THE SOURCE OF SAINTHOOD"
All Saints' Sunday
November 2, 2003
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
Seeing the crowds, [Jesus] went up on the mountain, and when He sat down, His disciples came to Him. And He opened His mouth and taught them.
Matthew 5:1, 2 (ESV)
The Gospel for this day is without a doubt one of the most popular passages in the New Testament. Even people who aren't Christians will quote these Beatitudes (along with various other statements found in our Savior's Sermon on the Mount) to define the virtues to which people of all faiths and stations in life ought to aspire. I suppose that, in a way, we should be glad that people outside the Church look to the Scriptures (and especially to the words of Jesus) for guidance. After all, isn't it the Word through which the Holy Spirit speaks to sinners and calls them to faith? This is true, of course, but when people read the Scriptures they need to know something about the context of what they are reading in order to arrive at the meaning of the text. The verses that serve as this morning's sermon text give us the context in which the Lord delivered these famous words.
If we examine these verses very closely we will see that the Sermon on the Mount is not addressed to the general public, but rather to the disciples of Jesus. In fact, these words were chosen to be the Gospel reading for this All Saints' Sunday no doubt because of the vivid description that they give of the saints. Jesus is not here setting a standard for the people of the world to follow in order to live a God-pleasing and peaceable life; He is simply giving some identifying characteristics of the people who through faith in Him are the children of God. He is saying that you can tell who His saints are because they are the ones who are "the poor in spirit" (Matthew 5:3), "those who mourn" (Matthew 5:4), "the meek" (Matthew 5:5), "those who hunger and thirst for righteousness" (Matthew 5:6), "the merciful" (Matthew 5:7), "the pure in heart" (Matthew 5:8), "the peacemakers" (Matthew 5:9), and "those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake" (Matthew 5:10). These are all fruits of sainthood, but they are not the things that make one a saint. The saints (living and departed, including us) are saints because of their fellowship with Jesus and because of His Gospel of grace.
There are two distinct groups of people mentioned in the passage before us: "the crowds" and "His disciples" (meaning, of course, the disciples of Jesus). We are told here that Jesus, "seeing the crowds, . . . went up on the mountain and . . . sat down." Now most people, when they hear or read this passage, envision a huge throng of people--people from every place and every walk of life--gathering around Jesus to listen to His sermon. However, if you read this statement carefully and consider that it is followed immediately by the statement that "His disciples came to Him. And He opened His mouth and taught them," it almost seems as if Jesus "went up on the mountain and sat down" to get away from "the crowds" so that He could be with His disciples. If this is the case, it would not by any means the only occasion on which our Lord felt the need to get away from inquisitive and all-too-often demanding crowds of people.
But this doesn't mean that Jesus didn't care about "the crowds"; it simply means that what He had to say on this particular occasion was intended for those who were already initiated into the fellowship of His followers. The writer to the Hebrews, in talking about teaching and learning the truths of God's Word, makes a careful distinction between "milk" (Hebrews 5:13) and "solid food" (Hebrews 5:14) when he writes: "Everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the Word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil" (Hebrews 5:13, 14). All of God's Word is true but not everybody is ready for all of it. The fact that uninitiated people have frequently misunderstood and therefore misapplied the teachings of this Sermon on the Mount is evidence enough that it is intended for those who already have a basic knowledge of the Gospel and also have a faith in Christ created by the Holy Spirit through that Gospel.
Those who are in fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ are those who have received His teaching. But just what is the essence of His teaching? I don't know about any of you, but as a Christian it really bothers me when I hear on radio and television or read in newspapers and magazines Christianity being portrayed as primarily a religion of morality or ethics. I'm certainly not against morality and ethics and I don't encourage indifference to these matters, but that's not what Christianity is all about. While Jesus did indeed teach that we should be moral and ethical, the whole point of His teaching is that people like us, who are often less than moral and ethical, have nevertheless been forgiven because of what He did for them by going to the cross in their place. And with that forgiveness they have also been given the will and the power to amend their lives in order to glorify God by serving others. The teaching of Jesus is a teaching of Law and Gospel, not Law and more Law.
People who are not believers in Christ simply don't get this. How often have you heard the Beatitudes, the "Golden Rule," or some other ethical or moral teaching of Jesus presented as if this was the essence of the Gospel message? The essence of the Gospel is summed up well by Paul when he writes to the Corinthians: "God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). The saints of God are not those who live a good life or who try their best to live up to certain standards; the saints of God are those who, looking at the Law of God as into a mirror, see themselves for the miserable sinners that they are and who in faith look for forgiveness to the Savior who lived and suffered and died for them. He is the One--the only One--who changes them from sinners to saints in the eyes of God the perfect Judge and who empowers them to live in this world of temptation and sin, as Martin Luther put it, "at the same time both saint and sinner."
Through the history of the Christian Church there has been a great deal of misunderstanding concerning the saints. They are not a select group of people designated by the Church to be set apart from other believers. They are not people who are so exemplary in their behavior that their works can be credited to those of us who perhaps aren't so exemplary in ours. They are not people to whom we can pray for certain special favors. No, the saints are essentially no different than you and me: Like us, they are sinners who have been made holy in the sight of God through the merits of the perfect God-Man Jesus Christ, who came into the world to redeem sinners and whose Spirit has called them in Baptism to be His saints. In this we rejoice with all the saints of Christ--those who have gone before us and those who will follow--knowing that, because we are the saints of Christ solely because of what He has done for us, the glory and the perfect fellowship of heaven awaits us. We can be confident in this because He rose from the dead and, through the power of His Spirit, has promised us and all who trust in Him a share in His resurrection and everlasting life.
Amen.
May the Lord bless your hearing of His Word, using it to accomplish in you those things for which He gave it. May you be enriched and strengthened in faith that you may leave here today to go out into our world armed with the whole armor of God, prepared to be able ambassadors of your Savior Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Amen.