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said. “But I saw the squad and wondered if I could do anything to help.” 

At that, the man flung open the front door with his left hand and waved his right hand, gesturing to the figure of an elderly woman on the floor. 

“My wife just died. We were having dinner. She didn’t feel well. I brought her into the living room. She collapsed. I called the squad. She had a heart attack. They couldn’t do anything.” 

It was, at that moment, the last place I wanted to be. I had always been terrified of death. I even avoided funerals whenever I could. 

I prayed as I spoke next. “Why did they leave your wife here?” I asked, trying to make some sense of the situation. “The police have to come to certify her death before they can take her,” he told me.

The next forty minutes or so, I called my neighbor’s adult children, his priest, and the funeral home. After that, I sat with him as we waited for the police and the others to arrive. 

Once people got there, I  walked back across the street, thanking God that I had listened to what He had told me to do (you know, “Love your neighbor”) and thanked Him for banishing my fear. 

God had moved me from cowering in fear to being emboldened by His grace. That seemed like a miracle to me. It still does.

Our gospel lesson for this morning, Matthew 17:1-9, tells the familiar story of the Transfiguration. 

In it, the trio of Peter, James, and John, three of Jesus’ disciples, go to the top of an unidentified mountain with Jesus. 

There Jesus’ appearance is transfigured, His face shining like the sun, His clothing as white as the light. Then, Jesus is visited by Moses, Israel’s great giver of God’s Law, and Elijah, Israel’s greatest prophet.

But what exactly does the Transfiguration mean? What is the Goe we know in Jesus telling us in this incident? 

Above all, I think, in the Transfiguration, God demonstrates that in Christ, He can move all of us who cower in fear before the realities of life, be they the reality of death and that of the infinite perfection--the holiness--of God, Who has every right to condemn us for our sin, to a place of assurance and peace and life through faith in Jesus. 

Jesus shows us that, despite what we may deserve as sinners who have violated God’s holiness, God wants to save us not condemn us. God wants to comfort us, strengthen us, give us life with Him that never ends.

Six days before the events recounted in today’s gospel lesson, Jesus tells His disciples: “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew 16:28)

In today’s lesson about the Transfiguration, surrounded by the light of eternity itself, Jesus’ promise comes true. 

In Jesus, the kingdom of heaven comes into the world and Peter, James, and John know that it’s true, even if they don’t understand exactly what Jesus means when He speaks, as He often does, of suffering, dying, and rising, or when He tells us of our need to take up our crosses--to own our sin and morality and need of Him for life--and follow Him.

Imagine being those three disciples with Jesus on that mountain, especially after they heard the Voice from heaven tell them: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” 

Matthew says that the three fell on their faces, terrified. 

What happens when human beings, mortal and marred by the imperfection of their sin, come into the presence of God? 

Well, if they have any sense, they do what we do when we begin our worship each Sunday: They recognize that they “fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). 

Hebrews 10:31 tells us that, “It is a dreadful thing [a dread-filled thing] to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Friends, it is a dreadful thing, unless, hear me now, your sins and imperfections are covered over by God’s grace through your faith in Jesus. 

And it’s precisely at the moment that the moment the disciples realize how imperfect they are and how perfect Jesus is, how Jesus is God and they need Him for life and forgiveness, that the grace of God comes to Peter, James, and John. It comes to loud-mouthed, impulsive, know-it-all Peter and it comes to the two other disciples who, just like us, were mortal, imperfect, and sinners.

After the Voice spoke heaven’s affirmation of Jesus as the Messiah Who would suffer, the sinless God Who would die for His sinful children, Matthew says--in a beautiful passage of Scripture--that “Jesus came and touched them. ‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Don’t be afraid.’ When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.” (Matthew 17:8)

For God to banish our fear, to give us the power to live each day, to give us the certainty that God has us in the palm of His hand for all eternity, we need to look to Jesus and no one except Jesus. 

