SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, January 29, 2023

Dear Friends in Christ –

We’re engaging the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel until the beginning of Lent. In our text for this Sunday, Jesus goes up the mountain. He gathers the disciples and the first thing he teaches them is how to recognize blessedness. Not how to become blessed, or even to bless each other, but rather to recognize who is already blessed by God. And guess what - it’s not who we think.

Jesus begins this teaching, not with promises of wealth, comfort or prestige, but with promises of blessedness even, and perhaps most often, in the hard human experiences of mourning, meekness, peacemaking, persecution, and poverty of spirit.

But here’s the key: Jesus’ form of blessedness only makes sense in light of the kingdom of God. This space fashioned by God’s grace to be different from the world around us. It is to be a place of forgiveness, mercy, grace, and goodness – worth getting up for and inviting someone to come along!

Let’s come together and receive the message that Jesus conveyed first and foremost to his chosen, trusted few – that fortunate, favored, happy, privileged, and blessed are we even now who seek, serve and surrender to the living, loving God.