HIS STORY, OUR STORY
Preached by Vicar Kyle Krueger

Do you ever wonder why it is we like stories so much?  I’m sure many of you where read the traditional night time story when you where little and maybe you read them to your children now.  Or think about how much money is spent every year on movies and television shows.  We love our movies to have a good story line, we want them to have good actors, and we want them to be exciting and filled with mystery and suspense.  Most of us get involved with sitcoms, we enjoy getting to know the characters, and we cannot wait to see what will happen in the next episode.  We love a good story. 

Jesus opened His mouth and the world came into existence. Jesus opens His mouth in our text and our story, the Christian’s story, our saintly story begins here in the beatitudes. We love stories because it is hard wired into us.  This is the way God has chosen to communicate to us.  The Old Testament has accounts of kings, war, stories of greed, corruption, and death, great stories of triumph, romance, and love.  The New Testament contains supernatural events, storm scenes, dreams and visions, it has political conflict, angels and demons, people being raised from the dead!  Sounds like an exciting story doesn’t it?!   Almost sounds like a commercial for a box office smash!? 

God includes all these things so we may see clearly what he has done for his people in history, what he is doing now, and what he promises to continue to do for us.  He wants us to know the story, the characters, and know it well, read it again and again as we re-watch our favorite television shows, movies and re-read our favorite novels.  He does this so we may see what the season finally has in store. 

This day, All Saints’ Day, is to mark the climax of the Churches story, and thus the Christians story.  The story that Christ shares with us, that the grave is not the end, but it is the “to be continued” mark.  Christ gives us a story that we become a part of in Baptism.  The little word “IN”, that small preposition means so much in the story of salvation.  What does it mean then to be “In Christ” or when we begin the service to say “IN” the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 

This is to mark that we have entered the story and are a part of something much bigger and better then ourselves.  That when we worship we are joined with the angels and arch angels and all the company of heaven.  We begin our spiritual life at the baptismal font as we begin our Worship life “IN” the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This place becomes heaven on earth for a brief moment on Sunday morning because God promises to be present in his gifts to teach us and to feed us.  We then participate as the ones clothed in the white robes of Christ’s blood and righteousness.  The story is real and present.    And you may ask what is that story and what does it mean for me?

I would point you to the Gospel reading.  The words Jesus spoke in the Gospel of Matthew today are some of the first words he spoke in his public ministry.  This should not go without notice.  Jesus begins his famous “Sermon on the mount” with some strange words, what we know as the beatitudes which means “the blessings.” Jesus begins his sermon by defining for us what it means to be in His story of salvation or as we would say to be “in Christ”, and what is given in and through this story.

As you make your way through the list of items in our text by the bottom you may not feel you belong in the story.  Are we poor in Spirit?  Do we humble ourselves to the will of God in our lives?  Do we place our own opinions on who God is and what he is like instead of humbling ourselves to be students of the scriptures?  Do we mourn?  Do we show our vulnerability before God, admitting sin has infected our lives?  Would we rather stand on our own pride instead of being comforted by Christ’s word of forgiveness?  Are we meek enough to inherit the earth?  Do we thirst for righteousness or is it for something else? Do we offer mercy to those around us?  Are we pure in heart? Are we peacemakers or instigators? Do we open ourselves up to be persecuted for righteousness sake or do we hide our faith so the world will not see it and we won’t have to stand up for it.

These words can make us feel very small in the sight of God and unworthy of a role in His narrative.  But the things that Christ speaks of here are not simply to make us feel bad about our Christian walk or keep us on the Moral “straight and narrow” Path, but to show us what He is and what he accomplishes for us because we simply cannot.  Christ is the one who fulfills these characteristics perfectly.  Jesus himself, later in Matthews Gospel says “I am gentle and lowly in heart”.  It is Jesus who embodies the beatitudes.  Certainly they can clearly point out our sin, and they also point out what we are “In Christ”, and what he has given so we may be called saints, the faithful Children of God. 

Most people think that coming to church is like going into the dentist.  Things need to be cleaned up a little, maybe some grime needs to be scraped away, and things need to be polished up a bit, but Church is not a simple clean up it is more like a heart transplant.  It is major surgery, things are broken in us, we are flat lined on the operating table!  We are in need of desperate help!

Jesus gives us His story, His heart in His death and resurrection.  And if the Church is the operating table in this story then the medicine for our sinful heart disease is our Lord’s body and blood, the scalpel is the waters of Baptism that cut through our sin filled bodies, and the new heart is the reading and the preaching of God’s word delivering the Story of Christ to us.  We are made into saints and the beatitudes are for all the saints in Christ. 

This is a story that reaches back to Adam and Eve… To Moses and Abraham… To the Holy Apostles and martyrs… and yes all the way forward to the saints that sit and have sat in these very pews….  The names of the ones who will be read as saints in Christ, who have passed through death into their eternal rest with Christ.   All these saints are in the story because of God taking on flesh, dwelling among us and carrying our burdens and sins to the cross and giving us the victory in His resurrection from the dead… so that we are poor in spirit, that we are comforted, be meek, thirst for righteousness, be merciful, pure in heart, be peacemakers, and be persecuted because of His name.  We are these things because the story tells us we are. 

Christ gives us his story in exchange for ours.  We get the blessings of the beatitudes, while he takes the burden and punishment for our down falls and sin on Calvary.  The perception of many in our world today is that the story seems to end at the grave, but the true story we have in Jesus is one of life, one of hope, and it is one of resurrection.  You have buried the faithful saints of your friends and loved ones in this earth over the years because you have the hope that Christ is coming to raise them out of the grave, that you and I will be raised up and God will say “well down my good and faithful servant” not because you did anything to earn this reward, but because you are “In Christ”, you are in His story because he put you there through the water and word of your baptism, you are in God’s story and He is the author, actor, and director and he has chosen to say to you out of love and mercy “rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven!”

Thanks be to God! 

In Jesus’ name.  Amen!