That’s because no one but Jesus can overcome the terror we feel in the face of this world’s realites: The realities of death, suffering, adversity, relational discord, self-doubt, prejudice, fear, our own inadequacies, our pride, our ego, and all the other horrors wrought by human sin, by our sin. 

We may try to cover our fears over with bravado or false notions that if we’re good enough or work hard enough that death and suffering won’t touch us or that God will owe us a place in His kingdom. But listen: God owes us nothing. On our own, we can never be good enough and we will forever live or die in our fear or our bravado. 

But when we listen to God’s Word about Jesus--”This is My Son...listen to Him,” God creates within us a faith in Jesus that vetoes, overpowers, and negates our fears. 

He gives us the capacity to trust in the resurrected life Jesus promises to all who trust in Him. 

That isn’t to say that we never feel fear as human beings; as long as we live on this earth, we will know fear, especially in the face of death. We will be like the guy who said, “I don’t fear dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

But when Jesus comes to us--as He does today in His Word, in the fellowship of believers, and in His body and blood in the sacrament, He touches us again and He says, “Get up. Don’t be afraid.” 

And when we respond to that call, we will find that wherever we look, we will see Jesus. I saw Him that night long ago in the dazed and grieving features of a neighbor who had just lost His wife. 

Jesus, Who touches us and calls us to get up and follow Him, empowers us, as He did Peter, James, and John, to go into the places where life and death, birth and suffering, joy and sorrow intermingle. 

With Jesus, we can face anything: Readied by His gracious forgiveness to look our Lord face to face, to face life and death, to love God and love neighbor, to share the good news of new life through faith in Jesus even with skeptical friends. 

When you turn to Jesus each day, He will move you from being one who cowers in fear before life’s realities to one emboldened to live--fully live--in the kingdom of heaven, now and always. 

Today..and tomorrow too...don’t be afraid, friends. Follow Jesus. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

What members of the North American Lutheran Church do for their neighbors in Jesus' name

This is happening now in the Dayton area. @LivingWaterLC is happy to be part of the efforts. @TheNALC https://t.co/1DOqICvzY1

— Mark Daniels (@MARKJDANIELS) February 19, 2020

Impossible Righteousness...Forgiving Christ

[This message was shared during worship this past Sunday with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Matthew 5:21-37
I was baptized as an infant. 

As I was growing up, I loved going to church and I loved Jesus. 

In my pre-school and elementary school years, I broke all the Sunday School attendance records.

I was president of my third-grade Sunday School class. 

I starred in all the church plays. (I remember vividly playing the apostle Paul imprisoned with Silas, both of us shackled with construction paper chains!) 

My dad told Ann this past Thursday, “After we came home from church on Sundays, we had church again because Mark would re-preach the pastor’s sermon almost word for word.” 

My great-grandmother called me her “little preacher.” 

According to my pastor, I was the star pupil in Catechism class. When I got a 92 on an exam, he handed it back to me and said, “You could do better, Mark.” 

Here’s the deal: I believed in Jesus. 

To the extent that I was able to understand, when I heard His Word calling me to turn away from sins, I did that, asking for God’s forgiveness. 

And when I heard His Word, with its power to save and create faith, I believed.

But, as you know, when I was about fourteen, I stopped believing in Jesus. I was an atheist...for more than ten years. 

No trauma caused this change. I was just an adolescent who thought that science had somehow disproven God’s existence, as though knowing the answers to the what, when, and how of the universe somehow also answered the questions of its why and who. 

On top of that, my dad was working eighty hours a week, we had transferred to a different church to which none of us felt connected, and, I suppose, getting five kids ready for church was a mountain my folks found too difficult to climb. 

The upshot of it all was that I lost my faith. 

I no longer had a relationship with Jesus. 

I was dead, lost, just like the prodigal son, who knew about and had experienced the love of his father, but walked away from that relationship until he came to his senses and returned. He had been lost but was found. He was dead but was alive again. 

