Ash Wednesday

 Video of Service

Ash Wednesday

February 18, 2026

Text: 2 Cor. 5:20b-6:10

            Preachers are essentially beggars.  That is not a commentary on my salary.  But it is to say, what does a preacher do, but stand in the pulpit and plead?  Plead with sinners?  Plead with you?  Imploring “you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20; ESV)?  That is, stop going your own way.  Stop doing your own thing, thinking your own thoughts.  Stop justifying yourself.  Turn.  Change your mind.  Repent.  “Return to the Lord, your God,” why?... “for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” (Joel 2:13).  And that fact is embodied in the flesh of Jesus Christ, God’s Son.  Here is what He has done.  “For our sake [God] made him,” namely, our Lord Jesus Christ, “to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).  All your rebellion… all your rejection of God, and His love, and His gracious will for you… all your turning away and running off, as far as you can, from your heavenly Father… all of it, every sin, every transgression, and all guilt, and all shame, all of it… the Lord Jesus took upon Himself, bearing it to the cross.  And for you, and upon you, He leaves His perfect righteousness (His justification), His innocence, His holiness, His life, His Sonship, His inheritance of the very Kingdom of heaven.

            So… have it, beloved.  Please, won’t you have it?  I implore you to come back to the Father who loves you, confessing your sins, covered in Jesus, and possessed by His Spirit.  Now is the time.  This is the day.  The favorable time is always Today.  Right now.  Don’t miss it.  Don’t resist it.  Do not reject it.  God is giving you Himself, and all His gifts.  Freely.  Not because you deserve it, but for the sake of Jesus, who deserves it, and who suffered and died to make it so.  Believe it, and you have it.  Repent and believe the Good News (Mark 1:15).  Confess, and be absolved.  This is the Day of Salvation.  God has listened.  And God helps (2 Cor. 6:2; Is. 49:8).     

            God sends His preachers thus to implore.  And look what Paul says about this Preaching Office.  “We put no obstacle in anyone’s way” (2 Cor. 6:3).  The preacher is to get out of the way, and ever and always and only point to Christ and His saving Word.  But he is to suffer, this preacher (vv. 4-5).  For you.  That you may believe.  As Christ suffered.  For you.  That you may be saved.  The preacher is to bear up, by great endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in calamities, Paul says.  In beatings, imprisonments, and riots (I thank my God that Pastor Taylor and I have not yet had to suffer those things, though many of our brothers in Office have so suffered, and do so suffer, and such is our call, if it comes down to it.  And by the way, such is your call, if it comes down to it, as well).  In labors.  In sleepless nights (I’ve had plenty of those for you).  In hunger.  And then, Paul says, also in faithfulness (vv. 6-7).  Purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit (these are the character traits a preacher must aspire to have, and he can only have them by the gift of the Holy Spirit, though, to be sure, he has them in great weakness, and so must always be repenting and receiving and praying and fostering the gifts).  By genuine love… Your pastors love you, which is why we lose sleep over you, and why we so often, and so deeply, hurt for you.  By truthful speech and the power of God (pure doctrine, Sacraments rightly administered, and, I think we can add here, prayer, and a faith that expects God to do mighty things among you).  With the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left (these weapons aren’t guns or swords, but the whole armor of God…  And you are outfitted with that, too, and you can read about it in Ephesians 6).  Then, notice, faithfulness in whatever the circumstances (vv. 8-10).  Even in the extremes.  Honor and dishonor.  Slander and praise.  Considered imposters, but really, true.  Unknown, yet well known (known, at least, to God, and that is really all that matters).  Dying… remember, the pastor is called to suffer and die… yet behold, we live!  Ah, there’s death and resurrection, right?  The Preaching Office is a Christological Office.  Punished, but not killed.  Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing (I mean, Christ is risen, and He lives, and reigns, and He’ll raise me, so what sorrow can possibly triumph over that?).  As poor, yet making many rich.  As nothing, yet possessing everything.  Do you see, in that description, a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself?  That is the point.  The preacher is not to preach himself (get out of the way, preacher).  But Christ.  Always Christ.  Only Christ.  In his words, in his life, and in his very body.  Christ.  Don’t look at me.  Look at Christ.

