Times of Service

Sunday School:  8:45 am
Divine Service:  9:45 am

The Blessed Life with Jesus

November 5, 2017

All Saints= Day

Our Gospel reading for today is what is often called the beatitudes.  I want to reread a couple of them to begin this morning.  Matthew 5:2-5

    And [Jesus] 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.

Jesus sat with His disciples and taught them about life. Specifically, he taught them about what life is like when His people are with Him. Jesus would teach his disciples, including us, his modern day disciples, how Life with Him is blessed. Jesus shows us What life with Him looks like – life in the Kingdom of Heaven, which is to come. And Life now when we are with Him by faith – that is, because we believe we are with Him, even  though we can’t see that we are with Him. Hearing from Jesus about this Blessed life is going to help us understand what things are truly valuable, admirable and diserable.

    [3] "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

All Saints’ Day is a time designated by the church for Christians to come together and remember the fellow believers in God who have died and now are in heaven. God’s word gives us comfort in this sure and certain hope that those who die in the faith are with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ in the heavenly kingdom, and there, God will wipe away every tears from their eyes.

This verse allows us to imagine our loved ones now at peace and enjoying the company of the Lord Jesus. For many of us, the last memory we have of our departed loved ones is in the hospital room, or sick bed, as life was weakening in those final days or hours. When people are confronted face to face with death, you feel so weak, so helpless, so poor in spirit. Jesus invites such people into the Kingdom of heaven.

Let this teach you something about life. keep this in mind. “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Leave each day remembering how poor, weak, helpless you are to save yourself from death. And look to your Lord Jesus daily to give you salvation and His new and eternal life.

Then Jesus says,    [4] "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Now we don’t like this one so much, at first. Given our druthers, we’d rather not mourn, we’d rather not be sad, we’d rather not lose anything or anyone that we are going to miss and mourn. But it’s just not an option for us. There will be pain in this life, there will be suffering. Our hope and our prayer is not that God would constantly do everything necessary to make us happy and prosperous. Who are we to hold our desires and our pleasure up to God and tell him to make them the greatest priorities. No instead our prayer is that God would grant us the blessed life with Jesus and thereby comfort us.

Then when difficulties come, when we suffer loss, the comforting Gospel of our Lord will be strength for us in our weakness. Faith will grow not when we have easy and glorious days. Faith grows when our Lord comforts us with His gospel in the midst of weakness and loss.

    [5] "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

This is a call to repentance and change. This is a word from the Lord to each of you to put away all pride. The meek are they who admit that they are weak and helpless, in the midst of their suffering and sin and ultimately in the face of death. The meek see that by themselves they’ve got nothing to bargain with. They can’t say to God, “I deserve better than this Lord.” The meek have no prayer but, “Lord, have mercy.”

The world despises the meek. The world says, just run over the meek, they aren’t going to get anywhere anyway, don’t waste your time on them. The fittest survive, the meek will perish in the natural selection of things.

But Jesus says blessed are the meek. Jesus calls you to be meek, to lay down yourself and your desires before Him, in service to Him. And then Jesus tells you,    for [you] shall inherit the earth. That’s an encouragement for patience. You can’t have it all now. It’s completely futile to chase after the things of the earth. This teaches us that our reward and our joy is still to come, so why be so disappointed if you don’t get what you want right now?

These words from Jesus describe what our life with Jesus looks like. Actually, they describe what Jesus is like and how He is bringing us to look and think and be more like Him. As it says in today’s Epistle reading: 1 John 3:2

    Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

So it is especially Jesus who is meek and who shall inherit the earth. He, the Son of God, has all power and authority, all glory, wisdom and honor as the angels sing about Him. He could have conquered the earth with power, calling down the hosts of angels to fight for Him. But in meekness and humility He chose to do His Father’s will and to save our race not by power, but by weakness and suffering, even suffering to death on the cross. Now He who has been slain for our salvation, is raised to life and ascended to the right hand of the majesty in heaven so that He rules with the Father and the Holy Spirit over all the universe.

Next Jesus says, Matthew 5:6

    "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

Here and elsewhere the blessings of the cross, what Jesus provided for us by His death and resurrection are talked about as food and drink for the hungering, thirsting soul. Those who seek this righteousness are brought to be satisfied by Jesus. The body broken for us on the cross, the blood He allowed to be poured out for us, is now food and drink, strengthening our faith, building us up in righteousness.

Finally, Jesus says, Matthew 5:9

    "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”  This now is our call to service. Having been saved by His meek death for us, having been fed fully by His body and blood, Jesus now sends us as His children to serve Him and bring the peace He has given us, to others. As His children we share His peace with each other and with our neighbors. As forgiven sinners, we forgive those who trespass against us. We the Blessed of His Kingdom, are ready and able to be a blessing to many others.

Amen.