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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
What does being blessed look like? Is being blessed having a huge house? How about a fast car? Is being blessed having a full bank account (especially when the government cannot know the account’s balance)? How about nice clothes or other luxurious possessions? (Confer Schulz, CPR 31:4, p.47.) In today’s Gospel Reading for All Saints’ Day, we hear Jesus teach His disciples, including us, that the blessed are, for example, the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. To be sure, those whom we otherwise might think of as blessed certainly can be among the blessed whom Jesus describes, and the blessedness of most of those whom Jesus describes certainly does not consist of their being in their present state but consists of their being in an opposite future state, such as being comforted, satisfied, and seeing God. On All Saints’ Day we might especially think of the faithful believers who have departed this life and so who to some extent are already in that opposite future state, but, in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus also speaks of the blessedness of those, for example, who in this life already possess the Kingdom of Heaven, and He speaks directly of your and my blessedness, so faithful believers still in this world are also blessed, and they are also saints. As we consider today’s Gospel Reading this morning on which we observe All Saints’ Day, we can say, in short, that Jesus speaks of all the saints’ “True Blessedness”.
What is particularly striking and powerful about what Jesus says in today’s Gospel Reading about “True Blessedness” is how his declarations of blessedness paradoxically reverse usual human values. Even Christians need this correction. We may falsely consider to be the greatest blessings the things that the world falsely considers to be the greatest blessings, and we may not consider to be the greatest blessing the one supreme good of sharing in the salvation of the Kingdom of God. (Hauck, TDNT 4:367‑368.) We may want our best life now, and we may be upset to think about what we might falsely consider to be “losing” what we have here and now as part of “gaining” anything there and then. Or, we may have so little regard for our eternal blessings that we do not even think of our fully receiving those eternal blessings as our gaining anything. We may not feel that we are blessed now, or we may not think that we will be blessed ever.
Of course, we do not deserve to be blessed, not that blessings are earned, anyway, and that blessings are not earned is a good thing for us, because we would fail to earn them. For example, we hardly are merciful as we should be, or make peace as we should, because by nature we are not pure in heart. By nature we are the opposite of saints, holy ones, for we are un-holy and, as a result, we think unholy thoughts, say unholy words, and do unholy things. For our sinful nature and our actual sin we deserve not blessings but curses, and ultimately we deserve both death here and now and torment in hell for eternity.
But, through His Word, such as today’s Gospel Reading, the Holy Spirit calls us to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust God to forgive our sin, and to want to stop sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin. God forgives our disregard for His eternal blessings and all our other sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives us for the sake of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Through Jesus, God has acted for the good of all people, and those of us who are in Him have “True Blessedness”.
Jesus is the one Who makes “True Blessedness” possible! Because God loved us, He gave His only Son for us (John 3:16). Because Jesus was true God in human flesh, He was able to die on the cross for us, in our place, the death that we deserved. Because Jesus is resurrected from the grave, He lives to bless us with the forgiveness of sins (Psalm 32:1-2; confer Romans 4:7-8), and so also with a share in the salvation of His Kingdom. In today’s Gospel Reading Jesus essentially identifies Himself as our righteousness. We receive Jesus, His righteousness, His forgiveness, by grace through faith in Him. In today’s Gospel Reading, the majority of the great reversals are described as being still to come in the future, but Jesus declares blessed those who are poor in spirit and those who are persecuted for righteousness’s sake, for theirs is, already even now, the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus declares us blessed, and we are blessed. We may not always or ever in this lifetime see or feel the blessedness, but we still can be sure of our blessedness, thanks to Jesus’s objectively effecting our blessedness through things that we can see and feel.
God’s Word is read and preached to groups such as this one, and His Gospel is applied to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with the pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar that are the Body of Christ and the Blood of Christ. We think of Holy Baptism in particular as giving us the robes washed white in the blood of the Lamb mentioned in the Introit (Psalm 31:1, 3, 5; antiphon: Revelation 7:14b), in the First Reading (Revelation 7:2-17), and in the Gradual (Revelation 7:14b; Psalm 84:5). We also think of Holy Baptism in particular as making us the children of God discussed in the Epistle Reading (1 John 3:1-13) and as giving us the pure heart that the Gospel Reading said is connected with ultimately seeing God. And, we think of the Sacrament of the Altar in particular as being part of what satisfies us who hunger and thirst for righteousness, even as Jesus Himself said that He was the Bread of Life and so whoever comes to Him shall not hunger and whoever believes in Him shall never thirst (John 6:35).
Always, but especially on All Saints’ Day, we do well to remember that the souls of the faithful believers who have departed this life are not dead but are alive with the Lord, and they are joined with us in the Sacrament of the Altar. That point is beautifully made in a hymn published recently by a pastor friend and former classmate of mine. The Rev. Kurt Reinhardt’s hymn titled “Forever Bound by Endless Love” has as its fifth and final stanza these words:
As one Church gathers ’round the Lamb / In worship of the Lord, I AM,
The love of God in cup and bread / Unites the Living with the dead.
Already we who mourn the faithful departed are to some extent comforted, though we are still in the Church Militant, lined up for battle, and they are in the Church Triumphant, in endless worship of God and the Lamb. Here and now we are persecuted and reviled, with others uttering all kinds of evil against us falsely on Jesus’s account, but, as Jesus commands, we rejoice and are glad, for our reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before us. Together on the Last Day, in resurrected bodies glorified by the vision that all the saints have of God, all saints will fully appreciate such things as God’s comfort, inheritance of the earth, satisfaction of righteousness, and His showing us mercy.
Until then, we remain part of the Church on earth, the community of the last days, constituted by God’s saving act in His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord (Bultmann, TDNT 1:20). We may not in this lifetime see or feel our “True Blessedness”, but we trust His Word that declares and so effects “True Blessedness” for us. So, even now we can join in the eternal worship of heaven saying, “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!”
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +