January 14, 2007

The Blessing of a Broken Heart

This has not been an easy sermon to put together.  I think my resistance or difficulty has been with the topic itself.  After all, who likes to mourn, cry, weep, wail, gnash their teeth.  I dare say not too many of us.  Most of us who are a little older learned at an early age that we shouldn’t cry.  Families prided themselves on being strong, together, healthy, pillars of the community.  Tears weren’t allowed.  Big boys don’t cry, parents told their sons.  “Cry baby, cry baby”, kids jeered the child who fell in the school yard and tore his pants.  Cry me a river, Mrs. Becker, my best childhood friend’s mom would say. 

We have in the past, not so much any more associate crying, grieving, wailing with mental illness.  May I remind you that The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.

But I remember the day my grandfather died in 1954.  We went to his house and my Nana was crying.  I remember my mother comforting her but I don’t remember ever crying about his death then.  I have since. 

Until we began to realize that God gave us tears for a reason, a healthy reason, any one who cried if not at a funeral was weak and soft.  And even though we have become a somewhat therapeutic culture, tears are still not seen as a sign of strength.  Yet Jesus says something that contradicts our culture.  He says in Mt 5:4: “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.”  There is a blessing associated with crying, with a broken heart?  That doesn’t make any sense.  But the beatitudes are like that.  They are the ethics of God’s kingdom.  As someone has said, “The Beatitudes are not platitudes.”  They are God’s core values that he wants us to live.  They are values that should be at the core of our character as well if we claim to be Christ followers.   But we have to remember we can’t live them by putting them on our to do list.     

Dallas Willard in his wonderful book, The Divine Conspiracy, says this about the beatitudes:  The Beatitudes simply cannot be a ‘good news’ if they are understood as a set of ‘how-tos’ for achieving blessedness. Then they would only amount to a new legalism.  They would serve not to throw open the kingdom --- anything but.  They would impose a new brand of Phariseeism, a new way of closing the door – as well as some very new possibilities for the human engeneering of righteousness.” 

We have a shot at living with these values if we admit we can’t do them in our own strength, ability, sense of rightness.    Remember everything starts with, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for their’s is the kingdom of God.” 

These 8 beatitudes are counter intuitive.  They don’t make sense.  They go contrary to the way we think things are or should be.  J.B. Phillips tells us what makes sense from our culture’s perspective.  He offers us the world’s beatitudes this way: 

Happy are the ‘pushers’: for they get on in the world.
Happy are the hard-boiled: for they never let life hurt them.
Happy are they who complain: for they get their own way in the end.
Happy are the blasé: for they never worry over their sins.
Happy are the slave-drivers: for they get results.
Happy are the knowledgeable men of the world: for they know their way around.
Happy are the trouble-makers: for they make people take notice of them.

These are not the beatitudes Jesus said at the beginning of his sermon on the mount.  In God’s kingdom the way up is down.  The way to spiritual maturity to Christ-likeness, the way to “be perfect even as your heavenly father is perfect” is by first admitting you are spiritually bankrupt.  Everything flows from there.  Many have said the beatitudes are like a ladder.  They build upon each other and last week we saw there was a blessing in realizing and admitting that we come empty-handed to God, that we are spiritually bankrupt.  When we realize that we are bankrupt, we see ourselves as God sees us.  He knows that our hearts are deceitful as Jeremiah tells us and that no one but he can cure it.  He knows as Isaiah tells us that all our good works are like filthy rags.  He knows as Paul tells us that no good thing dwells in us.  He knows that all we like sheep have gone astray.  And when we accept and admit this describes us, there is a blessing in that admission.  We stop trying to please God in our own strength and start trusting God to will and to do his good pleasure through us by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. 

When we come to this spot of realizing our spiritual bankruptcy, we are blessed but that doesn’t mean we are happy.  Happiness has to do with luck or favorable circumstances.  God’s blessing, makarios, in the Greek has to do with a state of bliss, joyfulness, spiritual well-being because we are in tune with God’s core values, God’s character, Jesus Christ. 

And now as Jesus continues his sermon on the mount to his disciples and others who were around, he continues with this upside down kingdom values.   These values are something the disciples and we need to let effect us.  When Jesus went up on the mountainside, he sat down.  This seems like a minor detail.  But teachers, Rabbis, when they were speaking officially, sat down.  This teaching is central to everything he wanted them and us to know and do so he sat down.

