Over the next few Sundays, I’d like to walk with you through the Beatitudes, this first part of the Sermon on the Mount. We’ve heard the Beatitudes often enough, perhaps, but like so much of what Jesus says, we might not have made time yet to ponder it. How are we to make sense of these seemingly nonsensical things Jesus is saying with the highest, holiest seriousness? Blessed are the poor in spirit? What does that mean? Blessed are those who mourn? Really? It’s never felt to me like a blessing, to mourn. I consciously avoid it!

You know, there are degrees of poverty. There’s always someone worse off than you, right? And there’s always someone worse off than him, too. Abject poverty, like having nothing, at all. In Exodus, we’re told that someone who has made a loan, holding a man’s outer garment as security, must return it at night, so the poor man can have something to sleep in (Ex 2:26-27). That’s poor: so poor that all you have to secure some piddling loan is your only coat, your only “spare” item of clothing. Abject poverty is not even having a coat. No coat, no roof, no clear idea of where you’ll find food, today—sounds just miserable.

Jesus teaches us that everything we have, and everything we need, has been given to us, comes to us, from our Father in heaven. It doesn’t come from us by our own efforts. That can be hard to believe, since it seems as if our earnings have purchased us many things, since we’ve worked the long hours, put in the effort, made the sacrifices, applied our minds and skills to our work. It’s much easier to see, and much easier, therefore, to believe, that I get what I need for myself. I’ve gotten it through my diligence, my intelligence, my strength, my impeccable work ethic, my quick wits. Me. It’s easy to begin to think well of myself, and then I become the hero of my story. How have I succeeded, how have I managed to get this far? By the strength of my spirit, by the abundance of Me.

And there’s the problem. If I accomplished all this, albeit with maybe a little help along the way from one person and another, but still mainly me, I’ve left no room for God. Isn’t that just how it is? I was looking over some research last week regarding how important religion was to people around the world. What surprised me was how unimportant religion was to people in most countries around the world. Asia for the most part is just abysmal. Don’t get me started on Europe, although Romania and Greece are bright spots. Romania! Even in Canada, religion is much less important to people than in the United States. The US is a peculiar standout, in this respect, but let’s not preen ourselves: we know plenty of people for whom religion, God, church aren’t worth a bucket of spit.

I’m not sure why I was surprised by these results. Maybe I was just mostly disappointed. I suppose I was hoping the situation wouldn’t be as bad as I feared. To say that religion is generally unimportant to most people in most parts of the world is to say that God is generally unimportant. You can’t have God but no religion.

Why are the poor in spirit blessed? Because God has opened their eyes, opened their hearts, to their poverty. If you’re here today, it’s at least in part because God has done, and is doing, the same for you. If you want evidence that God is really at work in your life, consider this: somehow, you know that you need God, that all your reliance is upon God, not the supposed abundance of you. The only one who can cause you to know this, to feel this, is God. Blessed are the poor in spirit: those whom God has caused to see their entire, ongoing need for God, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. O pray for those who have not seen.

Blessed are those who mourn. Well, what? Mourning means loss, hurt. How can this be blessing? With God. I mourn many losses, many hurts. I mourn for my father, my mother, my grandparents. Still, there’s nothing I could have done to keep them from dying. Death comes to us all. The question is what are we going to do about it? What grieves me the most, what I find myself mourning most often, are all the dumb things I have done, all the missed opportunities to help or to comfort, to show and share Christ, all the ugly sins I all too readily committed, all too vivid in my mind, still, years and years later. Did I say dumb things? Sins!

I didn’t wake up one morning and decide it was now time to start mourning my sins. How did this change happen, this awareness, this grief? God made it happen, just as He has for you. Again, God demonstrates His work in you. That is grace. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

God opens our eyes and hearts, our souls, to the reality of our situation. He does this not to condemn us but to save, to rescue us. How far down that road had you gone before God got it through to you that you were not on the right road? Repentance is the shorthand term for the feeling of remorse for the many many ways in which we have offended the majesty of God over the years and years of our lives: all the petty uglinesses, all the shocking violations of holiness.

Repentance is what Christ calls us to. He calls everyone to repent. Some hear, others sneer. God has so worked in us that we hear. Yes, if we are mourning, we are blessed; knowing we are blessed, we are comforted. God has called us and, by grace, God has caused us to say yes, to accept what He has been saying all along, what He has been showing us all along, what He has been offering us, in love and patience, all along. It is no small comfort to know that God is truly at work in us. If He is at work in us, it is because He cares, and it is no small comfort to have this assurance that God cares.

To realize your absolute need for God, to have some true comprehension of why you absolutely need God—this is blessing, this is from God.

And before this table this morning, do we not confess with full and true hearts our need for God? Before this table this morning, are we not recalled to why we absolutely need God? Jesus came among us, calling us to repent—to turn and live for God, to leave off the old, hurtful ways, to begin to walk by the light of God’s Word: the way of healing, help, and holiness. This table is an invitation to repentance and an invitation to renew our commitment to our walk of penitence, our faithful walk as disciples of Jesus Christ.

This bread and this juice, this body broken, this blood poured out, remind us of who Christ is for us—our Savior, the atoning sacrifice who in his own body makes restitution for all we have done that we ought not to have done, all that we ought to have done that we did not do. Here, faith shows us our true poverty and our true wealth; here, faith recalls us to all our sorrow and all our joy. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Now, to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.