            But the preacher begs.  He implores.  He pleads.  On behalf of Christ.  For some reason unknown to me, but known, apparently, to the wise men who put together the lectionary, our Epistle reading starts with the second half of 2 Cor. 5:20.  It seems to me that the first half belongs, though.  And, by the way, you probably know it by heart.  Let me read it in its entirety: “Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.  We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”  The preacher preached on that verse at my ordination all those years ago.  So, naturally, I brought it up at his 50^th ordination anniversary.  Because that’s what the Ministry is.  Jesus sends the preacher as His official ambassador, to speak the Words of Jesus, on Jesus’ behalf.  And the Words Jesus speaks through His preachers are Words of pleading: I have come for you.  Come, beloved, to Me.  Come back.  Come back.  Why will you die just to get away from life with Me?  Come to Me and live.  Be forgiven.  Be cleansed.  Be healed.  Be whole.  Let Me take from you all that is deadly, and dead.  Let Me fill you with Myself, and the things of life!

            That is what Lent is all about.  Beloved, lay yourself down at the foot of the cross.  Give up your idols, your greed, and your lust.  Give up your grudges.  They don’t belong to you.  Die to yourself, and so live in Jesus Christ.  In just a few moments, you will be marked on the forehead.  An ashen cross.  What is that about?  The ash of mourning, sorrow, and death.  Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  That is price of running away from God.  But imposed on you in the shape of a cross.  Because, on the cross, God’s arms are open wide.  To call you back.  To bid you come.  To gather you to Himself.  On the cross, God Himself accomplishes the reconciliation.  His arms are outstretched to receive you into His embrace.  Because, on the cross, God’s Son becomes your sin, and puts it to death in His very body.  On the cross, Jesus sheds His blood to cover you and make you whole.  On the cross, the Lord transforms death.  For now, for those marked by His cross, death is but the portal to life.  “For our sake [God] made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Preachers are just beggars.  They beg you to believe that, and receive that.  So, beloved… please… have it.  Have it.  Have Him.  Here He is, for you.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

The Transfiguration of Our Lord

 Video of Service

The Transfiguration of Our Lord (A)

February 15, 2026

Text: Matt. 17:1-9

            The Transfiguration of Our Lord is this comprehensive snapshot of our holy faith in its entirety.  Here is what I mean.  There is Jesus as the center and focus of everything else.  It all orbits around the Son.  All eyes are on Him, and all eyes are enlightened by Him.  He is the source of Light.  Everything else reflects light, but the divine Light, the Light that is God, comes from within Him.  (St. Paul says this amazing thing: “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” [2 Cor. 4:6; ESV].  So the Light of light’s Creator shines out of the face of Jesus and enlightens us!  And then we shine, just like the face of Moses, who stood in the presence of that divine Light [2 Cor. 3], and didn’t even realize his face was shining with reflected glory.  That is an incredible thought!  Anyway…)  Our Lord’s face shines like the sun, and even His clothing is white as light (Matt. 17:2), because He is the Light of the world (John 8:12).  And the point of it is, this Man, Jesus of Nazareth, is God.  God in human flesh—Incarnation.

            He is the eternally begotten Son of the Father.  And sure enough, there is the Father, just like at Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan, saying much the same thing: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Matt. 17:5).  Well-pleased with Jesus, and so well-pleased with all of us who are baptized into Jesus.  Baptism.  Justification.  In Christ alone. 

            And, the Word… Listen to Him.  And there is the Spirit.  Now, this time, not in the form of a dove, and so, perhaps, harder to spot.  But not for a good Israelite who knows about the Exodus.  Where is He?  The cloud, enveloping the whole scene.  And so, working in the hearts of His chosen people, the disciples, who are hearing the Words of the Father in the Presence of Jesus.  So, the Trinity, Israel in the wilderness, the Spirit’s enlightening and sanctifying work, and the gathering of the Church around the presence of Jesus.  All of it, right here.

