Heaven Meets the Ground

Luke 6:17-26

Luke 6:17–26 NRSV

17 He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. 18 They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. 20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. 24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

This is the word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

I. Introduction

A woman once told a story about the hardest day of her life — the day she stood by the graveside of her mother.

She talked about how people were kind.

They said all the cliche things : “She’s in a better place.”

“She’s not suffering anymore.”

And for a moment, those words were comforting.

But when she went home that evening, the house felt different.

The silence had weight to it.

The chair by the window where her mother used to sit was empty.

She said, “I sat on the edge of my bed that night and whispered, ‘Lord, where are You in this?’”

And then she said something that sticks with me.

She said, “I didn’t hear a voice, and I didn’t see a light — but I felt a presence. Not up there somewhere, but right beside me. Like Jesus came and sat down in the empty space.”

This must’ve been how the people listening to Jesus preach must’ve felt.

As they have come and brought all of their needs to Jesus.

They have heard about how he has healed the sick.

They have heard about him giving sight to the blind.

They have heard about the turning water into wine.

They have heard about all that Jesus has done for others and seek to experience their own healing moment.

Many in the crowd grieve the loss of a loved one or grieve their challenges in life and Jesus recognizes this.

He sees a broken people.

A people who are indeed in need of God and he recognizes that he is the only one that fill that need.

He begins to preach a sermon, known as the sermon on the plain.

This is not to be confused with Matthew’s famous account of the sermon on the Mount.

But those words that Jesus shared on the mount are very similar to what he said on the plain.

Luke 6:17–26 NRSV

20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

Those words by Jesus are beautiful aren’t they.

He is reminding the people listening to him that they indeed do matter to God and that they do have a place in God’s kingdom.

These words spoken by Jesus are perhaps some of the most profound words of his in all of Scripture.

This sermon is one we think about often and one that is appropriate for a day like today.

However, if I may, I would like to challenge our thinking about this text on today, particularly as we celebrate the saints and deal with our own grief as we know that they aren’t physically here with us.

What if we’re missing something else that Jesus is trying to convey in this text?

What if there is a detail within this text that we either miss or find insignificant we aren’t focused on the entirety of the narrative.

There was something that Jesus did in this text and what Jesus did, conveyed a little bit more than what he said.

And I guarantee you, those who were listening to this sermon noticed it.

I can remember taking a class at Asbury that was required and this class was known as The Theology of Homiletics.

That’s just a fancy way of saying the Theology of Preaching.

But I remember my professor, Dr. Jeffrey Frymire saying, when you preach, people pay a lot more attention to your non verbal communication than anything.

Where you stand.

Your body movement.

Your eye contact

Your posture

Your distance from the congregation

Now, I believe it may have been Brother Art or Bro Kelly who moved the lectern and the pulpit down to the floor and created a new chancel area.

And I think they did it because the congregation was smaller and their preaching and their interaction to be more intimate.

The further away you are from your congregation while preaching, the less intimate it feels.

The greater the distance between the preacher and listener, the less connected the listener feels to the preacher and vice versa. Hence why preachers typically make eye contact no more than five rows back.

But, I believe that Luke understood this concept because he mentions something in verse 17 and to me this detail tells me all I need to know about what it is that Jesus is trying to convey without reading any further.

Let’s take a look at verse 17 and I love how the NASB words its:

“Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place; and there was a large crowd of His disciples, and a great throng of people.”

And there it is, Jesus came down with them and stood on a level.

Not on the mountain where only a few could reach Him.

Not behind temple walls or thrones of power.

But on level ground — among the sick, the poor, the hungry, the broken, and the overlooked. Heaven has essentially come to earth through Jesus.

And that truth informs us today.

This truth in Luke 6 reminds us that Jesus comes down and meets us on level ground.

And we know it to be true because as John says in John 1:1-8

John 1:1–8 NRSV

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

John goes on to say, in John 1:14

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

This image of Jesus “coming down” is the heart of the incarnation itself.

It points us to a God who knows our hurts.

He knows our pain and he has experienced the brokenness of this world.

He has experienced temptation.

He has experienced hunger.

He has experienced exhaustion.

He has grieved the loss of a loved one ad even he wept.

Jesus knows our every struggle because he came down in the form of a baby. He dwelled among us in human flesh and experienced every emotion that you and I will ever feel.

This is why I am confident in saying, Jesus knows what we are going through.

Not only does Jesus know, but he’s there with us in our pain, in our grief, and in our sorrow.

We are never alone in our sadness and grief.

God does not remain distant.

In Christ, God comes down — into our neighborhoods, our homes, our grief, our joy, our sickness, and our struggle.

He doesn’t stay on the mountain while we mourn in the valley. He comes down to the place of pain, grief, the place of hunger, the place of tears — and He blesses us there.

And maybe that’s what makes the saints we remember today so special. They were people who, in their own way, helped us feel that same presence.

They didn’t always have fancy words, but they had a faith that sat beside us in silence. They had a love that didn’t hover above us, but came down to walk beside us — just like Jesus.

All Saints Sunday reminds us of those who lived that same truth. The saints were not perfect people on a pedestal. They were ordinary believers who met people where they were — who prayed for us, taught us, comforted us, and stood beside us on level ground.

Just like Jesus, they came down to meet others — in kitchens, in hospital rooms, in choir lofts, in Sunday school classrooms, in neighborhoods where hope seemed thin. And now, having fought the good fight, they rest in God’s presence. But their faith still stands beside us.

We don’t just remember the saints — we continue their work.

We keep standing on level ground with the poor, the hurting, the forgotten.

We bless others in the name of Christ because the saints showed us how.

For the grieving: Jesus meets you right where you are. Even in your tears, He blesses you.

For the weary: You don’t have to climb up to God. God has already come down to you.

For the church: The best way to honor the saints is to live like them — not reaching for spiritual superiority, but humbly walking among the people as Christ did.

You remember that woman I told you about at the beginning of the message — the one who sat in her room the night after her mother’s funeral, staring at that empty chair?

She told another story a few months later, she still couldn’t bring herself to move it.

She’d dust around it, walk past it, sometimes even whisper a little prayer as she passed by.

But one morning, she said she sat down in that chair for the first time. And instead of feeling only absence, she felt peace. She said, “It was like the Lord whispered, ‘I’ve been sitting here all along. I never left.’”

Friends, that’s what this day is about. The saints we celebrate today may no longer sit in the chairs they once filled, but the Spirit that lived in them still fills the room.

The same Jesus who came down and stood on level ground is still sitting beside us in our grief, still standing with us in our hunger, still blessing us in our tears.

When heaven meets the ground — it looks like that. It looks like the Savior who comes down. It looks like the saints who loved us through it. And it looks like us, now carrying that same love into the world.

So don’t be afraid of the empty chairs. Don’t be afraid of the level ground. Because that’s where Jesus still meets us — and where heaven still touches the earth.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen