Beatitude of Brokenness

Intro:

(Luke) 20 “Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of heaven is yours. 21 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst, because you will be filled.” (Matt) 4 “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will be comforted.” (Luke) 22 “Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you, insult you, and slander your name as evil because of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy. Take note—your reward is great in heaven, for this is the way their ancestors used to treat the prophets.”

This, of course, followed by a discourse about loving your enemies; this is how Jesus began his ministry, as recorded by Matthew.

This word affirms a state of blessing that already exists. Each beatitude declaring how a group of people usually regarded as afflicted are actually blessed. Implying that those blessed don’t have to do anything to attain this blessing, Jesus declares that they have already been blessed simply by finding themselves in an affliction they would likely much rather not have. The Beatitudes are not conditions of salvation or roadmaps by which one merits entry to God’s kingdom but declarations of God’s grace.

I think Jesus is inviting those who belong to each blessed group to experience God’s grace because the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.

Consider the blessing to those who mourn. We don’t usually think of mourning as a blessing. It is a predicament. But with the coming of the kingdom of heaven, mourning becomes a blessing because the mourners “will be comforted.” The implication is that God himself will do the comforting. The affliction of mourning becomes the blessing of a profound relationship with God.

Transition:

Let me take this opportunity to assure you that I am well aware we are working our way through a series in Ecclesiastes. You see, the author has attributed “meaningless” or “futile” to just about all human existence. We could also describe this as brokenness—something is broken when it doesn’t work right. When it comes to brokenness in this world, we need to realize two things. Sometimes we are broken because of our sin, and sometimes we are broken because we live in a fallen, broken world.

Illustration:

I remember living as a bachelor, young in my marriage when my wife and I were still dual military; after my wife had deployed, I was hungry and decided to cook a frozen pizza. I read, cook for 20 minutes at 375o—naturally, I believed this to open for interpretation—and so I put the poor, doomed meal in at 425o for 10 minutes. In my defense, it was only 50oextra, and for half the time! I ate takeout that night, but not before grieving the loss of my highly anticipated favorite slice of comfort food, cleaning the oven, and airing out the house. I had departed from the manufacturer’s instructions.

Application:

Ecclesiastes makes something abundantly clear: all of humanity—including each and every one of us—has sinned, departing from God’s design for the world. When we rebel against our design, we end up broken. We know this to be true experientially, and of course, anytime we attempt to use something in a way that its manufacturer didn’t intend for it to be used—or cooked—it gets broken, or burnt, or doesn’t work.

Point 1:

God has a design for everything. That’s the point where we encounter the blessing. In my experience, it’s really hard to encounter God in a meaningful way when I’m not aware of my need for him. If I had tasted the cheesy deliciousness and the savory goodness that would have been my Digiorno’s Deep Dish Crispy Pan-Crust Pepperoni Pizza, I wouldn’t have been bummed. Quite the opposite, in fact. We see this sentiment in verse 3; some of your translations word it differently. The NIV reads: “because a sad face is good for the heart.”

It was through my mourning that I was made aware of my need. Not my need for sustenance, that was made aware to me by my empty belly. Still, my longing—long after the void wasn’t filled with the unfulfilling replacement meal—the comfort left unprovided in the wake of what would have been my comfort meal. God has a design for everything. Even through adversity, it is the illumination of our need through the value placed on the need made known through that awareness by which we are blessed.

Consider the response Jesus gave the Pharisees when (Matt) 11“they asked his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and `sinners’?” …so, he replied, 12“it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” Of course, we know the Pharisees were sick too, but it’s about the awareness we are privy to through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. God has a design for everything.

Transition:

Sometimes we are broken because of our own sin, and perhaps God assigns intervention to reveal some of our needs, but sometimes our brokenness is due to the sin done against us. For example, if you are hurt by someone else, then that is someone sinning against and breaking you. Still, other times, our brokenness is simply due to the fact that we live in a broken and fallen world.

Ecclesiastes points this out repeatedly in chapter seven, things don’t work the way we think they should. In verse 15, for instance, the righteous suffer while the wicked prosper. Time and time again, in the wisdom literature, we see concession that things don’t always work out as they should. Proverbs also recognizes these discrepancies and points them out, but Ecclesiastes seems to dwell on them more.

Exposition:

And the New Testament continues this theme. Jesus calls those who suffer “blessed,” as I listed at the beginning, but he provides a different reason from our beloved Old Testament teacher. Jesus tends to point to the future that awaits. Paul echoes this thought, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18–19). Elsewhere, “we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal” (2 Cor 4:16–18).