            What else?  Moses and Elijah.  The Law and the Prophets, which is to say, the Hebrew Scriptures, the whole Old Testament.  It’s all about Jesus.  Luke even tells us in his version that they are discussing Jesus’ “exodus,” which is to say, His divine, saving mission, and in particular, His death and resurrection (Luke 9:31).  The whole Old Testament, in every word, by type and prophecy, by providence and preservation of God’s chosen people, is all about the Christ, the Messiah, and it all comes to its fulfillment in this one Man, now radiating God’s glory.

            There is the New Testament, too.  Peter, James, and John.  (You know, come to think of it, Paul wasn’t present at the Transfiguration, for obvious reasons, but He did see this Light, didn’t he, on the Damascus road!)  But so also, we see that these great New Testament figures are here by grace alone.  They don’t deserve this beatific vison.  Peter has just made his big blunder in forbidding the Lord to die on the cross.  Right after his great confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16), Jesus has to rebuke him, “Get behind me, Satan,” because he’s hindering Jesus from making the great sacrifice for our sins.  That happens in the Chapter immediately before this.  And James and John, those sons of thunder?  Not much better.  Ready to call down fire from heaven on a Samaritan Village for rejecting Jesus (that’ll show ‘em!) (Luke 9:54), preachers of God’s wrath rather than preachers of the Gospel, not afraid to exploit their own dear mother as they jockey for position on Jesus’ right and left hands when He comes into His Kingdom (little did they know, those seats feature nails and wood and nakedness and shame and darkness and death) (Matt. 20:20 ff; 27:37-38).

            What else?  Peter, yapping.  As usual.  Like us, in our faltering praise.  Yet saying profound things in spite of Himself.  It is good that we are here (17:4).  You bet it is.  Heaven has come down.  God Himself is present.  And so are a couple of saints.  Moses, who died on Mt. Nebo, and is buried God only knows where (literally… God buried him, and nobody else saw the location) (Deut. 34:5-6); and Elijah, taken up into heaven by chariots of fire (2 Kings 2:11).  By the way, notice how the disciples know who these guys are.  I don’t know, maybe introductions were made, but it seems to me we simply recognize one another in heaven.  And, of course, in Jesus, Peter, James, and John, and we are seeing an image of our own future, heavenly, resurrection glory.  Let us make three tents, Peter says.  Let’s celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, the yearly remembrance of, and participation in, YHWH leading His people (by a cloud!) through the wilderness, and into the Promised Land.  On some level it dawns on Peter, “This is it!  This moment is what all of that was about!  It is all fulfilled, here, in Jesus!”  Well, he’s right. 

            It’s just that he’s ahead of himself.  What is this grand vision of the Transfiguration, but a glimpse of the Lord’s divine glory, to prepare these three disciples… and us, who believe in Jesus on account of their Word… for the descent down the mountain, and into Jerusalem… and into our Lord’s Passion, His suffering and death, for us (that is why we have this reading just prior to Lent).  This is preparing us for Calvary.  Preparing us for the cross.  See, it’s undeniable, now, after what has happened on this mountain… This Man is God.  And so, if He dies, that means God dies.  And that is what it takes to rescue us from our sins, from death, and from the power of Satan.  And so, also, it is foreshadowing of what is to come, a picture of the glory Jesus will take up again when He rises from the dead.

            The disciples need this for what they’re about to face.  Betrayal.  At the hands of their own dear friend.  The arrest of their Teacher and Lord.  Their own defection.  Injustice.  Torture.  Crucifixion.  Locked up in the prison of their own paralyzing fear.  In the heat of the moment, they’ll forget what they saw and heard on the holy mountain.  But this is how our God works.  He often gives a gift at one point in your life, that carries and preserves you, imperceptibly, through some deep, dark valley, so that you come out the other side—with wounds and scars, to be sure—but alive and on the way to healing in Christ.  That is what the Transfiguration did for Peter, James, and John as they descended into the darkness of Good Friday.  It kept them… the Lord kept them by means of it… into the Light of Easter morning, and the empty tomb, and the risen Jesus, who said to them, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19).

