The Gospel reading for today is known and often quoted by many people inside and outside of Christianity including historic figures such as Gandhi and Nietzsche because of the nature of its words. Most people can recognize these verses which are often called the “Beatitudes”. They are called that because in the Latin Vulgate, each of these blessings begins with the word beati, which translates to ‘blessed’. It includes 9 repetitions of this word: “Blessed” in our English translations. The original Greek uses the word: makarioi which means “overwhelming joy, happiness, and gladness.”

Who wouldn’t want to receive and live in that happiness, joy, and gladness?

But what does that mean? Most people think of happiness as a delight and satisfaction in receiving the desires of their heart, as an escape from the sadness that comes from disappointment in NOT receiving the desires of one’s heart. The Declaration of Independence even speaks of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” as “unalienable Rights.” Though Thomas Jefferson did not mean the pursuit of fleeting joy, most people think of happiness in such a way. In fact, most people worship the idea of happiness. Many pursue happiness in any way possible in a self absorbed, self satisfying obsession, even if it is self destructive, corrosive, and hurtful to everyone around them.

These verses teach something else altogether from selfish pursuits.

Some may look to these verses as some kind of ethical formula, so that if we do this and attain x condition then we can achieve that stated result of “Blessedness” or a pious and Holy plane of consciousness.

This outlook is destined to failure.

If you look at the Beatitudes as a Law to be fulfilled in order to be rewarded you will run into a wall.

For one thing, some of these beatitudes describe passive conditions whereas some describe specific acts, and the final two beatitudes describe the ultimate passive state and that is being persecuted for the sake of faith in Jesus Christ thereby excluding non-believers.

Let’s find out more about what these verses mean. Let us begin by looking first at the passive conditions, the poor in spirit, meek, and pure in heart.

The poor in spirit is defined by God in Isaiah 66: “But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word.”

The poor in spirit is one who is contrite, one who is sorry for their sin. One who realizes the poorness of their spiritual condition because they have not and can not keep the Law before the Lord and need His mercy.

The “meek” are similar. They represent those who are no longer shaking their fist at God and at their neighbor in as those who prevent their pursuit of happiness. Rather they admit that they have no right to rebel, they understand to fight against God and their neighbor is the reason they have been so miserable and have ceased to fight and be aggressive as the world so often is.

The pure in heart is the state of one who has been forgiven. Who has had all the putrid evil, all the hatred, malice, the sick self-serving, back stabbing hatefulness removed, who have been cleaned and purified in a passive way. That is they have done nothing by their own power to have to have this state.

Now, let’s look at the active deeds lauded in the Beatitudes, Blessed are those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, and the peacemakers.

At first it may seem to be easy, because who hasn’t mourned about something? Whether somebody hasn’t gotten their way or who felt mistreated and they are lamenting that fact or they are mourning and grieving the death of a loved one, just about everyone has experienced that to some extent. What if the mourning is less about weeping and lamenting what has happened to us or someone we love, and the mourning is referring to mourning and lamenting how much we have failed? What if the starting point of hungering and thirsting for righteousness and mourning is connected? What if the starting point is that the disciples, and all who hear God’s Word realize that they cannot hope to fulfill God’s commands and because of this they mourn and lament their sin? The hungering and thirsting after righteousness is recognizing that there is something wrong not just with society but in our own hearts, minds, and lives. Have you been merciful to others? Have you been consistent in it? Have you tried to make peace with those around you or are you quick to tell tales of how people have hurt you and how bad they are? Have you avoided or shunned people for any slight, real or perceived? Peacemaking doesn’t involve meddling in other people’s affairs, it doesn’t mean giving in to everyone else and their whims, but it has to do with trying to understand where other people are coming from and then making every effort to communicate with them, not out of concern for yourself but for concern and care for the other party and then making that first move understanding that maybe, just maybe you are the one with the problem. Have you done that? Really? All the time?

The only way you can ever get to performing the acts that are lauded and extolled in the Beatitudes is by recognizing that there is no way you can perform them. There is no way that you can perfect your life through your acts, attitudes, and deeds through your own steam. You can’t become poor in spirit, meek, or pure in heart if you think you are better than others, or you think that you can save yourself.

Instead, be humble and contrite. Realize the magnitude of your sin and wretchedness and that you don’t deserve any rewards from God but judgment, you don’t deserve mercy from God.

But it is God who has had mercy on you. It is Jesus who has fulfilled all of the passive and active demands of the Law including the beatitudes, including hungering and thirsting for our righteousness and purity, humbling Himself, to be made “poor in Spirit, repenting in our stead, being persecuted and meek before His persecutors even to being crucified and dying to take the wrath of the Father against sin in our stead. He did this specifically to take away your sins. He did this for your sake. So that when the Law strikes at your heart, and you realize that there is something wrong in your life, in this world, in your heart, you can be turned to Him, to the cross, to His sacrifice, to His love which has purchased and redeemed you and me lost and condemned creatures not with gold or silver but by His precious blood and His innocent suffering and death so that we can be His own and live with Him forever in His kingdom. So that even now we can serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness because we have received Christ’s righteousness by the forgiveness of our sins. We have been released from our sins and the mournful misery which was our condition under the Law and the accusations of the Devil. This all for the sake of Jesus Christ has been declared for you and grasped by faith in Him which the Holy Spirit has created in your heart by the working of His Word.

This is how we become blessed…by faith, by God’s Grace and power giving us a fresh and new perspective by the epiphany of His love in Jesus Christ. This is how we can receive unbounded joy, happiness, and gladness. By receiving from Him and believing. By living by faith in our baptismal grace. By daily remembering how God emptied us of our sin, cleansed and purged us by water, spirit, and the Word. So that our hearts were and are made pure though our unworthy hearts are not pure by nature. That our poor spirits have been lifted and enriched by His precious blood and continue to be. Today, you have confessed your sins of this past week, you have been absolved. Do not return to those same sins by His strength, not yours. Pray for His strength to love your neighbors, to show mercy, to make peace, to continue to hunger and thirst for His righteousness, and find satisfaction for that hunger and thirst here in the body and blood in the bread and wine given and shed for you for the forgiveness of those sins. In Him you are blessed, it is where He is for you that you become beatified because God descends to you and to His Church so that here we together see and know God by His mercy, and be comforted in any of your grieving and mourning over sin or trouble in this world.

It is here in His presence and in these words of forgiveness in Jesus Christ’s name that you have the strength to resist and stand fast and secure even when the devil, the world, and your flesh taunt and persecute you for the sake of Jesus Christ with their vain attempt to steal your faith. Cling by faith to Christ and the gates of Hell can not prevail against it.

Know this, cling to His power by faith, come to His Word, again, rely upon His strength, not yours. Cling by faith to the cross, which His power. The sacraments are the benefits of the cross delivered to you for your good, for your upbuilding, for your blessedness in Him. You will not be put to shame. Though the World does not understand and may mock: “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Cor. 1:23-25)

Let us boast in the Lord, and His great love for us. By His power we can live and abide in that love even in our weakness, through faith, in service to Him and to one another. You are in Christ Jesus, and the blessed joy, gladness, and happiness of forgiven redeemed children of God is not only your promise in the eternal future heavenly realm, but yours even now for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

Pr. Aaron Kangas