Grace,
mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
And from our
Gospel reading today, we read where Jesus says:
Blessed are
you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil
against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is
great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Prayer: May
the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O
Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Our reading
for last Sunday was what we call the “beatitudes”, which are a series of eight
blessings, that begin with the word “blessed”. But after we read the eight
beatitudes, there’s this extra one that comes on the end. All the other
beatitudes talk about people in general: Blessed are the poor in spirit,
Blessed are those who mourn. He’s talking about people in general, and in
some sense, anyone who fits the bill.
But then at
the end, he says: Blessed are you. At the beginning of the Sermon on the
Mount, we read that when [Jesus] sat down, his disciples came to him. Now,
after speaking these eight blessings in general, he speaks a particular
blessing for them, and instead of saying: Blessed are those, he says, blessed
are you.
Blessed are
you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil
against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great
in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
I could
imagine that Jesus might like to encourage the disciples in the face of
persecution, and say to them, “Cheer up! You’ll get through this, you’ll get
over it.” But to say to them, “Blessed are you when this happens to you!” Wow –
that’s another thing altogether! To say, “Rejoice and be glad!” – goodness!
That’s really something, isn’t it?
And if only
we believed it! St Luke, in his gospel, says the same thing in his gospel: Blessed
are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn
your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap
for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did
to the prophets. And then he gives an upside-down version of the same
thing, when he says: Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so
their fathers did to the false prophets.
I’ve always
wanted to say to this to a pastor at his installation: Woe to you, when all
people speak well of you. Don’t you think that would be a wonderful encouragement?
Now – why
does Jesus say this?
Well, first
of all, let’s go back to baptism. In the Gospel of John, there is a man called
Nicodemus, who is a follower of Jesus, but secretly. He was a member of the
Jewish council, called the Sanhedrin, and there were many enemies of Jesus on
that council. So he goes to Jesus at night time, and has a conversation with
him. On that occasion, Jesus says to him: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless
one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, “How
can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s
womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is
born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is
born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Jesus is
talking in very earthy terms here. He says that a person has to be born
again. Each person has already been born – it has happened with a fair
amount of hardship and pain from their mother. And so Nicodemus asks, “How can
I be born again? Do I have to climb back in to my mother and be born all over
again?” (A mother’s worst nightmare!) And Jesus says: Unless one is born of
water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Here Jesus is
talking about Holy Baptism, which happens with water, and the word of God. And
when we speak the word of God, God also promises to send the Holy Spirit. Just
as when we speak, we use our breath to make the words (and the louder we speak
the more air we use), so also, when God speaks his word, he speaks with his own
breath, the Holy Spirit. So when we use the water and the word, this is the baptism
of water and the Spirit.
And then
Jesus says: That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of
the Spirit is spirit. So we have two births. One is where we are born into
sin—this happens through our natural birth, through our mother. And it happens
through the pain, and even with the blood of our mother. But when we are born
again in baptism, we do nothing. Jesus is the one who does the hard work. When
he died on the cross, he entered into labour on our behalf, with pain and with
blood. And then in Holy Baptism, he gives birth to a new child through the
church, through water and the Spirit. And through this second birth, we aren’t
born into sin, but into the forgiveness of sins, and then also life and
salvation.
So we have
two births: one from the flesh, and one from the Holy Spirit. That which is
born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. So
we have these two existences, these two lives at work in each of us. And these
two lives are completely against each other – they don’t live in harmony. They
at war, and so they are fighting all the time. In the bible, these two lives
are called the old man, or the old self, or the Old Adam, and new man, or the
new person, or the new self.
St Paul says
in Ephesians 4: Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner
of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit
of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in
true righteousness and holiness. And in Colossians 3 it says: Do not lie
to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices
and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the
image of its creator.