            You know, it does that for us, too.  Okay, the divine Light doesn’t shine on our optic nerve the way it did for those three, and the booming Voice of the Father doesn’t beat unmeditated upon our ear drums, nor are we enveloped by the Glory Cloud.  You get the difference.  It doesn’t happen to us, visibly, and audibly, the way it happened to them.  But it does happen to us.  Peter, himself, tells us how (2 Peter 1:16-21).  Look, he says… we were eyewitnesses of His majesty when Jesus received honor from the Father, the voice being borne to Him by the Majestic Glory.  We were with Him.  We heard the Voice.  We saw it all happen.  But there is something better… more sure, even… than this spectacular experience, and it is available, not only to us, but you: “the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (v. 19).  You want to see the Light of the Transfiguration?  The divine Light of the light’s Creator, shining from the face of Jesus, enlightening you, and illuminating your path through the wilderness to the Promised Land of eternal life with God?  Go to the Word.  To the Scriptures.  To the preaching.  Go where Jesus Christ is present for you.  Where the Spirit gathers you together, with all His chosen people, your brothers and sisters in Christ, with angels, and archangels, and even the whole company of heaven.  Go where Jesus is at the center of everything.  Listen.  Hear.  See.  Taste.  Because, what Peter, James, and John witnessed in the Transfiguration, is given to you here and now.  Here is the Light.  Here is the Voice.  Here is the Cloud.  And here you are.  And what happens, but Jesus touches you (quite literally), and bids you “Rise, and have no fear” (Matt. 8).  And that is when you lift up your eyes and see no one, and nothing else, but Jesus only.  And when you see Jesus only, then you see all things aright.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.             

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

Video of Service 

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany (A)

February 8, 2026

Text: Matt. 5:13-20

            Righteousness imputed brings forth righteousness enacted.  That is to say, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and His atoning death for your unrighteousness, and His resurrection, by which the Father declares the whole world, including you, righteous… justified… objective justification, we call it; that which is subjectively received by the individual by faith… that righteousness, credited to your account, given to you by God as a free gift… now works in you, so that you begin to do righteous things.  You begin to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  You begin to love your neighbor as yourself.  You exterminate your idols.  You hold God’s Word and Name sacred.  You pray.  You worship.  You receive the gifts in the Divine Service.  You submit to authority.  You are obedient.  You seek your neighbor’s welfare and prosperity.  You are generous.  You are merciful.  You are forgiving.  You are humble, patient, and kind. 

            Now, you know it is only a beginning.  Imperfect, to be sure.  Plenty of faults and falls along the way.  But it is a beginning.  You don’t trust in it.  Least of all for salvation, or as your righteous standing before God.  That would never work.  For that, you trust in the righteousness of Christ alone.  But you do foster it, this beginning of enacted righteousness.  You do seek to do it.  And that, itself, is a gift of the Holy Spirit.  As long as you have the righteousness from outside of you, from Christ, you ever seek to have righteousness within, manifested in good works.  This is all just another way of saying that justification results in sanctification.  That, though we are saved by faith alone, faith is never alone.  Our Confessions put it this way: “after man has been justified through faith, then a true living faith works by love (Galatians 5:6). Good works always follow justifying faith and are surely found with it—if it is true and living faith [James 2:26]. Faith is never alone, but always has love and hope with it [1 Corinthians 13:13].”[1]

            This is the key to understanding our Holy Gospel.  Jesus says, “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20; ESV).  Well, how are you going to accomplish that, a righteousness exceeding that of those meticulous keepers of the Law, the scribes and Pharisees?  It isn’t by your outward keeping of the Commandments.  That comes later down the line.  Your righteousness is Christ’s perfect and complete keeping of the Law, for you and in your place, credited to your account, imputed to you.  That is your justification, your righteousness (justification and righteousness are synonyms).  And that infinitely exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, who don’t trust in Christ at all.  They reject Him completely, and hold to their own righteous works as sufficient.  See, they don’t believe Isaiah, who tells them that that kind of righteousness is only filthy rags (Is. 64:6).  The only righteousness that avails before God is the righteousness of Jesus Christ, received by faith in Him alone. 