Similarly, Peter encourages suffering Christians, “rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed” (1 Pet 4:13). And John proclaims the good news, “’blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them’ ” (Rev 14:13–14).

In James, chapter 1, verses 2–5, “My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.”

Application:

Looking again at our series passage, in verses 1-12, our teacher discerns some relative good in events we usually think of as bad: death, sorrow, mourning, rebuke, and adversity, which we hear echoed in Jesus’ teachings. Solomon shares the intent he had meant to communicate through Ecclesiastes in chapter 12, verse 11, saying it was meant to shepherd us, exposing the brokenness of the world—a brokenness that can only beget brokenness and bring emptiness. Thus, in my introduction of the series in chapter one, I described the book with a quote describing it as “the most staggering messianic prophecy to appear in the Old Testament.”

As we saw in Ecclesiastes 3, God’s plan for our lives includes both prosperity and adversity. They’re mixed together to bring about something beautiful, even though we cannot see what that is right now from our vantage on earth and in time, so we trust God.

Illustration:

In Superman Returns, Lois Lane tells Clark Kent, “The world doesn’t need a savior.” And maybe she was like the Pharisees, un-needing of the doctor’s touch, unaware of her own brokenness. Thankfully, it really was to her good fortune that Clark was indeed Superman.

In Job chapter 40, God replies from a whirlwind to the now 39 chapters of back and forth and asserting his innocence. He was virtually without reply—I say virtually because if you fact-check me, he literally said, “I have nothing to say”—but the remarkable thing captured by the author is that he covers his mouth. Now we’re unsure if it was because of the dust storm or if he was attempting to eat his own words, stuff them back in, or prevent further dumb things from falling out. But what is clear is that he gained an immediate appreciation for the complexity, enormity, and entirety of God’s role in perspective to his woes; mind you, he lost all of his worldly possessions, his children died, and his health deteriorated.

Point 2:

The only thing I think we can compare that to is: in our temptation to blame God or defend our own righteousness, is if God showed up in a whirlwind or a portal through time and we were able to witness the passion, the hanging of Jesus on the cross for our sin. Sin leads to brokenness and meaninglessness, but also that it is not where God leaves us. The author plays some devil’s advocate and shows us that reality, but he says, and in a minute we’ll get there, certainly, that’s not where our Bible stops; the Gospel is the answer to our brokenness and meaninglessness.

So, whereas the first point was that God has a design for everything,even adversity in its relation to our awareness of our need, the second point is two-fold. First, that sin leads to brokenness and meaninglessness. And second, the Gospel is the answer to our brokenness and meaninglessness. Verse 13, “Consider the work of God, for who can straighten out what He has made crooked?”

Transition:

In the second half of the chapter, the author changes his tone a bit. He goes from a more poetic, proverb-type of list of sayings to prose or a more discourse-like style, offering his own input. We have to recognize our Scriptures weren’t written cover to cover. There are different genres, much like variety in any Barnes & Noble today, there are different sections. The key thing to recognize is that our author is applying a technique; he’s doing something here. As I mentioned in my chapter 3 sermon, the author proposes things for consideration so that the reader comes to his intended conclusion. He does this M. Night Shyamalan thing where he kind of writes himself into the pages, while preserving the sense of being removed as the narrator, its altogether confusing to me as I explain it, but as Tim Mackey, a theologian and co-founder of The BibleProject explains it, the teacher is a character in the book and is different from the book’s author, who remains anonymous.

So, we do hear the teacher’s voice for most of the book, but it’s actually a different voice. The author who introduces us to the teacher in the first sentence and then at the end concludes, in chapter 12, by summarizing and evaluating everything the teacher just said. The author is someone who wants us to hear all that the teacher has to say and then help us process it and form our own conclusion. That’s what’s going on in the second half of this chapter, verses 14-29.

Exposition:

So, what does the teacher have to say? Well, the author summarizes the teacher’s basic message in the opening passage of chapter 1, and again here in a different way by avoiding extremes; it’s hevel, hevel everything is utterly hevel. Now, most English bibles translate this word, hevel, as meaningless, but that doesn’t quite capture the heart of the idea. In Hebrew, hevel literally means vapor or smoke. And the teacher uses this word 38 times throughout Ecclesiastes as a metaphor to describe how life is, first of all, temporary or fleeting, like a wisp of smoke.