Also, the KJV says in verse 2 that he opened his mouth and taught them saying.  This too seems a minor thing.  But Barclay in his commentary tells us differently.  He tells us that in Greek, this phrase is “used of a solemn, grave and dignified utterance.  It is used in Greek of an oracle.  It is the most significant or weighty way you can say in Greek, “This is serious stuff.” 

Jesus continues his sermon according to Matthew 5:4 with “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.  This is said by Isaiah of the Messiah in Isaiah 61:2.  The Messiah when he comes will comfort all who mourn.  The word translated mourn, pentheo, is the strongest word for grief.  It is the word used of grieving for one who is dead.  It is the word used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew O.T. when describing Jacob’s grief when he heard Joseph was dead.   We ask, “Why would God bless us for crying, for tears, for being sorrowful?”  Again, this is counterintuitive.  I think the answer can be summed up in the motto of World Vision:  “Let your heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.”

Jesus is saying, Blessing comes when our hearts our broken by the things that break the heart of God.   

A sense of spiritual well-being, joyfulness, bliss if you will, comes to those whose hearts are broken by the things that break the heart of God. 

So I must ask this morning what are those things that break the heart of God?  I believe there are at least three things that break the heart of God.  The first is the suffering that exists in the world.

This can be suffering that you have experienced or that others experience.  Either way, you grieve, mourn, experience sadness for yourself or others going through suffering. 

Abraham Lincoln went into a severe period of grief in February 1862 when his 11-year-old son, Willie, died.

He found comfort in the words of Presbyterian preacher Reverend Phineas D. Gurley, whose church Lincoln attended but never joined. In the eulogy for Willie, Gurley preached that when tragedy comes, one must look to "him who sees the end from the beginning, and doeth all things well.  Lincoln asked Gurley for the words of the eulogy. They would become his life raft during his intense sorrow.

God comforted, came alongside Lincoln through the words of the pastor.  Tears and crying out seem to summon God to our side.  Parakalesontai, the Greek word for comfort means one called (kalesontai from the verb kaleo) para alongside to help. May I remind you that the writer of Hebrews tells us in 5:7 “During Jesus life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death and he was heard because of his reverent submission.” God responds to us as he did the Savior when we cry out to him.  And he sends his Comforter, the Holy Spirit to us.  Jesus told the disciples the night before he died that he would send another comforter, parakalesis, to help them and that would be the Holy Spirit.  God’s Spirit came alongside Lincoln through his pastor to help him, to comfort him in the midst of his suffering. 

Lincoln was grieving the death of his son, Willy.  He was inconsolable until he heard the pastor say, “One must look to him who sees the end from the beginning and doeth all things well.”  Lincoln was blessed by what he heard and he hung onto those words throughout his life. 

God usually sends his comfort through his spirit filled people.  And if they are truly filled with the Spirit, they will weep with you when you weep.  This is why we have Stephen Ministry and trained Stephen Ministers, who are to be like Christ to you.  Unlike Job’s friends who started out comforting Job but who later became persecutors, our Stephen ministers are trained to listen and be with you in the midst of your pain.  A divorce, a death, a job loss, a difficult relationship in your life is what they are trained to come alongside you and walk with you through whatever you are sad about. 

Psalm 34:18 tells us that “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”  Our Stephen ministers want to be with you when your heart is broken.  They know that they are only caregivers and God is the cure-giver. 

You may mourn over your own suffering or the suffering of others.  Whichever it is, you will be blessed because your heart is broken by the suffering in this world that breaks the heart of God.  One day there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain but until then, we are blessed when we mourn. 

This happened to me when I got a call from the police chaplain saying I had two funerals to do that week.  It was a Monday morning and I was at Einstein’s. My phone rang and Roy Frady gave me the news.  I didn’t really know those that had died.  As I went to the home of the bereaved, I didn’t know what to do or say.  I spent four hours there, weeping with those who wept.  When enough of the rest of the family showed up, I offered a simple prayer and left.  But I was blessed to mourn with them.  I had a keen insight into the heart of God.  After all, Jesus wept when he got to Lazarus’s tomb even though he knew he would raise him from the dead.  He still wept.