            But if that is the case (and this is the age-old question)… if it is true that works have no place in justification, then… what?  Why do good works?  This is the charge Martin Luther and the Lutherans faced at every turn.  No one will do good works if you preach faith alone.  This is the charge St. Paul himself had to endure.  You Lutherans… You Pauline Christians… teach that nobody has to do any good works, period.  Not true.  Not true.  Paul says, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?  By no means!  How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Rom. 6:2).  Saved apart from works, yes.  But then, works.  They will follow.  And, again, our Confessions clearly teach that, while good works are not necessary for salvation, they are necessary.  They are the fruits of faith.  Living faith will always produce the fruit of good works.

            But again, why do them?  Jesus tells us here.  To be salt and light in the world.  Salt, which preserves and flavors.  Light, which obliterates darkness wherever it shines, exposing danger and evil, showing the way, and revealing all that is good and true and beautiful, which is to say, all that is from God.  “You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus says (Matt. 5:13).  God preserves the world for the sake of His Christians, including future Christians yet to be born or converted.  And His Christians act as a preserving and purifying agent in what would otherwise be the rotting carcass of the world (it’s like salting a side of beef before refrigeration).  Furthermore, Christians flavor the world with the goodness of God, speaking His truth, doing His works, loving with His love. 

            Again, “You are the light of the world,” Jesus says (v. 14).  Like the moon reflecting the light of the sun, Christians reflect the true Light, Jesus Christ.  He is the Source of their light, and they reflect Him as they speak Him forth in His Word, and live in Him by their works.  Why do good works, if you aren’t saved by them?  Because those works are a witness to the world of God’s love for them.  They are the tangible enacting of God’s love for the world.  Beloved, God loves the world through you.  And God loves your neighbor, including your fellow Christians, through you.  God loves you through your neighbor.  This all happens as you live your Christian life in your vocations, your callings.  The old cliché, I think, still holds true: God doesn’t need your good works, but your neighbor does.  And so, what does Jesus say?  “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (v. 16).  Let Christ’s righteousness, imputed to you, shine through in righteousness enacted.

            Now, be warned.  Though your works do not, in any way, contribute to your salvation, they are the evidence of living faith.  And that means the absence of works is evidence of a dead faith.  Do you remember what St. James says?  “(F)aith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17).  So, “if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?  It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet” (Matt. 5:13).  And no one lights a lamp, only to put it under a basket (v. 15).  What would be the good of that?  These are warnings not to become secure and neglect works.  You should never confuse them with your justification.  But you should always look for them as a fruit of your justification.

            And if you have justification in Christ, you have the fruit.  Where there is justification, there, necessarily, is sanctification.  So, do you want more sanctification?  Do you want to do more good works?  Love more truly, and purely?  Forsake your sins?  Live for God?  Do all things for His glory?  Wonderful.  Thank God for those desires.  God grant them all.  What do you do, if that is what you want?  You stay close to Christ and His grace.  You bury yourself in His gifts.  You won’t do it by more Law.  Though it is good and wise, not only does the Law not justify you, it has no power to sanctify you.  More Gospel.  More Jesus for you.  More forgiveness of sins.  More grace.  More mercy.  Because when you have Jesus, you have it all.  And apart from Jesus, you have nothing.  Jesus is everything.  And faith receives Jesus.

