"Life Bound Up in Christ" All Saints Day [Observed] Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity November 2, 2014 Matthew 5:1–12
A saint is one whose life is bound up in Christ. You are a saint. Your life is bound up in Christ. The Beatitudes describe the life of those who are bound up in Christ. They are the saints. They are the ones whose life is not their own but whose lives are so bound up in the life of Christ that their lives are fuller and richer than would be without Christ. But it doesn’t seem that way. It seems the opposite. Life bound up in Christ seems much less attractive than life wrapped up in the world. Life in its fullness through Christ is less appealing than life indulged in the sinful flesh. The devil often portrays the way of the world and the way of sin as much more appealing than the way of Christ. After all, who are they who are blessed? The poor in spirit. Those who mourn. The meek. Those who hunger and thirst not for power and money and glory but for righteousness. The merciful, the pure in heart, peacemakers, and as if that were not unattractive enough, those who are persecuted and treated shamefully and lied against, not because they are deserving of it but because of Christ Himself. Life bound up in Christ is not appealing to the world nor to our sinful flesh. The saints are blessed not because they are rewarded for being such great people but because they are blessed by God in something beyond rewards in this life. The blessing of the poor in spirit is that theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. The blessing of those who are persecuted is that theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. The blessing of those who are so put down that their lives seem anything but blessed are rewarded with a reward that is great in heaven. It’s not that God doesn’t bless us here and now in this life. He does. But the blessing of the Beatitudes looks beyond this life. It is bound up in Christ and therefore sees that in heaven is the true blessing, the true reward. The true blessing is eternal blessing, not anything that we have here and now and therefore will last only for a while. But even so, it’s not that we’ve got to be miserable here on earth and then in heaven everything is just going to be great and perfect. No, it’s not really like that. But it is something that the world just is not going to understand and that our sinful flesh is going to war against as long as we carry this flesh about us in this life. The blessing of the Beatitudes, of being a saint, is the blessing of being bound up in Christ. Jesus doesn’t tell us that heaven is the blessing and that our reward is great in heaven as if to say, “Just wait till you get to heaven, it’s going to be great. For now, just suffer through it knowing that the suffering is a drop in the bucket compared to eternity in heaven.” Jesus shows us that the blessings we receive here and now don’t necessarily look like blessings here and now because if they did then they wouldn’t be blessings that are bound up in Christ. To be truly blessed, to be a saint, to have life bound in Christ, is to be drowned in our sinful flesh and to be raised up into life in Christ. Life bound up in Christ is life bound up in His suffering, in His death, and in His resurrection. Being a saint is not living to ourselves but to and from and in and with and because of Christ. Being a saint is being blessed not of this world but in this world despite what the world sees and what we ourselves may think. After all, who wants to be poor in spirit? Who wants to mourn, and be meek, and hunger and thirst for something, namely, righteousness, that often brings you suffering and hardship? Who wants to live as described by Jesus in the Beatitudes? If your answer is you, guess again. If your answer is someone you may know, keep guessing. None of us wants this, not with what Satan tempts us with, what the world offers us, and what our sinful flesh longs for. No, we don’t want the kind of blessings offered in the Beatitudes. We don’t want to live in the downtrodden way shown by Jesus. But there is an answer to who wants to live this way, and the answer is Jesus Himself. This is what He chose not because He had to but because He wanted to. He chose this because of His eternal love for us. Look at how Matthew in His Gospel account shows who Jesus is and what He did and you will see brought to life the description of those who are blessed in the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes don’t describe how we are blessed because we are a certain way but because our life is bound up in Christ. Brought to death in Baptism and raised to life in that same Baptism, we are bound up in the life and death in Christ. Given Christ’s body and blood in His Sacrament, we are taking in to ourselves Christ Himself. Our lives which are bound up in Christ are lives in which we are continually refreshed in Him through eating His body and blood. This is the kind of blessing that we must admit does not look like much in the eyes of the world but is blessing that is eternal and gives us strength and revives even now in body and soul. When Jesus says in the Beatitudes that the Kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are poor in spirit and persecuted for righteousness’ sake, He is not giving some distant promise. He Himself taught us to pray, Thy Kingdom come. We pray our Heavenly Father that His Kingdom would come among us. This is what He gives us even as we pray at the end, for Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. The one whose Kingdom is forever and ever is the one whose Kingdom comes to us in giving His Son, at the cross for the sin of the world and at the font for you and at His Table for you. Your life is bound up in Christ and that is why you are a saint. Your life is bound up in Christ and that is why you are blessed. You are a saint because Christ has come to you with His righteousness and His blessings. You are blessed because your Lord was cursed in your place. You are blessed not in spite of the fact that you experience sorrow and mourn but because you do. Your life is bound up in Christ in His mourning, His prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane, His cry of dereliction on the cross. His comfort was in His Heavenly Father still being His Heavenly Father and raising Him triumphantly from the grave. So you too will be comforted, because your Heavenly Father loves you in His Son. You are blessed in your humility and meekness precisely because you see that your life is not your own, it is bound up in Christ. Those who are humble will receive something unexpected, they will inherit the earth. This is quite a contrast from the Kingdom of heaven. But really, your life being bound up in Christ, your blessing being ultimately not of this world, it is not as great of a contrast as it seems. The promise given to Abraham was of land, the Promised Land. But never did God intend for the land of Canaan to be the ultimate gift. Rather, the Promised Land of heaven, secured by the one who humbly went as a Lamb to His slaughter. You are blessed not because you have everything you need in this life but because you hunger and thirst. The saints of God hunger and thirst for righteousness. They will be satisfied. They will receive everything they need through Christ Himself. You are blessed because you are merciful, for you yourself have received mercy. You have been given what you don’t deserve and your life bound up in Christ is lived in that very giving to others mercy and patience and forgiveness. You are blessed because you are pure in heart. You will see God. You are blessed because you are a peacemaker. Rather than living to yourself, you live to Christ and seek not ill will or revenge but forgiveness. You are called sons and daughters of God. He has called you His own in Baptism. You are blessed because the Kingdom of heaven is yours. It is yours in Christ—and your life is bound up in Him. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. [Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian] _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