The amazing thing is that through the preaching and teaching of the Lutheran congregation that was Ann’s home church in Columbus, I heard the Law that convicted me of my sin and I heard the Gospel that brought me once more to faith in the crucified and risen Jesus. I was lost but was found. I was dead but was made alive.

Over the past two Sundays, as we’ve listened to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we’ve heard Him make a series of gracious declarative statements about us. He has conferred status on us that we do not deserve, but which He gives by grace through the faith in Him that His Word creates within us. 

“Blessed are you…” Jesus has told us. 

“You are the salt of the earth,” He has said. “You are the light in the world.” 

Elsewhere in the New Testament, we hear echoes of Jesus’ gracious words for Christian disciples: “...you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession...Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9-10) 

And what do we do to get the incredible gift of life with God that u starts now and culminates in perfection in eternity? Nothing. 

As Ephesians 2:8 reminds us: “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

But the Bible reminds us that, just like the Prodigal Son and just like Mark Daniels, it’s possible for Christians to walk away from God and the salvation He gives through Jesus. The apostle Paul tells the young pastor Timothy, “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.” (1 Timothy 4:1) 

There is evidence of the devil’s work in churches all around the world today--in those that say that God saves everyone no matter how contemptuous they may be of Christ or God’s Word as well as in those that say God only saves those who follow their rigid rules. 

Here’s the deal: When God saves us in Christ, we are saved. But God doesn’t hold believers in shackles. 

If we refuse to hear His Word calling us to repentance and faith, we erect a wall between God and ourselves. 

This is why Jesus warns, “...every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit [that is, refusing to let the Holy Spirit convict us of sin or convince of us Christ’s power to save us] will not be forgiven…” (Matthew 12:31). 

God gives life. 

He declares you His own through faith in Jesus. 

But He will not stop you if you choose to walk away from life with Him.

All of this, I believe, lay in the background of Jesus’ words in today’s gospel lesson, Matthew 5:21-37. 

If almost all of Jesus’ words up to this point in the Sermon on the Mount have been Gospel--pure, undeserved grace, His words today are Law, showing us the depths of our sin and our need of His grace. 

At the end of last Sunday’s lesson, Jesus said, “...unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20) And, we said that we have that righteousness through Jesus, Who covers those who repent and believe in Him with His righteousness. 

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus shows us how high a standard for righteousness God has for human beings. 

He says that not only are we not to murder but that even anger against fellow Christians can be sinful. 

He says that to look at someone lustfully is a violation of the sixth commandment, “You shall not commit adultery.” 

He says that divorce apart from a spouse’s disloyalty is a sin. 

And He says that our truthfulness should be such that we needn’t resort to oaths. 

Quick poll, no need to raise hands, two questions: How many feel like you’ve been innocent of all these sins as God interprets them? 

And if you feel utterly innocent, the second question is this: How long have you been in living in denial about yourself? 

Truly, no human being measures up to the standards for purity of life and thought that we find in these words about the righteousness we need for entering the kingdom of heaven. 

This is what Scripture teaches. “There is no one righteous, not even one,” we’re told in Romans 3 and elsewhere in Scripture.

When I first began digging into God’s Word with a group at that Lutheran congregation in Columbus, I began to see the depths of my sin and rebellion against God. I wondered if I wasn’t doomed to separation from God, now and always. 

But I ran into passages of Scripture like this (listen carefully, please): 

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:8-11)

If we take our cues from the world, accepting its standards, being pacified by its entertainments and rewards, relying on ourselves, following our own deceitful hearts, we will drift from God. 

But if we remain attentive to God’s Word, we will hear God’s call to repent--to turn from sin--and we’ll be saved by His gospel. Christ will transform us. He will make us new each day. 

This is the work God does in us when we read, study, and listen to His Word together and on our own, when we worship and receive the sacraments: God saves us from our sin and replaces it with the righteousness of Jesus. 

That’s grace! 

And for that, this old sinner says, “Thank You, God!” Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

In Christ, You ARE Salt and Light

[This message was shared yesterday during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Matthew 5:13-20

The God we know in Jesus Christ speaks a powerful Word. 