            And then faith gets to work.  Here is what Luther says: “O, it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith.  It is impossible for it not to be doing good works incessantly.  It does not ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question is asked, it has already done them, and is constantly doing them.”[2]  Why?  How?  Faith receives the righteousness of Christ.  And that righteousness imputed brings forth righteousness enacted.  Salt made salty.  Light reflected.  God glorified in all things.  That is how it is.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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[1] FC Epitome III:11, https://bookofconcord.cph.org.

[2] Preface to St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, quoted in FC SD IV:10-11, https://bookofconcord.cph.org.

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

Video unavailable.

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany (A)

February 1, 2026

Text: Matt. 5:1-12

            What kind of life would the world call blessed?  Certainly not what Jesus says here.  Blessed are the poor in spirit?  No, no… blessed, rather, are the rich in spirit.  Those who mourn?  The meek?  Those hungering and thirsting for righteousness?  How about, rather, those who are disgustingly happy (you know the type), the bold and assertive, and those full to the brim of the admiration of the masses for their public virtue and pious respectability?  Merciful?  Sure, to a point.  But only to the deserving.  Or, to those who, if I help them, I’ll feel good about myself.  Pure in heart?  Okay, whatever that means.  Peacemakers?  Absolutely.  We like peace.  As long as the peacemaker maintains the advantage.  But, persecuted?  No way.  That is the opposite of blessed.  If the world composed the Beatitudes (the “blesseds”), those Beatitudes would have nothing to do with weakness or sadness or suffering.  They would have everything to do with strength and exaltation, glory and triumph.

            “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus says (Matt. 5:3; ESV).  Sounds like utter foolishness to the world.  But isn’t that exactly what St. Paul says in our Epistle?  “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18).  The cross.  Weakness.  Suffering.  Poverty of spirit.  That is to say, having no rightful claim on the blessings of God by your own merit.  Just a beggar before Him, with an empty sack.  Mourning.  Mourning what?  Your own sin.  Unrighteousness.  Injustice.  The state of things in the world.  The brokenness of it all.  Death, the great destroyer.  Meek.  Unpretentious.  Patient.  Humble.  Again, making no claim for yourself, whether before God, or before other people.  Putting yourself after God, and after others.  Hungering and thirsting for righteousness.  Within others, yes.  But above all, within yourself.  You are yearning for it, longing to be filled by it.  And you know that it doesn’t come from you.  It can only come from God.  The righteousness of God that comes through faith for all who believe (Rom. 3:22). 

            Jesus calls this blessed.  Why?  How so?  Well, it is not because there is some inherent righteousness in suffering and lack.  Poverty is not a virtue, any more than wealth; sadness, any more than happiness.  What makes these things blessed, then? 

            It is only when you come before God with an empty sack, that He can fill it.  And He does.  With all His gifts in Jesus Christ.  He empties your sack of all that is worthless in repentance, which He often brings about by sufferings.  He fills your sack to overflowing in Christ, who suffered for you, and is risen for you.  He fills it, such that then you can go and pour out His gifts on others.  And then what?  Come back, and God will fill your sack again.  So now, you can go and be merciful.  Even to those who don’t deserve it.  That is, you can forgive their sins.  Not hold their trespasses against them.  Not despise them, even when they are despicable (you realize, that is exactly what God does for you, right?!).  You can help them in their time of need.  Give them what you have, and what they lack.  Pure in heart.  Cleansed of your own filth by the Absolution of Christ.  He’s your only source of purity.  And now, like Him, not only can you have mercy, but you can make peace.  Between yourself and others.  And between others.  You can make peace.  Even to your own disadvantage.  (How did Jesus make peace with you?  He died on the cross, that’s how.  See how He made peace with you by His own, unspeakable, disadvantage?)  Love your enemies, He tells you (Matt. 5:44)… and shows you (the cross)!  Pray for them.  Bless those who persecute you.  Bless, and do not curse (Rom. 12:14).  And there is that word, “persecute.”  “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” (Matt. 5:10).  “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (v. 11).  He tells you to “rejoice and be glad” in that (v. 12), because it puts you right up there with the prophets.  It is blessed, He says.  Because you are pouring yourself out for your persecutors, like Jesus, who poured Himself out for you.  And you know what God did for the dead Jesus after three days.  Resurrection.  Vindication.  And so you.  Sack empty, you come before God in death, and what does God do, but fill you up again, to the brim and beyond, with resurrection life, and all good things. 

