Dearly beloved in Christ, you are blessed! You are blessed in Christ because of who He is and what He has done for you and because you are in Him by faith and His Word. But beware! Watch out! When you hear that word “blessed” don't make it mean what the world and its religions mean. For the world, “blessed” means you have things you want. Blessed means you have enough money. You have a nice house. You have a job. Blessed means your house didn't get burned by the fires when the one next door did. Blessed means you have what you want and more. Blessed—for the world—means happiness, joy, comfort, and loads of STUFF. I say beware because we too talk about being blessed only in terms of the things that we want to happen. “God has blessed me because I didn't get laid off.” “We're really blessed because our kids turned out pretty good.” “I feel so blessed that it wasn't cancer after all!” Do you see how that goes? The world and its religions want you to measure how it is between you and the Lord by how much good stuff you get and how much bad stuff you don't get. You and I get wrapped into this mindset and that becomes how we think of being blessed. Repent, dear saints, of thinking that you're blessed only by what you have or don't have, rather than believing that you are blessed because Jesus says so. Repent of deciding whether you are blessed based on what STUFF you have or on what bad things you have avoided instead of Christ and His Word which declares you blessed in Him. As we celebrate All Saints Day, we learn from Jesus' own words that we are blessed, not in the way the world supposes, but in Christ as the dear children of God who have been given all things in Jesus.
The Beatitudes, as Jesus' words in Matthew 5 have come to be known, can be tricky. There have been countless sermons preached that tell us if we just somehow do those things, or get those attitudes, we'll be blessed. Away with that thinking! The first thing we need to hear is that whatever Jesus says about His saints in Matthew 5 is true only because it is first true about Jesus. Jesus is poor in spirit: even though He is God He doesn't use His glory for His own benefit but hides His glory in human flesh to save sinners. Jesus is the one who weeps over a world that hates and rejects Him. It is Jesus who is meek and humble, always putting others above Himself. It is Jesus who hungers and thirsts for righteousness, by desiring to do only what the Father asks of Him and never His own will. It is Jesus who shows mercy, not holding our sins against us but dying for them on the cross. Jesus is the one who has a pure heart, in which there is no sin and from which there flows the pure lifeblood which gives us forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament. It is our Lord who is the True Peacemaker because by His death for sinners, He takes away sin, the perfect sacrifice which removes all enmity and hostility from between us and God. It is Jesus, above all others, who is persecuted on account of righteousness. Jesus takes away from us the false trust in ourselves which cannot save us. But some still want to trust in themselves and carry their own sins and so they kill the Son of God. Everything that a saint is, Jesus is first. Everything that you are, brothers and sisters, is what Jesus is. Everything the Beatitudes say, they say first about Jesus and then they are about you—IN JESUS!
Now let's be clear. All that Jesus is you are because He says so! But understand and know that the virtues that Jesus says are blessed are not at all the things the world prizes and seeks after. The world doesn't want poor in spirit. The world boasts in its piety and religion and holiness. The world doesn't care about weeping: that's weakness. The world tramples the humble and teaches us to exalt ourselves over others. The devil and the world don't want us to hunger and thirst after righteousness but to fill our fleshly appetites of lust and greed and coveting. The world puts no value on mercy but demands that people pay what they owe and that you take whatever your strength can get. The world could care less about pure hearts, but rather, teaches us that every sort of filth and perversion is OK. The world cares nothing for peace with God but rather teaches us to strive for whatever we want and to fight and hurt others to get it. The world hates the righteousness of Jesus because it comes to us from Jesus and we can't earn it ourselves. You see? Devil, world and even our own sinful flesh care nothing for these holy virtues and blessings which Christ speaks upon us. But you, dear Christian, have been rescued from such thinking by Jesus' death for you and your being baptized into Him. Now you are not what the world or the devil or even your own flesh say about you: you are what Jesus says about you.
Notice that Jesus speaks these words to His disciples. YOU are His disciples because you are baptized into Christ and taught His Word. So these words are spoken to you. These blessings and promises are YOURS, because Jesus has given them to you. How so? Let's run through them as Christians, not as the world thinks about them. You are poor in spirit, empty of any claim on God, and yet, by your Baptism into Christ, FILLED with the Holy Spirit. You weep and mourn for your sins: you are comforted by the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, Who through the Word comforts you with the Good News that your sins are forgiven. You are humble, that is, you are meek and lowly in Christ, taught by the Spirit not to think of yourself as greater than others: to you is given the whole earth as your inheritance, that the whole world exists and is preserved by the Lord for the sake of You, His dear church. You hunger and thirst for righteousness. Your mouth is filled with the righteous body and blood of Jesus given into death for you. You are merciful: having been shown mercy by God, now you forgive the sins of others. You are pure of heart. No longer is your heart a source of every wickedness, but a new and clean heart has been created in you by the Gospel which forgives sins. Now you are a peacemaker in Christ, called by God His Sons, just as St. John reminds us in His epistle. But you are also persecuted: know that the world hates you for being in Jesus and for being what Jesus says you are. Yet know that because of Jesus' Word and Sacraments, you are holy and blessed just as those saints who now rest in glory until all the saints of God see one another face to face.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, blessed saints of God: We already said that the world does not value these gifts and blessings of Jesus. Watch out! That is our All Saints repentance: because we stop thinking these things Jesus says are true. You are BLESSED, brothers and sisters, not because you can earn these virtues or put them into practice. You are blessed because Jesus says you are. So never doubt that what Jesus says in Matthew 5 is about YOU! Believe that what He speaks, He speaks about you. Believe that what Jesus is, you are in Him. And why? Because when we doubt it, we become no good for our neighbor. Then our life as Christians is spent in measuring how much I'VE got and how well I'M doing and then it's all back to being about ME. That's no good! Don't live as if you have to do these Beatitudes yourself. If you do, it will only be about you and whether or not you're doing a good job at it. Rather, know that these Beatitudes are ALRADY TRUE about you because you are in Christ and Christ is in you. Then you are rescued from worrying about getting these blessings and are freed up for living in these gifts that you already have for the sake of your neighbor.
Dearly beloved in Christ, today we observe All Saints Day. Historically, this is a day to remember those saints who have gone before us. Notice I didn't say they're dead. They're not. They are alive in Christ and they have already begun to receive the blessings and gifts which Jesus promises to His blessed saints. But know this, you saints who still struggle on earth: you are blessed! Blessed not as the devil wants to corrupt the word. Blessed not by the standards that the world sets. Blessed not by the desires of the sinful flesh. No, you are blessed because Jesus is blessed and He has spoken His blessing upon you. Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us? What kind of love? In what way? In Jesus, by water and the word and body and blood, He has called you His Sons! That is what you are! And when the Lord comes again, all you who are blessed will see Him as He is. And there will be eternal rejoicing by all of the Lord's saints. Happy All Saints Day! Amen.