TITLE: “Blessed”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text for All Saints Day is from Matthew Chapter 5, the Beatitudes. We focus on the word blessed.

What does it mean to be blessed? Who is blessed? What is a blessing? How does one receive God’s blessing? These are the questions that arise from All Saints’ Day. This is the day when we think back and remember God’s saints who died in Christ this past year at Messiah and around the world. We think about God’s saints like Ruby van Strien, Evelyn Hamburg, Margaret Sheridan, and Elmer Stibb. God’s saints. Blessed by God.

When we think of the word blessed, a lot of images come to mind. That person is blessed. It’s like some sort of special characteristic or character trait. Or, “I’ve been blessed this year.” It may have to do with money, property, getting the things I want in life. The popular book The Prayer of Jabez falsely gives us the idea that if we do something for God, only then will He bless us. So when we use the word blessed, it doesn’t generally mean the same thing as what we have in the Beatitudes.

Now think about what Jesus says in the Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the meek, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are those who are persecuted for His Name’s sake. These things do not sound like blessings as we would like to have them. They sound more like curses! I mean, really. Who wants to mourn? Who wants to be hungry? Who wants to be persecuted or poor? These are not things that we by nature believe are blessings.

But they are. The Beatitudes are not describing some sort of wimp who is nice and mushy and that people beat up on all the time. The Beatitudes give us a picture of life from the other side. They give us an image of how God sees the world, and how it is the lowly, the downtrodden and the backwards that are blessed by God. It isn’t mighty and the powerful.

The Beatitudes describe first of all the perfect life of Jesus Christ. That’s right. The Beatitudes are first of all about Jesus. He is poor in spirit and receives all things from God His Father. He mourns for your sins and dies for you. He is meek and does not lash out in pride and envy. He hungers and thirsts for God’s righteousness for you. He alone is merciful, and does not give you what you deserve. He is pure and without sin. He is the great peacemaker between you and the Father. And He is the one who is persecuted even to the point of death. It’s all about Jesus, my friends. That is the lens for understanding the Gospel.

But it’s not only about Jesus. It’s also about you, and about every saint of God. When you were baptized, you took on His death. When He died, you died. And when He rose again, you rose again from the dead. The world can do nothing to you, because you gave it all up on the cross almost 2000 years ago. You have been washed in the Blood of Christ and made white in the blood of the Lamb. In ancient times and even to this day, children and adults who are baptized often wear white robes, to remind us that we put on the white righteousness of Christ.

What this means is that when Christ describes Himself in the Beatitudes, He is also describing you as God sees you. God sees you through the lens of Jesus’ blood. In His eyes, you are perfect and holy in every way. In His eyes you thirst after righteousness, you are the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the one who mourns over sin, and who is persecuted for His Name’s sake. That is who you are.

Now what is hard for us is that we just don’t see things that way. If you were to look around the Church this morning, you would see a band of sinners. You would see people who call themselves Christian but sometimes don’t always act like it. You would see friends and people whom you may not, sad to say, consider friends. It’s true. But the amazing thing is that if you look with the eyes of faith, you see God’s people, holy, perfect, beloved and blessed by God.

This is what our hymn expresses so well in the second verse. Hear it again:

On earth their work was not thought wise, But see them now in heaven’s eyes;

Before God’s throne Of precious stone They shout their vict’ry cries.

On earth they wept through bitter years; Now God has wiped away their tears,

Transformed their strife To heav’nly life, And freed them from their fears.

For now they have the best at last; They keep their sweet eternal feast.

At God’s right hand Our Lord commands; He is both host and guest. (LW 192:2)

Everyone in this congregation has lost a loved one at some time or another. For some of you, it is recently. For others, it may be years past. But the pain and the heartache of their loss sometimes remains for a very long time. Christ in our text calls on us to look beyond the now. Look past the pain and the heartache of this life. For that is what it is. Sometimes we can see that pain and suffering, other times it is blurry. But it is always there.

As Christians, we know and understand that life isn’t finally about the pain and sorrow. It isn’t about the trials of faith or the mistakes we make along the way. We have all failed in one way or another. Every one of us. Isaiah wrote in our Old Testament lesson:

LORD, You will establish peace for us,

For You have also done all our works in us.

O LORD our God, masters besides You

Have had dominion over us;

But by You only we make mention of Your name... (Isaiah 26)

Isaiah reminds us that it is God alone who works in us. By the power of His Name, we have victory and resurrection through Jesus Christ, our Lord. God’s Name is on you. You have been baptized. The trials and struggles of this life just don’t matter. We are bound for higher things than this. We confess with Saint Paul, if our hope were in this life alone, we should be pitied above all men…but now Christ is raised from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of them that sleep.

In this place, at this Altar, God Himself gathers us to the heavenly mansions and the greatest of all gifts. It is at this Altar that we receive His very body and blood for life, for forgiveness, and for the resurrection of the dead. The ancients called the Lord’s Supper the Medicine of Immortality. This is true. But this holy medicine does even more, if that were possible. This holy medicine of Christ’s Body and Blood unites us with the whole Christian Church on earth and in heaven.

In some Scandinavian churches the communion rail is actually in the shape of a half-circle. In this way they could visually see that those who are with us in the flesh are only a portion of those communing at Christ’s altar. The circle continues in heaven. “Therefore with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven,” we pray in our pre-communion liturgy. When we gather at this altar, we are knit together in a union stronger than mere human blood, for it is Christ’s body and blood that hold us together as the family of God, and His blood can never harm us.

So this All Saints Day, rejoice with the whole people of God! You are blessed beyond all measure. We gather in this holy place to receive the forgiving presence of God Himself. You are God’s saints. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting. Amen.