When God spoke over ancient chaos, saying things like, “Let there be light,” “Let the land produce vegetation” and “living creatures” on land and in the sea, He brought all the physical worlds we have ever seen or will ever see into being. 

When God speaks over the waters of Holy Baptism in the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, He declares us part of His new creation, His children. 

At Jesus’ transfiguration, the Father said to Peter, James, and John--and us--”This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” (Matthew 17:5) 

The Father says this because His Word has power and when we listen to it, it transforms us. "Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ." (Romans 10:17)

That’s why God tells us in Isaiah: “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10-11)

In Matthew 5:13-16, the first four verses of today’s gospel lesson, Jesus, the Word of God, God the Son, makes two powerful declarative statements. He tells us, “You are salt of the earth” and “You are the light of the world.” 

In making these declarations, Jesus is not saying that we should be salt and light, or we have to be salt and light, or we need to become salt and light. 

If, by the power of God’s Holy Spirit-powered Word given to us in the Scriptures and in Baptism and Communion, we can say, “We believe in God the Father...We believe in God the Son...We believe in God the Holy Spirit,” we are salt and light. 

Even on those days when our faith seems weak. 

Even on those days when we wonder where God is and whether He cares. 

Even on those days when we're not "feeling it."

God’s Word always accomplishes what God desires, always achieves the purpose for which He sends it. And His Word says that disciples are salt and light.

But what does it mean to be salt and light?

Take a look at verse 13. Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

From ancient times, the Jewish rabbis have associated salt with wisdom. True wisdom, you know, always comes from God (Proverbs 2:6). And, Paul says that even the foolishness of God (if God could be foolish) is wiser than the smart-alecky cynicism that passes for wisdom in our world (1 Corinthians 1:25). The ultimate wisdom that God reveals to a human race bent on “being like God” sounds foolish--insane--to the world. This wisdom says that life, everlasting life, as we are meant to live it begins with a cross and only culminates in a resurrection of those who have trusted in Jesus. 

As Paul puts it elsewhere: “...the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18) 

Jesus says that you and I--He uses the plural form of you, roughly equivalent to "y'all," meaning all baptized believers--are the wisdom of God for a world gone foolish, born foolish, from sin and death. 

We are the salt of the earth, God’s ultimate wisdom staring the world in the face. Jesus has spoken His saving Word to us. His Holy Spirit has empowered us to believe the good news of new life for all who repent and believe in Him. We are the salt of the earth.

But what if salt loses its saltiness? We know that sodium chloride can’t lose its salty quality. Salt only loses its salty influence if it becomes diluted. 

Our saltiness as disciples is diminished when we allow it to be diluted in us. 

When Christians say things like, “The Bible is good, but I don’t think God knew as much back then as we do now,” they’re trading in God’s wisdom for human wisdom, trading in Jesus for the world. 

When we hear Christians utter blasphemies like, “I think Jesus is a Republican” or “I think Jesus is a Democrat,” their saltiness is diluted and they’re at risk, as Jesus says, “no longer [being] good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Whenever we try to add our finite, imperfect, short-sighted “wisdom” (some people call it common sense), for God’s wisdom, we lose our saltiness. 

We become faithless. 

We dilute the power of God’s wisdom over our lives and the power of our witness for Jesus to others in our world. 

In fact, where Jesus says in our translation, “loses it saltiness,” the word it translates in the Greek in which Matthew wrote--μωρανθῇ, from which we get the word moron--literally means become foolish. 

We lose our saltiness when we foolishly dilute the truth of the Gospel and of the Word of the Bible. 

We avoid becoming foolish by remaining in close daily contact with the God Who has brought us to faith in Jesus and has declared us His own. 

But listen: Jesus makes us salt of the earth so that we have life with God that never ends through faith in Jesus, for sure. But He also makes us salt of the earth so that we can season the whole world with the truth of the Gospel, the ultimate wisdom of God.