Most commentators state that Jesus wept not only because of his love for Mary, Martha and Lazarus but also, that death existed.  One day when God establishes the new heavens and new earth, there will be no more death, mourning crying or pain but until then we are blessed  when our hearts are broken by the things that break the heart of God.   

But Jesus also wept for those who didn’t know him as Lord and Savior.  We see this in Luke 19:41, 42 when Jesus came into Jerusalem and Matthew tells us, “’He wept over it’ and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.”  Those in Jerusalem, particularly the religious leaders did not recognize his coming.  Jesus knew judgment was coming for them and he wept. 

Do you and I weep over those who don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior?  Jesus did.  I can’t say I weep a lot over those who don’t know them.  I think the reality of Hell is such an overwhelming thing for most of us that it’s hard to think of people who don’t know Christ spending eternity in Hell.  So we avoid it and listen to those who tell us there are many ways to God and all roads lead to heaven.  God is a God of love and wouldn’t send anyone to Hell.  My bible and Jesus said something different.  Jesus said, if you didn’t have him, you didn’t have the father and that there was no other way to spend eternity with God but by him. 

I remember when my Uncle Karl was dying of prostrate cancer.  I had never shared Christ with him.  I became very upset.  I know I cried out to God about him and accepted my dalliance in sharing the gospel with him as wrong.  So I sent him an email with my testimony in it and my father read it to him.  The gospel was clear as a bell and I can only hope that he put his faith alone in Christ alone.  I know I experienced a blessing after I shared my testimony with him. 

Again, we are blessed when our hearts break with the things that break the heart of God. 

The last reason for mourning that leads to blessing is sin.  That’s right sin.  James tells us in chapter 4:8-10 to wash our hands, because we are sinners and purify our hearts, because we are double-minded. He tells us to grieve, mourn and wail over our sin and to   change our laughter to mourning and our joy to gloom.

Some say this is what Jesus meant by telling us blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.  But I think this is one aspect of the beatitude.  Certainly, if we are poor in spirit and understand we are spiritually bankrupt, we will be in touch with our sin.  Although God knows we are sinners, he still doesn’t like the break in our fellowship when we do sin and neither should we. 

Have you ever gotten in touch with how your sin affects your relationship with God and how he doesn’t want anything between you and him?  If you have, you will weep, you will mourn, you will cry over your sin as James tells us to.  David tells us in Psalm 51:17 that “God will not despise a broken spirit.” God usually shows us that through people that we submit our selves to for accountability.  Paul tells us in Galatians 6:1 that those who are spiritual should restore gently a brother or sister caught in a sin.  We are to carry one another’s burdens.  Paul doesn’t mean difficulties here.  He means we should bear one another’s burdens of sin so that the burden isn’t overwhelming. 

Have you ever had that privilege of restoring a brother or sister in Christ?  I pray that you might.  Clearly, if you will weep with someone who is weeping over their sin, you and they will be blessed.  I know that has happened to me as the one restoring a believer and the one being restored. 

We receive a blessing when our hearts are broken by the things that break the heart of God.  When we see as God sees we mourn over our and others’ suffering, over those souls who don’t know Christ and over sin in our lives and the lives of others. 

Richard Rohr put it beautifully when he said about this beatitude:

Jesus praises the weeping class, those who can enter into solidarity with the pain of the world and not try to extract themselves from it.  That is why the rich man can’t see the Kingdom.  The rich one spends life trying to make tears unnecessary and ultimately, impossible…. The weeping mode allows one to carry the dark side, to bear the pain of the world without looking for perpetrators or victims but instead recognizing the tragic reality that both sides are caught up in. Tears from God are always for everybody. 

But the good news is one day He will wipe every tear from our eyes.  Even if we don’t feel like we experience comfort here from God, we will one day.  When we see him, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 

But until then we are blessed when our hearts are broken by the things that break the heart of God.

And all God’s people said, Amen. 

USA Today article – happiness stuff –no  -- happiness – forgiveness. 

Now go and let your heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.  Go and be blessed and be a blessing.  Go in peace, go in love, go to serve, go to further God’s kingdom.  Amen and Amen.

Rev. Bruce R. Grentz, Senior Pastor