Text: Matt 5:1-12 (Historic)
In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.
Today’s Gospel text is the beloved passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount known as the Beatitudes – from the Latin word for “blessed.” Jesus rattles off nine “blesseds” in this passage – and the characteristics that are blessed are pretty feeble in the eyes of the world. Poverty of spirit, mournfulness, meekness, and desire for righteousness aren’t exactly the goals of most people – including us Christians. And mercy, purity of heart, and peacemaking aren’t typically the kinds of things we naturally excel at. Even when we do these things, our sinful flesh is looking for some kind of compliment. And how about these last two? Persecution and reviling? You won’t find promises of persecution in any of the latest “Christian” bestsellers. Somehow, I don’t foresee a book called “40 Days of Persecution,” nor do I think the Left Behind series is going to change course and tell us that Christians are indeed going to suffer a great tribulation. Of course, our epistle lesson from Revelation uses those very words to describe just what those who “washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb” have endured and overcome.
So why does Jesus preach like this, and why does the Church use this Gospel reading on All Saints Day?
Jesus is not giving us laws that we must do, that if we do it well enough, we get a prize. No, in fact, just as every faithful preacher, Jesus is preaching about Jesus! He is teaching us about himself!
He is the one poor in spirit, born in humble and scandalous circumstances – and yet he is the very king of heaven.
He is the one who mourns, weeping for his friend Lazarus and mourning over doomed
He is the meek one, who takes the form of a servant, and yet who inherits the earth from his Father.
He is the one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness who was filled with that righteousness by virtue of his divinity.
He is the merciful one, to whom the Father shows mercy by raising him from the dead.
He is the one pure in heart, the one who sees God.
And he is the peacemaker, the one who reconciles man’s enmity toward God, and thus he is truly called the Son of God.
And he is certainly the one persecuted for righteousness, crucified on a cross with the word “king” on the sign, and he is the one who owns the kingdom of heaven.
So how does this apply to the saints, those here as well as those already in eternity? Notice how our Lord changes from third person to second person: he says: “Blessed are you.” For when youChrist is persecuted. are persecuted, And the blessings given to Jesus as the only-begotten Son of God are also given to you adopted sons of God.
And notice the three little words Jesus uses in describing persecution: “For my sake.” These words not only mean that we’re being hassled for being Christians, they also proclaim how we are blessed – “for my sake.” For we have all of these same characteristics as Jesus “for Jesus’ sake.” In other words, Jesus does the work, we receive the blessing. But notice that Jesus does say that we, the Church, will be persecuted for his sake. And when we are, we are to rejoice, for this is proof that we stand in the train of those who came before us: “souls in endless rest… patriarchs and prophets blest.”
Jesus is telling us what Luther would tell us 15 centuries later. One of the “marks of the church” is the cross that we bear, the suffering we endure at the hands of those who hate us. We can identify the Church because she is the one being persecuted. We’re not the rich, powerful, successful ones – no matter what the televangelists like to boast, no matter what the latest fad in the Christian bookstore is pushing. No, dear friends, we’re the harried ones, constantly under the “crafts and assaults of the devil,” not to mention the world and our own flesh.
Satan has waged war against God’s messengers and confessors since the Garden of Eden. And from righteous Abel all the way down to Christians who are being tortured and murdered at this very moment for the faith are proof that the Holy Catholic and
This location of the Church amid suffering and tribulation is testified to in our Epistle. In his holy Revelation,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven by virtue of the blood of the Lamb. For when their blood was spilled, it was really the blood of Christ that was spilled. Be it by wild animals at the Roman Coliseum (as were the young mothers Sts. Perpetua and Felicity). Or by crucifixion at the hands of sadistic soldiers and deranged emperors (as was St. Peter). Or by burning at the stake by order of a church gone mad (as was Blessed John Huss), or even by diabolical Nazi thugs (as was the Blessed Dietrich Bonhoeffer).
For in all of these cases, it was Christ’s blood that was drained. For all of these saints drank his blood and ate his body - the very same body and blood born of Mary, put to death on the cross, and resurrected in the tomb! Their blood is the blood of Jesus, the same blood we will drink in a few moments. This is part of that great mystery, that great communion we have with Jesus, and through him, all the saints in every time and place, “of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues.” His body becomes our body, his blood becomes our blood. He fortifies us with his very own faith, faith enough to withstand the sword, the stake, the arena, and the cross. Faith enough to stand alone if necessary and take abuse for confessing Christ.
Indeed, the history of the Church is bloody – as bloody as the stains that still brown the floor of the Coliseum. Jesus tells us plainly to take up our crosses and follow him. And we see the witness of those who have born the cross for two thousand years. In the first century, the Apostle Paul was beheaded for preaching the Gospel. In the middle ages, Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered at Canterbury Cathedral as he prayed Vespers, and Fr. John Wycliffe was burned at the stake for translating God’s Word into English. In the early twentieth century, thousands of Russian Orthodox priests were put to death by the Communists. And even more recently, a young girl named Cassie Bernall was martyred in a place called Columbine when she confessed her Christian faith looking down the barrel of a gun.
This, dear friends, is how the Church grows – by a true confession of the faith, the one true faith, the Holy Catholic and Apostolic faith, the faith of the martyrs. And that confession is sanctified by the blood of the saints of every time and place – which is to say, by the very blood of Jesus. The Church is not about marketing schemes, entertainment, pins, pads, and pens, or other gimmicks. The Church has nothing to do with slogans and programs – whether approved by our synodical leaders or not. For Jesus doesn’t promise us success and wealth in the worldly sense – but rather ownership of the kingdom of heaven, by his blood, through the faith confessed by the martyrs and saints throughout these latter days.
One has to wonder what holy St. Polycarp would make of the “ablaze” program – considering this beloved soldier of the cross died in the flames of his persecutors. This single 2nd-century martyr, stooped with age, has spread the Gospel in ways that a website can never do. He confessed the one true faith. He washed his robe in the blood of the Lamb.
For that robe worn by the saints is nothing other than Holy Baptism. The blood which cleanses the garments of the saints is Holy Communion. And that which the saints proclaim and chant around the Lord’s throne for all eternity is none other than his Holy Word. They’re singing the Liturgy with us!
And we do well to remember that the word “martyr” simply means witness. Giving our witness before the world is to confess. It isn’t about a sales pitch, or clever arguments, or pestering people door-to-door, but rather our witness is in the blood – Christ’s blood, the blood of those in the Church whom Christ empowered to lay down their lives for his sake and for the sake of his Gospel.
And even if we are never called upon to shed blood for the Gospel, we are given the gifts of Jesus’ poverty of spirit, Jesus’ compassion in mourning, Jesus’ meekness, Jesus’ desire for righteousness, Jesus’ ability to show mercy to others, Jesus’ purity of heart, and Jesus’ will to reconcile and make peace. Only by Jesus’ doing, only by his grace, can we live out the beatitudes. For it isn’t us, but Christ who lives in us.
And as Christians we will endure persecution of some sort. But through this tribulation we will endure – not by our own strength (remember our meekness), but rather through the blood of the Lamb. And that Lamb will indeed dwell with us. “We shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike us, nor any heat.” The Lamb himself will shepherd us, and God will remove every tear from our faces.
This, dear friends, is why we celebrate All Saints Day. For the testimony of the saints, the confession of the faithful, is none other than Jesus. Their blood, and our blood, is his blood.
“The myriad angels raise their song, O saints, sing with that happy throng. Lift up one voice, let heaven rejoice, in our Redeemer’s song.” Amen.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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