Pastor's Column"Blessed are you”
Read Matthew chapter 5, verses 1-12
On or around the 1st of November the Church commemorates or observes All Saints or All Saints’ Day. The Sermon on the Mount, and particularly the Beatitudes at the start of Matthew 5 have been loved by Christians throughout the ages.
The Beatitudes are beautiful sayings. That’s what Beatitudes means: beautiful sayings or words. But when you think about them, you’re forced to wonder who can fulfill them? Is anyone really that pure in heart? Certainly, we all hunger and thirst, and we all mourn. But do we hunger and thirst for righteousness? While there is a time to weep, and a time to mourn; there is also a time to laugh, and a time to dance (Ecclesiastes 3:4); we’re not always mournful.
It would take a saint to fulfill the words Jesus speaks here—which is exactly the point. The Beatitudes present to us more than instructions for Christian living. They are a wonderful description of Jesus. Jesus is the Blessed One of the Beatitudes. Only Jesus can live the Beatitudes and He did—perfectly.
But what is even more wonderful is that Jesus lived the Beatitudes for us. This is the way God sees us and all saints—through Jesus beautifully. Our redemption in Christ has made us saints. And in the Beatitudes we see how saints live.
So how do the Saints of God live? I imagine if one wanted to, you could take the Beatitudes and use them as a call for social action. Here the poor are mentioned. The hungry, too.
Even persecution could be politicized in such a way that it could be argued that certain people have suffered under the policies or politics of others. The temptation exists to use the Bible in this way, and many have.
Yet it’s wrong, because the reward Jesus mentions is not political victory or revenge, but a heavenly reward. What Jesus promises is reward in heaven for the troubles a Christian must go through in life here on earth on account of Him.
You see, when Jesus calls each of us to follow him - an important theme in Matthew’s Gospel—He means that we follow Him in this regard: that we suffer much on His account, just as He suffered, always looking forward to heaven.
Still, that doesn’t mean that we are not troubled by the things we see around us.
I remember my sainted mother always saying, “I’m glad daddy—meaning her father (my grandfather)—isn’t around to see this.” Lately I found myself thinking the same thing about her. How different the world has become.
And the church suffers, too. Afterall, we are saints because of death. Not our own or of some other super human being, but because of the death of Jesus. It is the blood of Jesus his Son [that] cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). The Saints of God have suffered and will suffer much in this life. That Jesus tells us. But the blessed hope of heaven far outweighs the sufferings of this present life.
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