Listen to Sermon
Pastor Tom Johnson, February 17, 2019
“A great crowd...a great multitude” comes to hear Jesus speak and to be healed. Jesus heals diseases of the body. He cures those with unclean spirits. He heals the huge gathering of people of disease—of body and of spirit. However, he gives them more healing than they bargained for...his words also bring a cure to the disease of mind and soul. These words of blessing and woe are difficult to understand and to process. They are perplexing. I believe Jesus intentionally speaks this way so that we would not just gloss over what he says. He wants us to meditate on and ponder his words—not just what they mean but what impact his words should have on each of our lives. His words are meant to comfort the oppressed and to oppress the comfortable. These words are not meant to say one group of them is blessed and the other is not blessed but to show us the path to greater healing.
A few weeks ago I had a biometric screening. I went to the hospital and they drew blood. I had to fast the night before. They tested the blood to assess my health and suggest ways of being healthier. They measured the glucose level to see how healthy my pancreas is. They measured 5 different kinds of cholesterol to see how healthy my heart is. They determined how much body fat I have. They measured my blood pressure. The next day I got the results. Some of the areas were green—within a healthy range. Other areas were red—needing improvement. Each result had a paragraph of what I could do to be healthier.
In a way, this is how we should hear Jesus’ metrics—this soul screening. His words are not meant to shame us. He is not putting us permanently into the category of either the blessed or the non-blessed. When Jesus says “blessed are you” (green) he wants us to understand that our blessings are not always easy to recognize. We may suffer poverty, hunger, sadness, hatred, and persecution. We may wonder if God has abandoned us. He has not. Even though it may be difficult to see. God still loves us. He is with us. His blessings still flow. When Jesus says “woe to you” (red) he wants us to know he is grieved and saddened by our all-consuming pursuit of material things—riches, food, pleasure, good times, human approval and applause. In the end, those things are not where our blessings come from. We have been looking for happiness in all the wrong places.
In addition to asking the question, “What do Jesus’ words mean?” We should also ask, “What impact does Jesus want to have with his words?” To what end does Jesus say these profound things? He wants us to see the futility of pursuing worldly gain. He wants us to see the blessing of a relationship with him despite this world’s pain. He wants us to see our lives transformed by our new identity as followers of Jesus—those who have been healed in body, spirit, and soul. These words call us to a greater purpose—not to live merely for ourselves but to live for what transcends this world—God himself and his Kingdom. With each “Blessed are you” God draws us near to him. With each “Woe to you” God calls us to let go and surrender those things that will never fulfill. Do we see that God has blessed us even though we may have come up short in the things of this world? Do we see that it saddens God when we put our energy into those things that will pass away? True repentance is a change of mind—a transformation of the way we think—a turning away from a path of meaninglessness and emptiness. It is a turning toward a path of true fulfillment and a relationship with God that makes the things of this world pale in comparison.
We are citizens of the Kingdom of God. God has purchased us not with gold or silver but with his Son’s precious blood on the Cross. We are rich in forgiveness and eternal life. Our inheritance will not pass away. We will never be richer than we are in the love of God so powerfully revealed to us in his son, Jesus Christ. We will be filled with the marriage supper of the Lamb in his kingdom that will have no end. Even today we fill our mouths with the precious Body and Blood of Jesus and feast on his forgiveness and assurance that we are his blessed children. We can laugh and smile in the midst of difficulty. We know that greater is he who is within us than he who is in the world. It may seem like our troubles have the upper hand now but soon God will give us the victory. We rejoice now. We celebrate what God has done for us in his Son, Jesus Christ. Because we are so richly blessed to be his children, to know him, and be known.
O God, O Lord of heav’n and earth,
Thy living finger never wrote
That life should be an aimless mote,
A death-ward drift from futile birth.
Thy Word meant life triumph hurled
In splendor through Thy broken world.
Since light awoke and life began,
Thou hast desired Thy life for man. (“O God, O Lord of Heaven and Earth” LSB 834 v. 1)
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