Our reading opens up today, with Jesus opening His mouth.

In order to preach, you have to open your mouth, obviously. As I began just a second ago, I had to open my mouth. That doesn't seem like any big deal, because I've been opening my mouth quite a bit already this morning. But this is a new thing. This is a new mouth. God is speaking directly through His own mouth. He speaks to us now, yes, but here is using His own vocal cords, His own tongue, His own teeth to form the words that came out of His mouth.

And this is what this makes it so dramatic. This is Jesus' first sermon. His first words to the public. He opens His mouth, and what the first thing to comes out of it? What would we expect from a God, who has revealed Himself to be a God of love? Words of blessing, of Gospel. "Blessed." He describes those who are blessed. He describes His people. He describes you, His baptized people, His people clothed in His righteousness. He describes Himself. He describes you and Himself with the same words. "Poor in spirit, mourning, meek, hungering and thirsting for righteousness."

Without looking at this list, and trying to figure out which one applies to you, realize this: This description He speaks isn't always what you see in yourself. In fact it is rarely what you see in yourself. If we do think we see it, we need the Holy Spirit to use His Law to open our eyes so we can clearly see what we really are.

I can only look at myself, but I feel like I rarely see myself poor in spirit. I don't always hunger and thirst for righteousness. My sin doesn't bother me so badly that I mourn over it. With a voice like mine, I seem like I am anything but meek. I am not usually in the center of where peace is being made. If only I really were pure in heart or merciful. So, I can't see these things in myself. Even if I thought I did see glimpses of it in myself, it still wouldn't really count. It's not what I see or what you see. What you or I do or see in each other, doesn't really count. What counts--what counts--is what our Heavenly Father sees. We need Him to see this when He looks at us, or we can't approach Him. We can't even consider ourselves His children.

We frequently come up short when we talk about approaching our holy God. We talk about forgiveness, and we should--but that's only half of it. God forgives us in Jesus Christ. But, if that is all, we still couldn't approach Him. We may be forgiven, but we still are not pure. The debt of our sin may not be held against it, but we still don't have holiness. Our debt would be paid, but we still couldn't get in.

Think of it like this. Let's say that a fancy party was being held but the cost of it was higher than you could afford. You want to be there, because this is the place to be, but you have two things holding you back. One, you can't afford to buy a ticket to get in. Two, at the same time the party is being held, you have to do community service for a crime you committed. Two strikes against you. Now, let's say someone has pity on you and says that he will do the community service for you. Great! Now you can go to the party...or can you? You still can't afford to get in. You still need a ticket. Is someone going to give you a ticket?

Now, look at it in terms of God's work of salvation. Our debt is paid. Jesus' death was our debt for our sin. He paid it. Now we are free to go, but we still can't get in, because we are not sinless. Our debt is paid, but we are still sinners, we still are not holy, and our Father can see that.

He must make us holy or at least see us as holy. He covers us in Christ. When we were baptized, we were dressed in Christ. We were robed in His righteousness. St. Paul talks about how our lives are hidden with Christ in his letter to the Christians in the city of Colossae. One of the parables, Jesus tells us about a marriage feast where a man tries to get in without the wedding gown that had been given to him. He gets thrown out. To a different group of Christians, St. Paul speaks about how we have put on Christ. This gown is our ticket for admission into the presence of a holy God. To be His children, to be loved by Him, to be truly accepted by Him, He must not see our sin. He hides our sin by covering us.

Covered by Jesus' righteousness, He is all our Father sees and His description becomes ours. The opening words of His sermon are repeated to generation after generation of Christians and apply to generation after generation of Christians. It serves as the description of all the saints, all those in Christ. It is a description of you. Your Father says, "Be Holy," and because of what He has done, you can say, "No problem."

Oh, it would be a problem if we had to be holy on our own, but we don't. Jesus is holy for us. We can stand before our Father, without any shame, because we stand there with Christ covering us. You can stand there, even in His fully glory and not flinch simply because you have been dressed in Christ.

