Overcoming Impossible : The Blesséd Bar

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Welcome back to another blog, Wave-Makers! I’m incredibly glad that you are able to join with us in this series. Before we get started, I wanted to begin this one with a little Labor Day humor, considering that the holiday is this week.

It was the week before Labor Day, and a poor country farmer Leroy decided to use his bonus check on the lottery. It just so happened to be his lucky day and Leroy won $480,000.  As a treat he decided to take his wife and their four children to see the Labor Day parade in New York.

They booked into the Sheraton International at the corner of Park Circle and Central Park North.  Having never been further than their local town, Benton, Arkansas they were bowled over by glitz and excitement of the "Big Apple".

Leroy and his son Clem were especially mesmerized by this shiny box with silver walls inside the hotel. They had never before met with doors that could move apart, and then automatically come back together again.  Neither had seen an elevator before.  Therefore, they were amazed when a little old lady entered the shiny box and the door closed. The lights outside on the wall flashed for a minute, then the doors opened and out came a beautiful young woman.

Leroy turned to his son Clem and said, 'Son, go get your mother.'

I believe we all know how that would end up working out for Leroy in the end, and it ain’t pretty. But there are some things like the magic elevator that sometimes seem to just be impossible. That leads into our new series that we are starting this week. We are going to be looking at a segment of Jesus’ preaching in the Gospel of Matthew known as the Sermon on the Mount. Now, many critics of this passage say that the requirements and commandments and teachings of Jesus in this sermon are impossible. These people say that these ideals are outlandish and beyond human capability.

I believe that they are wrong.

With the Holy Spirit and with the strength of an awesome God, we can overcome the impossible. Hence, the name of this series. Now then, before we get too much deeper into this message, let’s turn to the Word for some preparation.

“¹When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. ² Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

⁴ “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

⁵ “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

⁶ “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

⁷ “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

⁸ “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

⁹ “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

¹⁰ “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

¹¹ “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

–      Matthew 5:1-11

Will you pray with me? Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts together be glorified in Your presence. You are our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Last night, Logan and I had the opportunity to have some good friends over for dinner. It was the first time we’ve really been able to have anyone over other than family, and so we wanted to make it a special time. I decided to cook – for those of you that aren’t aware, I am the chef in the house, Logan makes a mean bowl of cereal, but other than that, she has little to no interest in cooking – anyway, I decided to cook lasagna. But I didn’t wanted to do your basic ordinary lasagna, I wanted to make as much from scratch as possible to make it as authentic and Italian as possible. I found a recipe online that looked good went and bought the ingredients and then, when I started to put everything together, I got incredibly frustrated. Are you familiar with the stereotype that men don’t like to using instruction manuals or things like that? Well, when it comes to Nathan Webb, the stereotype is 100% accurate. This recipe had so much superfluous language and paragraphs of reading that I had to take a break, convert the paragraphs into one-sentence breakdowns and then get started.

It’s for this reason that I love the gospel of Matthew. It’s always been one of my favorites of the four gospels, because the layout of the book is short, sweet and to-the-point.

The first four chapters of Matthew’s gospel go so quickly, it’s hard to even realize how much time the events are likely to cover. Matthew manages to fit in the birth of Jesus, the start of His ministry, the calling of the disciples, and the temptations in the desert all in a few chapters. In four short chapters, the reader sees Jesus go from a babe born in a manger to a minister with a huge following. That’s where we pick up in Matthew 5.

Even here, Matthew minces no words; he cuts straight to the chase. Jesus sees the crowds and –boom- he starts to preach. He gives these words of importance that we call the Beatitudes. We call these “Beatitudes” because they spawn from the Latin word beatus, the word for blessed. A Beatitude is broken down into the three parts: 1) the adjective Blesséd, 2) the identification of the blessed person, and 3) the condition that assures this person’s blessing. So, these Beatitudes are statements to advise Christians how to find true blessedness, or what some of us refer to as “joy.”

Something important to remember when reading the Beatitudes is that they all seem to spawn from a central component of Christian living: humility. Being merciful, not cut-throat, being meek, and not cocky, being persecuted, and not fighting back. This is important because of Jesus’ experience in the four short chapters just prior to this encounter.

