C, The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany - Luke 6:17-26 "Word of Comfort"
For us who are being saved in these days of death, before
us are blessings and curses. In a
nutshell we are told: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose
heart turns away from the Lord.” And, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.” (Jeremiah 17:5&7 ESV)
Psalm One parallels these words of Jeremiah, speaking of
the fruit of the blessed, and the wicked or cursed as being chaff, saying “the wicked will not stand in the judgement”!
(Psalm 1:5 ESV)
The power of Jesus healed the diseases and touched the
hearts of those with unclean spirits, at the “level place”. What he then preaches is essentially the same
he said at the sermon on the mount, recorded in Matthew’s Gospel.
Matthews Gospel was originally intended to be a catechism
for Jewish believers, who would have remembered the proclamation of blessings
and curses commanded by Moses, for Joshua and the Israelites to speak the
blessings from Mount Gerizim and the curses from Mount Ebal. (Please read Deuteronomy 11:26-29, 27:1-26,
Joshua 8:30-35) So, the Jewish hearers
and readers who understood what God was doing through Moses and Joshua would
have found great comfort in Matthew’s
Gospel account of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount”.
But at the sermon on the plain here in Luke’s Gospel
there’s a wider audience as we’ve heard.
Disciples, Jews from Judea and Jerusalem, and Gentiles from the seacoast
of Tyre and Sidon hear Jesus proclaim not just the blessings of the sermon on
the mount but also the woes or curses.
Now in this level place, Jesus levels the playing field
between the Jews who knew the Law. The
blessings and curses of God made known on the mountains of God, are now plainly
set before Jews and Gentile. Jesus flatly
addresses all the discomforts and comforts to all humanity on level ground from
the word of God for the first time. The
word of God has descended from the mountain and the Jews, to the plain for the
Gentiles too!
Then, all those troubled by unclean spirits heard him, and
those with diseases were healed by him. But
he lifts up his eyes to address his disciples.
These are the twelve disciples whom he had just set apart as apostles,
together with many other disciples who followed him. Also in his hearing are other Jews, but furthermore
the Gentile Phoenicians from the coastal areas of Tyre and Sidon hear him too.
But with all these present, it’s to his disciples he says,
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours
is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you
who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now,
for you shall laugh. 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. But woe to you who are rich, for you have
received your consolation. Woe to you
who are full now, for you shall be hungry. “Woe to you who laugh now, for you
shall mourn and weep. Woe to you, when
all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”
(Luke 6:20–26 ESV)
Are these comforting words?
How do you see those who were healed receiving these words? As comfort or discomfort? How do you think the disciples received them? Jesus levels the playing field with his word
of balance, his word of blessing and woe!
But it’s to you Jesus asks: Are you comforted by being poor,
and discomforted by being rich? Are you satisfied
by being hungry, and discomforted by being full? Are your tears comforting, and your laughter
in these days of death discomforting? Are
you comforted by being hated, and treated as evil because you believe Jesus,
and his word? And are you discomforted
by those who say nice things about you but hate Jesus’ word?
Are you blessed by your comforts this side of the
resurrection, or blessed by the promised comforts coming after the
resurrection? Are you cursed and in
despair by your comforts this side of the resurrection, or will you be cursed
and in despair afterwards?
Jesus’ Word is the great levelling field! In fact, Jesus himself is the great leveller! He gives blessed balance to our existence
calling out the comforts that need to be named as idols. But he also shows us the true comfort we can have
in him, despite knowing our existence, now, is broken.
Your being was never meant to be dying. Jesus teaches he is the way, the truth, and
the life. The Word of God reveals that
human existence begins by being born only to be delivered into death, but
through Jesus’ death and resurrection your being can continue forever with
life! Surely that is our comfort in this
world of discomfort.
We have just sung: “Comfort,
comfort all my people with the comfort of my Word. Speak it tender to my
people: All your sins are taken away.”
Our sins are taken away!
That should be a comfort for us!
Why? Because now we can focus on
the true comforts of God’s kingdom. However,
using the forgiveness of sins to carry on in our own comforts that teach us to
turn from God to selfishness, and the creation of our own kingdoms of idols to
worship instead of God, is not what God intends for us.
You and I are reminded of this in the woes with which Jesus
balances the Jews and Gentiles at his sermon on the plain. As God the Father did with the Jews at Mount
Sinai and at Mount Ebal when they entered Canaan. Jesus continues to balance us with the
reality of blessings and woes today, as we’re moved over the mountains of our
suffering and across the vast plains of temptation towards our resurrection, being
led in the comfort of Jesus’ way, truth, and life.
Yet, we hear the true nature of our existence after
Jeremiah tells us we are cursed by trusting ourselves, over against the
blessing we receive in trusting God. He
says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can
understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every
man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” (Jeremiah 17:9–10 ESV)
With our hearts being desperately sick, is there any
comfort for us, is there any consolation from the blessings we hear and receive
from Jesus and the Word of God? Some
might hear Jesus say, “…woe to you who
are rich, for you have received your consolation.” (Luke 6:24 ESV) And think, “My riches in this existence of
suffering and death are the only consolation or comfort I can attain. I just
can’t do what Jesus requires of me, even now that my sins are taken away. Therefore, many are deceived into returning to
the comforts of one’s self-seeking pleasures.
Or, on hearing the blessings of being poor, hungry,
weeping, and being hated, they’re too much to add to the suffering and death of
our human existence! So, there’s a
temptation to reject these blessings as just nice sentiment. But sentiment doesn’t have any eternal substance!
One quickly finds themself impatiently returning
to pursue the passing pleasures of the heart, believing God’s word insufficient
to console and comfort.
If Jesus was to just leave us with his word of comfort, for
us to figure out his way, his truth, and his life, without any help, his word
would end up being a discomfort to us.
But he doesn’t leave us to our own devices. Jesus comforts us with a Comforter!
He has led us out of ourselves, and he continues to do so
today. Right from the Early Church era,
after Saul became a believer, and became known as Paul, we hear, “…the church throughout all Judea and
Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear
of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.” (Acts 9:31 ESV)
In John fourteen Jesus tells us he has left us the Holy
Spirit to be our Comforter; our Helper. The
Holy Spirit helps us in the comfort that, “Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.” (Psalm 124:8
ESV)
Like Simeon who waited his whole life for the consolation
of Israel in the birth of the Messiah, now that Jesus has come, has been
crucified and has been raised from the dead, we too wait for the consolation of
Christianity in the comforting promise of Jesus Christ’s second coming.
The Holy Spirit comforts us in his work of faith building. He does this, with ongoing forgiveness, to
make us God’s holy people, with the work of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and
his word and sacraments.
The Holy Spirit now wages war with the human self within
each of us. He seeks to hinder and stop
the old human nature from resurrecting itself and re-creating its idols of
comfort and recreation. He’s sent to
comfort and console, and to level us with God’s Word, so we’re easily led to
Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit works within, so we believe
and receive the comforts of Jesus’ Word.