Jesus carries this theme on in His next declarative Word for believers. Verse 14: “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Wait a minute, we might think, isn’t Jesus supposed to be the “light of the world”? Yes, Jesus is “the true light that gives light to everyone” (John 1:9). 

To speak of Jesus as the light of the world is to speak of the God of  blazing perfection, Who gives illumination and direction to those who follow Him, Who burns away the sin and impurities that can mar our relationships with God and others. 

This Light, Jesus, is living in us, guiding us, making us new, warming us in the glow of God’s tender love for us. 

In the Light of Jesus, His Word, whether we consider it together as we are now or in our own daily quiet times we God, “we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” 

Jesus tells us today that we need to keep the fires of His light stoked within us by remaining connected to Him and His Church.

At the end of today’s gospel lesson, Jesus says something that would be disturbing if He hadn’t already declared us to be His salt and light. 

“For I tell you,” He says, “that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  

As Christ's Word enables you to believe in Him, your righteousness does exceed that of the Pharisees and all the other fussy, self-righteous, chest-thumping, judgmental, holier than thou religionists you can name. 

Why? 

Because Jesus has declared you to be His salt of the earth and His light in the world. 

And because, in daily repentance and renewal, in regular worship with God’s people, and regular attention to His Word, You turn again and again back to the One true God we know in Jesus Christ lives in you. 

The tastelessness of sin and death are gone. 

So are their darkness or their ability to make us be afraid or to worry. 

You can say with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” 

That’s what it means to be salt of the earth and the light of the world. 

This is the powerful Word Jesus speaks to you today  and you can believe it. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Call on God...He Will Fight for You!

After God’s people, terrified by the Egyptians who were pursuing them, cried out to God for help, Moses assured them: “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” (Exodus 14:14)

May this same Lord, now revealed to all people in Jesus the Christ, bring stillness and peace to everyone who calls out to Him today.

This God we know in Christ wants, among other things, to fight for you: for your salvation from sin, death, and futility and for your peace in the face of a crazy, chaotic world.

Call on the Father in Jesus’ name. He will hear. God says elsewhere, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

The Blessed Life

[This message was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 5:1-12

When I was a kid, I loved reading DC comic books. I enjoyed the evil-fighting exploits of Superman, Supergirl, Batman, the Justice League of America, and the Teen Titans.

I also read the tales of an alternative world known as Bizarro World.

In Bizarro World, Wikipedia notes: “society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states ‘Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!’ In one episode, for example, a salesman is doing a brisk trade selling Bizarro bonds: ‘Guaranteed to lose money for you.’”

In the panel above, we see a typical husband and wife, who, like everybody else on the planet, are bizarre versions of Superman and Lois Lane. “Oh my!” Bizarro Lois declares. “This am awful! Him got all A’s on his report card!” (That kind of made me want to live on Bizarro World.)

Well, you get the idea.

I’ve taken you on this excursus through great literature for a reason.

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus shares the opening salvo in His three-chapter long Sermon on the Mount, a section we call The Beatitudes. The word beatitude comes from the Latin word beatus, meaning fortunate, happy, well-off, or blessed.

Whenever beatitudes are uttered in the Bible, because Jesus wasn’t the first person to give beatitudes, the speaker is not saying, “You will be blessed” or "You will be blessed if," but “You are blessed now and in the future.”

Beatitudes were meant to describe the current situation of those to whom they were spoken.

And every beatitude is from God...not from the world, not from coincidence or luck, not from the sweat of our brow or our effort...but from God alone. It’s better to be blessed than to be lucky because blessings come from God while luck doesn’t exist.

And so, in the Beatitudes, Jesus isn’t laying down a new law that He expects us to keep.

Jesus isn’t saying, “If you do these things, you will be blessed.”

Jesus isn't saying, "If you behave in these ways, life will be all sunshine."

Jesus, in fact, is describing life in an alternative world He calls the Kingdom of Heaven. (Or more literally, the Reign of the Heavens.) He is saying that all who seek to follow Him each day are blessed. They live in His kingdom in all circumstances.