In Chapter 4 of the gospel of Matthew, Jesus goes through a number of trials at the hand of the Devil. Now, I was a big action movie fan when I was a kid. I can remember I used to love movies with Bruce Willis where he would kick down doors. Any kind of movie with a loose-cannon cop who doesn’t play by the rules was my kind of movie. I’ll never forget whenever a new James Bond movie would come out and Pierce Brosnan would be the coolest action hero around. He took no prisoners, always got the girl and, in the end, saved the world and stopped the bad guy. Or the movie “Taken” with Liam Neeson where he goes on this incredible adventure to rescue his daughter after she gets kidnapped in a horrific trafficking scheme. He has a “particular set of skills” and nothing can stop him from saving his daughter, no matter how many men he has to take down. Sure, a lot of people die in these movies, but it’s the bad guys, right? It’s okay if the good guys take out the “bad guys” right?

That’s what used to always baffle me about Jesus. There’s this great moment of action hero Jesus finally going toe-to-toe with the big bad Devil. Like John McClane finally facing off against Hans Gruber or Clint Eastwood asking his next victim if they feel lucky, Jesus has this moment where, when I was a kid reading my Bible, I was ready for some action. I wanted Jesus to do a quick pistol whip and take the Devil out. Fair and square, right? I mean, after all, he’s the Devil! He is bad guy incarnate. The worst of the worst. The Hans-iest of Grubers.

But what does Jesus do?

Of all the disappointing anti-climaxes, Jesus decides to take the beating from the Devil. He allows the temptations to happen. He listens to the Devil and humbly and peacefully resists the temptations. We talked a few months ago about who exactly Jesus is, and we discussed how sometimes we can view Jesus as like half-n-half creamer. He is half God, half Human. We discovered that this wasn’t true, but instead that Jesus isn’t limited to our understanding of 100%. Jesus is 100% God, but He is ALSO 100% human. It’s not a “one or the other” scenario, but a “both, and” scenario.

This is incredibly important to this scene. Yes, Jesus is God and the Bible says not to tempt God, but Jesus is not only God, He is also totally human. So, He can be equally tempted by the Devil’s tricks. This is so vital because Jesus calls us to be Christians, to be “Little Christs,” and to live as He lived. The whole purpose of this endeavor is to illustrate for us how to be fully human. To be fully human is to be without sin, which Jesus (as far as I know) is the only one thus far to achieve.

That’s what is so incredible about this scene. Jesus calls us to be fully human. But he doesn’t stop there; He straight up lays out exactly what to do. He gives us the keys to the door. He survives the temptation in the desert, then He comes to the Mount and he gives a sermon on HOW to do these incredible things. He doesn’t say, “Okay, now that I have survived temptation, I want you all to go kick the Devil’s teeth in.” He doesn’t have this bravado that says that now that I am here, we will become the rulers of this world and everyone should listen to what we say. He doesn’t say to bully others into Christianity or to kill all those who don’t believe or to shun those who believe in other ways. No, Jesus tells us that the key to being fully human, the key to being fully Christian, the key to achieving perfecting Grace: is humility.

But Jesus doesn’t stop blowing our minds there. As God, Jesus could easily just say that we “must” do these things. He could very easily make these some form of law that we have to follow. He could have done those things, but what does He do instead? He leaves the ball in our court. He lists out things that would make someone blesséd, but the decision itself is all yours. He sums it up later in this gospel when people don’t seem to get it. Jesus finally breaks down the lasagna recipe and he says it short and sweet: in Matthew 16, “Deny your self, and take up the cross.” Humility.

Being a Christian is NOT easy. I’m sure that I don’t have to say that to y’all today. You know the truth. Look around you. In a world where people are obsessed with being rich, Jesus says be poor. In a world where death is the final day of life and we would rather just forget about it, Jesus says to mourn. In a world where we are self-obsessed, Jesus says to be meek. In a world where we hunger and thirst for gain, Jesus says to seek righteousness. In a world where we judge others worth based on what they can do for us, Jesus says to be merciful. In a world where we will do anything to be successful, Jesus says to be pure in heart. In a world obsessed by war and political gain and xenophobia, Jesus says to be a peacemaker. In a world where we all just want to be accepted, and liked, and loved, Jesus says to be persecuted.

Is being a Christian easy? No. We aren’t called to an easy life. Is it impossible? Also no. Our God is greater than any challenge.