            That is what the second part of each Beatitude is about.  Here is the Gospel for all those who are poor in spirit, and know it!  Theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.  Comfort for the mourning.  The meek receive the earth as their heritage, and that is to say, the New Creation, the Resurrection world.  Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness?  What else could satisfy them like the perfect righteousness of Jesus, God’s Son, credited to their account, given to them as a gift, covering them and dumped in their sack, by grace alone?  And then, enacted in them.  And so… mercy for the merciful.  The beatific vision (that is, the blessed seeing of God Himself) for the pure in heart.  And the peacemakers?  Sons of God, they are called, because they do what the Son of God, Jesus, did and does by His self-sacrifice on the cross… they make peace.  And, the persecuted…  We come full circle.  Again, theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.  Not because they’ve earned it by suffering persecution.  Nobody earns, here.  Remember, this is all by grace.  But it’s just a statement of fact.  What can they actually take from you by persecuting you, when the Kingdom of heaven belongs to you?  Your life?  Nope, you have that, eternally, in Jesus Christ, who is risen from the dead.  So that, dying, you live.  And Jesus will raise you up on the Last Day.  Your freedom?  Nah, if the Son sets you free, you will be free, indeed (John 8:36).  The reality is, it is precisely because of your freedom in Christ, in whom you live eternally, that you can suffer persecution without loss.  Your possessions?  Well, let’s face it, you could stand to get rid of some stuff, anyway.  And, you know, as it is, everything they take from you will only break or rot away.  But your lasting possessions are eternal in the heavens (cf. 2 Cor. 5:1), and those they cannot take away. 

            What it comes down to, beloved, is that your blessedness is Christ.  Blessed are you who are in Christ.  No matter the circumstances.  By virtue of His Baptism into you in the Jordan River (Matt. 3:13-17), and your Baptism into Him at the font, you are united with Him in such a way that He takes all the emptiness and lack and weakness and suffering and death that you deserve by your sins, upon Himself, and puts it to death on the cross… so that you get all the blessedness… the Kingdom, the fulness, the joy, the righteousness, the life that belongs to Him.  Everything is transformed in the death and resurrection of Christ, and by your Baptism into Christ.  Turned upside down (or really, right side up).  Made new.  “Behold,” Jesus says, “I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5). 

            And here is why it matters, to you, personally, here and now.  Every time you suffer some kind of grief or setback… every time you shed a tear… every time you are weary, or heavy laden, as you come to realize that things are not as they should be in the world, in you, in those around you… every time you come to realize that you need saving, and everybody else needs saving, and you can’t save, them or you, because you don’t make a very good savior… Every time you experience pain, or loss, or rejection, or any other sadness… and especially when that is for the Name of Jesus… you know that there is a hidden beatitude in it.  Hidden, but assuredly present.  And if you doubt it, just come read this Gospel text again.  Things are not as they appear.  There is always hope.  Hope, sure and certain.  Because Jesus Christ, who was crucified, is risen from the dead.  That is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe.  And He is coming back, this Jesus.  For you.  He is coming soon.  To pull back the veil, and bring the blessedness, the beatitude, to light.  You cannot see it now.  But you will.  And, in the meantime, what does He do?  He brings you to His Table, and feeds you with Himself.  The Bread of Life, the Blessed One.  His body, His blood, given and shed for you, for your forgiveness, life, and salvation.  Filled to the brim, with every good and perfect gift. 

            That is the kind of life Jesus calls blessed.  Emptied of all that is not Him.  Filled with all that is Him and His.  That’s you.  Blessed are you.  And yours is the Kingdom of heaven.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.