In this kingdom, Jesus says:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. [When Jesus speaks here of the poor in spirit, he speaks both of those who financially poor, as well as of those who recognize that their lives are impoverished without the God we meet in Him at the center.]

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. [The meek are those who don’t push their weight around, insisting on getting their own ways, but pray that God's will be done.]

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. [Jesus is speaking of those who are hungry and thirsty both for being right with God--justified by grace through faith in Christ--and for doing the right and loving thing for others, even those who hate us.]

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. [To be ‘pure in heart’ means to seek God and seek to do His will only even when it isn't what the world commends.]

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. [To be a 'peacemaker' here has nothing to do with war or military conflict and everything to do with forgiving as we’ve been forgiven, turning the other cheek, and seeking to help others to experience the peace with God we have in Jesus.]

"Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

How does that sound to you?

If we’re honest about answering that question, it all may sound a bit like a bizarro world to us, a place where everything the world thinks of as blessings are turned on their head.

Who, after all, likes being poor?

Who likes to grieve?

Who likes it when bullies and big shots bulldoze their way over us?

Who feels good when being persecuted?

And yet, Jesus says that in His kingdom, people who experience these things while living with Him, are comforted, will inherit the earth made new by Him, will be called children of God, are blessed. Who wants to sign up?

And yet, friends, this is the world--the kingdom or the reign of heaven--that Jesus came into the world, died, and rose to give to all who turn from sin and trust in Him as their God, King, and Savior.

And not just after we die and, by the power of God, are raised to live with God in eternity, but right now, Jesus says, for those on whose ears His Word of grace, forgiveness, and new life fall, are in this kingdom.

The Beatitudes then are pure gospel, pure promise from God, a catalog of promises to those who heed His call to follow Him.

They are declarations of blessing made by God the Son to all who trust in Him alone to be their God and King.

As we follow Jesus together in His Church, we will be blessed today even amid the sin, darkness, messiness, and hurt of this world AND we will be blessed eternally in a world made perfect on Jesus’ return.

When Jesus comes to us, incites our faith in Him, makes us part of His people, stands with us to the close of this age, and gives us life beyond this age, we are part of His kingdom and are blessed no matter what happens to us along the way.

Let me show you what I mean. I'm going to take a poll.

Raise your hands if members of this congregational family or others of which you've been a part have encouraged you or prayed for you?

Raise them if you’ve received notes of condolence or get well cards from Christians?

Show me how many of you, in Sunday School, Bible study, a small group, during a private conversation with a committed Christian, or even during worship, have heard something that has sparked or deepened your faith in Jesus?

How many have grown in your faith as Christian friends came along to support you in tough times, times the world wouldn’t have called you blessed but cursed?

How many of you have, in Christians from this and other churches, seen Jesus at work?

In the beatitudes, Jesus is telling us that when, in the fellowship of His Body, the Church, His gospel Word of life has come to us and created faith within us, we experience God’s blessings.

When we are poor and when we mourn.

When the world takes advantage of or derides our faith in Jesus.

When we are persecuted.

When we hunger, thirst, and crave to live as people made right with God by grace through faith in Jesus.

When we, unaccountably, want to do right even to our enemies.

When we are empty and turn to Jesus and He fills us again with Himself, we are blessed!

In all of these circumstances, as well as in the joys, the laughter, the excitement, and the fulfillment, as we walk together with Jesus, we live in the reign of the King of the world Who wants us more desperately than any lover ever could or ever has.

To a world perishing in its sins, intent on getting its own way, this kingdom of heaven Jesus gives to us seems as laughable and strange as Bizarro World did to me when I was kid.

But this kingdom is as real and more enduring--eternally enduring--than anything this dying world can offer.

So Jesus' message for us today is simple.

Don’t turn Him away. When He calls you, follow Him. When you wake tomorrow morning, walk with Him. Pursue this God we know in Jesus so that He can bless you and save you today and always!

That is the blessed life! Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]