That might be hard to do if we were to actually see Him in His holiness. Can you imagine what it would be like if we were to see Him in all His majestic glory? We'd see Him on His throne, with angels flying all over, and everyone bending down and praising Him. I don't think we would be too inclined to go up and nonchalantly say, "Hey God. How's it going?" like He was an old friend. Instead, we probably wouldn't say anything other than what everyone else is saying. We would take our place, bending down, or maybe we might even run from the scene because we felt unworthy.

As we approach the altar, even here, if we were to think about what we were doing, knowing what we see in ourselves, we would likely flinch. We would question whether we really were safe. But His Word tells us we are safe. We have been declared holy. We are dressed in Christ. Without Him, don't even think about it, but with Christ, baptized in Him, dressed in Him, we are safe.

It must have been something to have been there when Jesus was preaching, to hear His words, but I imagine many of them didn't realize what He was saying. That was different for the people to first hear from Matthew's book. It was written to those who may have been there when Jesus preached it--because He wrote it only about 20 years after Jesus had ascended--but this time there was more people to hear it. Furthermore, Matthew was able to explain what Jesus had meant. When he preached he would have said, "This is you. This is your description, because it is a description of Jesus."

Eventually Matthew died, but not this message. As an apostle he had ordained other men to be pastors, and they would preach the same thing. They would be speaking to different people, but they would still say the same thing. "God in His grace, because of your baptism, sees you this way."

Another generation takes the place of the earlier one, and the Christian Church develops. The ways of worship from the Old Testament is adapted, and yet remain somewhat recognizable. But the same point is made--one thing stays the same--you are seen as holy because you are dressed in Christ. The forms of worship are in flux for a while and then become set. Christians from one country, learn what Christians from another country are doing as they worship and then they adopt it. Creeds, songs, orders of worship develop and are then adopted by one generation after another, because they faithfully deliver God's gifts to His children.

The first 300 years, Christianity was illegal. Imagine what their worship was like. They had to worship late at night and wee early hours of the morning so they wouldn't be detected in secret places, hoping no one would give them away, much like brothers and sisters in other parts of the world do now. All the while, false teachers suggest alternative teachings to what Jesus had given the apostles, threatening the comfort God wanted His people to have. Leaders got together and hammered out the proper understanding to exclude any false ideas, and these clarifications found their way into the people's worship.

This struggle continued and continues throughout the ages. False teachers would threaten the comfort delivered in worship, and God would raise up other teachers to restore the proper teachings. God could not leave His people without comfort. They needed to know His grace.

The countries change, the languages change, the music changes, even sometimes the words so that it remains the language of the people, from one generation to another of Christians, but one thing stays the same--the comfort that comes from knowing their description before God because of Jesus righteousness given to them. They could be like us and say, "I stand before my Father, righteous and without sin because of Jesus Christ."

Even today, we use many of those things that were adapted in those early years. We sing songs very similar to what our Christian ancestors have sung for 1500 years or more. We use orders of worship that have changed somewhat, but still keep the basic shape, and the basic emphases. Our other practices support this one basic idea: Worship is God coming and giving His gifts of life and forgiveness, giving us the comfort of knowing we are accepted by Him, not only because we are forgiven in Jesus, but also because we are seen as holy in Jesus.

By keeping these practices, these forms, these songs, and of course updating them so they are in our language, we not only keep those things which faithfully deliver the gifts, but we show our connection with all those generations who endured those struggles but have now gone on before us. We connect not only with Grandma and Grandpa, but great and great, great. We connect with other Christians around the world, who we will never meet. We connect with Christians from the early 20th century and the 19th. We connect with the great reformers of the 16th century plus the unknown members of their congregations. We connect with the faithful ones who maintained the faith while the Roman church was unfaithful. We connect with people whose names we might know if we knew church history. We connect with those we do know from the New Testament. We connect with those whose names we know from the Old Testament, all the way back to Adam and Eve.

We show our connection with them as we worship like them--but not only like them--but also with them. They have gone on before us, but now they meet us as we all gather at the table of the Lamb, and participate in the great heavenly feast, the Lord's Supper.

And the one thing that all of us at that table would have in common--everyone would be described in the same way, because we are all dressed in Christ. All of them, from Adam and Eve all the way up to the youngest baptized infant among us, fit the description Jesus gave when He opened His mouth and gave His words of blessing there on the mountain.

AMEN