But secondly, also how life is an enigma or a paradox like smoke. It appears solid, but when you try and grab onto it, there’s nothing there. Essentially, there’s so much beauty or goodness in the world, but just when you’re enjoying it, tragedy strikes, and it all seems to blow away. Or, we all have a strong sense of justice, but all of the time, bad things happen to good people. So, life is constantly unpredictable. It’s unstable. In the teacher’s words, like chasing after the wind; hevel. Now that’s kind of a downer. So, why is he saying all of this? The author’s basic goal is to target all of the ways that we try to build meaning and purpose in our lives apart from God. And he lets the teacher deconstruct these. So, the author thinks we spend most of our time investing energy and emotion in things that ultimately have no lasting meaning or significance. And he lets the teacher give us a hard lesson in reality.

The author then warns us that you can actually take the teacher’s words too far, and you could spend your whole life buried in books trying to answer life’s existential puzzles. Don’t try, he says, you’ll never get there. “Don’t be excessively righteous, and don’t be overly wise,” we read in verse 16; at best, you’re missing God’s gift of a meaningful life in living it abundantly. At worst, you’re being legalistic.

Transition:

My final point, and I believe it was the point of the author too, though it’s hard to grasp at the time of his writing; the other side of the cross, that is—that he knew how profound it was. In the words and perhaps the sentiments too of Carly Rae Jepsen’s 2012 hit Call Me Maybe, “before you came into my life, I missed you so bad.” Good luck getting that earworm out of your head! Jesus literally stated in John 10:10 as the point of his coming, “I have come so that they (we) may have life and have it in abundance. Let us look at our text:

Scripture:

23 I have tested all this by wisdom. I resolved, “I will be wise,” but it was beyond me. 24 What exists is beyond reach and very deep. Who can discover it? 25 I turned my thoughts to know, explore, and examine wisdom and an explanation for things and to know that wickedness is stupidity and folly is madness.

Exposition:

The prologue to the Gospel of John cites the presence of the Logos, the Greek word for ‘word’ in the creation narrative. (John 1:1) “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Now, it’s not clear which translation of Scriptures John cited; nevertheless, the Aramaic translation observed a tradition that substituted the Hebrew equivalent of Logos, Hokmah, for Memra. This is significant, not only because it’s Aramaic and quite possibly the original, having existed for at least a century before the Gospel’s authorship, but also in the fact that Memrawas used when attempting to avoid an anthropomorphism, a sort of ambiguity or confusion caused by attributing human-like qualities in an inanimate thing. The presence of this substitution shows that the Wisdom of the Lord was personified and understood as a creating partner. This is consistent with some of Solomon’s contributions within the Psalms and Proverbs. And the similarities are uncanny. While I appreciate your entertaining my monologue, they show up in ways anyone can see; just look at the first passage (Ecc 7:1a) “A good name is better than fine perfume.” That’s Proverbs 22:1 “A good name is to be chosen over great wealth.” It’s also part of the author’s point: the thoughts of those who came before are forgotten by those who follow.

Point 3:

The takeaway is having life and living it in abundance. The Gospel allows us to recover and pursue God’s wise design.

Summary/challenge:

So how do we do that? I think the answer is tied to the first point, our awareness of our need for Christ and the likeness for which we were created. Having life abundantly is having fulfillment—one of the ends of Greek philosophy actually sought what is good, right, and worthy of pursuit in life. They called it eudaimonia, meaning happiness or welfare. This is along the lines of Solomon’s thought and not simply hedonism or a giving of ourselves to pleasure.

One way this was proposed was by mastering self or self-knowledge. Emotional intelligence is a central theme in today’s approach to mental health in youth. We have a generation who have not benefitted from the message of Mr. Rogers. Perhaps many of you here today feel you are only allowed to feel about 2 or 3 feelings and are denying the very likeness to whom we were created. Depriving oneself of the natural coping mechanism with which we were imbued render’s one unable to discern the need they communicate. When we are unaware of our needs, we miss one another, and we miss Jesus.

Empathy is seeing one another in the way and manner in which God intended—but empathy requires identifying with; seeing one’s self in or the quality of another’s pain and resonating with it, acknowledging it, joining it to a time in our own story through which we can comprehend the emotion felt by the other because that is the likeness in which we were both created, and how we see one another in the manner through which God intended.

Close:

1. God has a design for everything.

2. Sin leads to brokenness and meaninglessness—the Gospel is the answer to our brokenness and meaninglessness.

3. The Gospel allows us to recover and pursue God’s wise design.

A Benediction From the words of Pope Francis:

“Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others and forgive them from their heart.

Blessed are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalized and show them their closeness.

Blessed are those who see God in every person and strive to make others also discover him.

Blessed are those who protect and care for our common home.

Blessed are those who renounce their own comfort in order to help others.

Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians.

All these are messengers of God’s mercy and tenderness. Surely they will receive from Him their merited reward.”

And in the words of the Apostle Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians (9:8) “and God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” Go in peace my friends.