In the Small
Catechism, Luther writes: What does such baptising with water indicate? It
indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be
drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily
emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. Where
is this written? St Paul writes in Romans chapter six: We were therefore buried
with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised
from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
So now let’s
go back to what we were talking about in our text. Jesus says: Blessed are
you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil
against you falsely on my account. If we Christians even have two lives,
two selves, fighting each other, and along comes one of Jesus’ apostles to tell
us that Jesus is the answer to all our problems, what’s going to happen? Our
old Adam, our sinful nature, is going to go on strike! It’s going to get ticked
off! It’s going to go and gather a whole lot of friends to stage a protest
against Jesus, but not only against Jesus, but against the apostles who give
eyewitness to Jesus and were sent by him, and not only against the apostles,
but then against all the apostles’ successors, who are pastors who preach the
same word as the apostles, and not only against pastors, but then also against
every single Christian who believes their pastors when they speak the word of
the apostles which is the word of God, since we believe that the apostles were
inspired and carried along by the Holy Spirit. Do you see how it works?
Now even
Christians have this old Adam at work. How much more are people outside of the
church going to resent the Christian message?
So it’s no
wonder that we Christians find that our workmates and our family get a bit sick
of us at Christmas time when we want to celebrate the real reason for the
season. And so they say, “Don’t worry about Fred and Sue. They’re those kinds
of people.”
And so it’s
no wonder that pastors find that if people don’t like what we say, they go
around behind our back and try to undermine our entire ministry, and turn
people in our own congregations against us, doing it sometimes even in such a
friendly way, because after all, we’re Christians, and we want to be nice and
loving and friendly. We don’t want to give people the false impression that
we’re filled with hate! The Pharisees did the same to Jesus: they tried to be
nice about working out how to kill him!
And yet, you
will know from your own experience, that this kind of thing happens in every
congregation, and it’s happened all throughout church history. In fact, this is
the way in which Jesus allows his gospel to be spread.
He says: Blessed
are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil
against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is
great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
So often in
the gospels we read that the report of Jesus spread, even very early in his
ministry, when he hadn’t really done much yet. And I often wonder—how did the
report of Jesus spread? Jesus often old his disciples not to tell people what
he had done too. We realise that many people who did say something we doing so
without Jesus’ blessing. And also, there were Pharisees and King Herod’s men
and all kinds of people that were spreading a bad report about Jesus. So what
happened when these bad reports were spread? Well, people who didn’t want to
kill Jesus also heard these reports, and they brought their sick people and all
their needs to Jesus. The message of Jesus was spread through the bad talk,
through the gossip, through the slander.
And Jesus
says: When the world hates you, remember that it hated me first.
So in the
church today, we often think about the Gospel spreading through us, and us
telling people about the good news about Jesus. But we have to realise that all
the time, Jesus is spreading his good news, as evil people spread what they
think is bad news and this evil Jesus. We have an aggressive atheistic movement
at work in our society today. And people listen to these atheists, and listen
to how they talk about Christians, but then also people have to weigh up – most
of the Christians I know are nice people, whereas as that arrogant atheist is
just a hate-monger. And so, Christianity’s good reputation is spread while the
bad reputation is spread.
Pastors have
often found this problem – we have to go and have difficult conversations with
people, and we worry that they’ll go and talk about us behind our back and
spread a bad reputation. But a bad person who tries spread a bad reputation for
a good person always spreads a good reputation for them. Because people will
see how the gossiper lives, they will notice that the gossip itself is
corrosive, and so they will go and work out for themselves whether the bad
report is true, and when they find out that it isn’t true, they will respect
the good person. Somewhere along the line, someone will be encouraged by the
bad talk, and the church will still grow up from it. It’s like a good healthy
plant or a beautiful fruit tree that grows up right in the middle of a pile of
manure.
Even the
devil himself – he thinks when he throws some temptation at Christians that it
would destroy us, but instead it turns out to be a test and strengthening to
our faith. And so, even the devil can’t help but build up the church. Luther
says: The devil will make you a good theologian!
And this is
exactly how Jesus planned things. St Paul says: Death is at work in us, and
life is at work in you.
So Jesus
says: Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all
kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your
reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before
you.
Amen.
Lord Jesus,
spread your word far and wide, however it pleases you. We pray for our enemies
and our persecutors that they may worship you together with us in spirit and in
truth. Amen.
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