Just Words :: Matthew 5:2
And he opened his mouth and began to teach them.
The Gospel is more than just words. It most certainly is words. These words convey and bestow God’s justification of sinners by grace alone, through faith in Christ alone, on behalf of Christ alone. These words tell us the truth about how God is in Christ, the Word who came to us in the flesh to shed his blood for you, to die for you, to rise from the dead for you and to give you the hope of eternal life when he comes again in glory. These words for you are for your peace and comfort. These words declare that you are saints.
But the Gospel is more than just words on a page, sometimes in black ink, sometimes in red ink. The Gospel is the dynamic, saving action of God in Christ Jesus through various forms: notably, Word and Sacrament. The Gospel creates and makes new ... It restores and rejuvenates ... It nourishes and imparts the forgiveness of sins through tangible elements we see and taste ... water, wine, and bread. The Gospel ransoms you. It overpowers your bondage to sin. The Gospel heals you and makes you whole.
One of the greatest gifts of our Creator is quite literally Just Words. And I mean “JUST” words ... as in righteous, holy, comforting words ... words that bless you and keep you, words that illumine your life as God shines his face upon you.
In our Gospel reading, Jesus opens his mouth and begins teaching these “Just” Words. And brothers and sisters in Christ, in your hearing, something marvelous and amazing is happening, has happened, and continues to happen. Our Lord Jesus breathes out his creative Word of life upon you and transforms you into Saints through ...
HIS JUST WORDS OF LIFE
1. First and foremost, when God opens his mouth to speak just living and active words, he creates and renews.
That is what happened in the sermon on the mount. When Jesus opened his mouth and began to teach his disciples, he was not in Matthew’s eyes merely a master teacher enunciating a higher system ethics and philosophy, speaking just a bunch of words as if he was one with a good word about good living, saying you are blessed if you do this. And you are blessed if you do that. ...
No, Matthew shows us that Jesus was the Messianic Master molding the wills of those whom he had claimed by his call. This was Jesus who began working on our hearts, calling us to repent for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near to us on the mountain of God, near to us in our valley of sorrows. This was Jesus who proclaimed the advent of the Kingdom was at hand in his words and works, in his very presence.
This has been the case since the dawn of time. When the prophets say This is the Word of the Lord, it is never just a word of God that was meant to be written and remembered ... it is always doing something.
In the beginning, before every creature was created, there is a word ... a powerful just word of God that makes something out of nothing. Now today, God is making something out of you. And like creation it is very good, blessed and just.
As Jesus, who ascended the mountain of God and sat down ... as all the people gather around him to listen and to hear ... he says ...
Blessed are the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, the hungering and thirsting, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted. ... That is you. And blessed are you because God is working in your lives.
There are at least two translations of our Gospel reading that would have you believe that this word we render as blessed means simply happy. To be sure, when you are blessed, you will feel happy. But being happy is not necessarily being blessed.
Blessedness in scripture is first and foremost a divine gift. It is a poetic expression that the riches of heaven are yours. In scripture, God is ALWAYS the giver of blessedness, which is best exemplified by new life and eternal salvation.
Blessedness is the ultimate state of good existence. In blessedness, we are filled with comfort and mercy and he gives us the riches of heaven.
2. Meanwhile, when men open their mouths, they do nothing but kill and destroy.
Oh, I know none of you are really murderers, as if you have really stabbed someone in the back and left them for dead. But when we speak apart from the Word of God, when we speak behind the backs of men like little birds chirping at each other, sharing gossip about one another, we prove how hypocritical and murderous our lives really are.
In the name of Jesus, repent every one of you.
As the Just Word of God reminds us no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. (Ja 3:8). Our throats are an open grave. We use our tongues to deceive ... not only each other, but ourselves. The venom of asps is under our lips. Our mouths are full of curses and bitterness. All of this truth stems from a terrible curse ... the original sin that has befallen each of us through the unjust word of the serpent in the garden.
I know many of you don’t struggle openly with this sin. I know you strive to speak nothing but kind words. But I will warn you, as our Lord Jesus did ... if we say we don’t have this sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Instead, blessed is the man who confesses his sins, because he who is faithful and just will forgive your sins and cleanse you of this unrighteousness ... as he already has.
3. This is all possible for you ... the blessed Saints of Trinity Lutheran Church ... not because of your word, BUT precisely because of God’s Word.
Traditionally, someone is called a saint after they have lived an exemplary life of faith. Most of the people we call saints have been canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, which teaches that saints have lived so well that they have merited a superabundance of grace from God and earned so much favor they can actually transfer some of that grace and favor to you.
Those who have studied the lives of some of the people who bear the official title saint very quickly discover that the saints, while extraordinary in terms of their faith and life, are also flesh and blood people who were at heart sinners who sin.
As Lutherans we look to the saints as examples of faith and of Christian living, but we’re careful not to ascribe more to them than is right. None of them merited anything before God. They couldn’t do anything apart from the Just Word of God.
But neither could you. Not that that changes anything.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, you are children of God, who invites us to believe that he is our true father so that with all boldness and confidence you may ask him as dear children ask their dear father. There is no Word of man or human medium that can communicate the beauty and significance of that blessed reality. Yet God makes it happen to you through the Just Word.
He has promised to make you holy ... or I should say ... saints ... not because of the Word alone, but because of what the Just Word of God did in you and for you and through you. In baptism, the Just Word of God has united itself with you, not because of what you promised to do, but because of what he has promised to do.
Jesus has taken your sin, forgiven you, and made you saints.
This was realized ...
4. When Jesus closed his mouth while our Just God punished our sin once for all.
Our Lord Jesus was born for this very reason. The Just Word made flesh came to us ... not as an avenger of all our evils ... but as a lover of his fallen creation. God in Christ experienced the poverty of those around him. He felt our humiliation, our pain, our grief, our thirst for righteousness, our oppression. He experienced our weaknesses and healed our many diseases. He taught us about God’s love for us. And he gave us a living hope of becoming God’s beloved children through his Just Word.
But the Word made flesh did more, much more than all this. He took upon himself the guilt of your sins. And as he was judged by unjust men, he kept his silence, being oppressed and afflicted, thus fulfilling God’s Just Word (Is 53:7).
This word of the cross is always a shocking thing. But it was in fact God’s Just Word. Sin had to be punished by our Just God. So the sinless one took our sin upon himself and went silently to his cross, where God poured out his just wrath upon Jesus.
Then on the third day, our Just God raised this Jesus from the dead, giving you, me, and all who have faith in his word will not perish but will have eternal life.
5. Now when man opens his mouth, he will be saved.
Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be (Rm 10:9).
This was all made possible by God’s Word to you. He has blessed you in your baptism and he will bless you soon in the Lord’s Supper. Through these means of grace you have been enabled to join the great multitude of all the saints that no one could number ... from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages ... who are standing before the throne and before the Lamb clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ (Rv 7:9-10)
You no longer need a priest to stand between you and God. You don’t need your sacrificial altar upon which to offer your gifts to him. Nor do you need this stately temple in which to worship him. You who have faith in Christ are his saints. You have been blessed by the pure Gospel of God, who comforts you in Christ, who has given you the keys to the kingdom of the heavens.
Our whole faith rests on those things that God did in time, as we tick them off in our creeds. Jesus was born, suffered, died, rose again, ascended, and sent his spirit into our lives. These are historical facts, which no amount of unbelief can possibly undo. And because of that just word, he declares you to be saints.
Rejoice and be exceedingly glad because your wages are great in the heavens.