9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” Revelation 7
There was a famous TV preacher who wrote a book about the Beatitudes entitled, “The Be Happy Attitudes”. What a crock! Full disclosure: I have not read said book. I guess that the way to be ‘Be Happy Attitudes’ is by us thinking positive, happy thoughts and doing positive happy things. In it’s place, that’s okay but in terms of the Lord’s so great a salvation, it’s all on me but the clear sense of the Beatitudes, our blessing, our salvation, does not rest on me or you but upon the One who blesses that is the Lord. The problem is not unhappiness primarily but sin crucially. The false, ‘be happy attitudes’ are aspiration, our going up to God. The Lord’s Beatitudes are inspiration. Inspiration is literally “in spirited”, hallowed, made holy by the Holy Spirit witnessing to the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, filling the lungs of our souls with the Spirit of His grace, mercy and peace. All the saints in Christ have known this in Christ.
The Lord who calls the least, the last and the lost into His reign seems to enjoy creating out of nothing, as He did the heavens and the earth. On each day of creation, after creating out of nothing, by His Word, He said, “It is good”. The Lord likewise redeemed the saints out of the nothingness of sin, death and the power of the devil, by His blood shed for us all. The saints are the roll call of the least, the last and the lost. His redemption is good. His blood is for our good. His blood made us His, justified by grace through faith, as He became sin.
During an interview with a comedian, the topic was atheism and faith. The comedian was asked are you believer? After all, aren’t you a Roman Catholic?” “Yeah, I believe and I’m a Roman Catholic but with what’s been happening recently, I believe the book but not the cast.” I guess the “cast” being the priests, bishops etc. and I took the book to be the Bible, the Word of God. Not a bad answer. I believe the book, the Word of God and more than that: because of His Word toward us in Jesus Christ, the lodestar of the Bible is why I believe His book, His Word. What is His Word toward us and all humankind? It’s not a principle, a program, a holy political platform, an ideal that the Lord presents and proclaims to us but he comes to us in a very concrete person: Jesus Christ.
The comedian went amiss though with his jibe at the “cast”. The Bible is quite a cast of characters!
- Abraham, a pagan idolater to be father of nations;
- Moses, murdered an Egyptian the same Moses who didn’t talk so well is given the Law to lead a people out of slavery by speaking God’s Word;
- a prostitute, Rahab saves Israel in the fall of Jericho;
- a Gentile woman, a Moabite, Ruth becomes the foremother of King David and Jesus Christ, David’s Lord; David, a shepherd boy;
- “I’m only a youth” Jeremiah, a teenager called to proclaim God’s unvarnished truth to a very wayward Israel;
- Peter, James and John, fishermen called to be Apostles into the world with the light of Jesus Christ;
- Paul, persecutor and would-be murdered of Christians…and it’s a cast of millions as we heard in the first lesson. They did this all by faith alone.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer:
God loves the world. It is not an ideal man that He loves, but man as he is; not an ideal world, but the real world. What we find abominable in man’s opposition to God, what we shrink back from with pain and hostility, the real man, the real world, this is for God the ground for unfathomable love, and it is with this that He unites Himself utterly. God becomes man, real man.
God became a real man so we can be real men and women. This cast I trust because they were (and are!) so very real and loved and called by the real Lord to be his real people, really knowing they are sinners at the same time made right, justified in Christ alone and His work, as worked out in our lives by the Holy Spirit.
Beatitudes are the blessing of Jesus Christ toward real men and real women. If the Lord wanted to bless ideal men and women, he would have said, Blessed are the rich in spirit, Blessed are those who are positive Blessed are the warriors, Blessed are the powerful…If the Lord had wanted only ideal men to come to Him, He would still be sitting on that mount waiting to open His mouth till this day. But open His mouth He did: Blessed are the poor in spirit, mourning, etc…not exactly a recruiting poster for denominational Christianity purpose driven, positive thinking, your best life now as the purveyors of the national religion with their feet planted firmly in their time teach it. but real men and real women, the least the last the lost. “The Few, the Proud, the Marines” is a good recruiting ad but in the One who calls us its, the many, the lowly, poor in spirit, mourning at the way the world is to be His saints. But there is a similarity between the marines and the saints in one way: both are in formation. The saints are not being conformed to the pattern of this present world but being transformed by Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and the Lord’s tools are in arsenal of His Word: faith, peace, prayer, salvation. The saints are a work in progress, to be saints, but His work always. Unlike the other Marine slogan, “Never given, always earned”, here it is Always given, never earned. And also: Always given, ever learned.
This cast both then and now have a script, the Scripture, our lines, His inerrant Word to learn, pray, speak and live. The problem is when we are always adlibbing our own lines, thinking we know what the playwright really wanted to say and it’s look at me I’m pretty good. “Oh, I want my part to really be moving” and we act out of character. We should know our lines, and the Lord’s lines are good. Man does not like the Playwright’s Script and rewrites it, but once that is done, it is no longer the real play and the Script-ure is nothing to play around with. When man starts rewriting the Bible, like Joseph Smith, Mohammed and liberal/progressive Christianity, the result will always be a water downed version with lines that might be tough but will always be showing how holy we are. It’s called being a Pharisee, a hypocrite. The Lord, blessed be His Name has given us His real lines for real people that eventually by faith through His grace we cherish in our hearts and souls and minds to live them in real living. When an actor auditions and does well he will receive a call back. Now we receive callbacks from time to time, not when we have done well, but we are called back when we have done not done well at all: flubbed our lines, tried to hog the stage, talked about others in the cast. The Lord calls us back in true repentance, by His Law, the script that is totally demanding, to confess our bad acting and be forgiven by His grace alone.
This past Friday, Pr. David Ongwaye messaged me on Facebook about how I was doing and I told him I was making Scripture cards to go along with the candy we passed out on Halloween at the Mission. He wrote, Trick or treating? I don’t know what you’re talking about! I explained Trick or Treating to our Kenyan brother. He wrote back:
“It must be enjoyable and such (a) show of kindness should always be the fruit of our spirit as Christians. That is why we are unique people!” I responded: “That’s a good thought! I never thought of trick or treating that way!” Pr. Ongwaye: “What else can we say! How can we be known to be Christ’s disciples if we can’t show our love to our neighbours!”.
His Church is cast of millions upon millions, that John could not count from every tribe, nation, tongue. The saints love in word and deed. Saints believe and saints live the faith always in Christ in the communion of saints. We remember those who have exited the stage who’s part in our lives sustained us and other saints granted by the Lord for major roles who of course weren’t acting at all. They knew who they were because they knew Who’s they were: Jesus’ own. Jesus has promised there will be a cast reunion in the resurrection into the Kingdom come. This cast, His Church, His communion of saints, is not perfect, by any stretch and yet it is not an excuse to do bad but to love as we have been so loved. This communion of saints is not an ideal or utopian community but a real one, a real cast of characters. In a stage rehearsals, the manager is there with the script feeding lines to the actors as they learn the script, so is the Holy Spirit. The saints are not us vs. them but in Christ Jesus for us all. A cast that does not lift high themselves, but lifts high the cross, the love of Christ proclaim till all the world adore His sacred Name. We bear on our brows the sign of Him who died and rose for us all. Lift high His Cross so others may know the Way, the Truth and the life, Jesus Christ.
Concordia and Koinonia 