Matthew 5:1-12 “Happiness”

Because the Waimea pool has been closed recently, but the brown-water restriction around our coastal waters has been lifted, I have had to swim my laps for exercise in the ocean. This last week I was swimming, and I must say I was soooo happy to be back in the water again because the exercise I have been getting after the hurricane has been mostly lifting heavy branches and bending over to pick up broken glass. I believe there is nothing better for relieving back pain than swimming weightless in God’s wonderful ocean. After two weeks of not being able to have my swim therapy, I was so happy again. I am sure I was just smiling under the sea!

On that first day back in the ocean the other side of me when I finished my laps were five ladies from the Seattle area. I knew this because they were so loud (saying loudly), and you know how sound travels just over the water. It can be as loud as if you are standing right next to someone. I discovered that these strangers’ conversations were affecting me. They were making me sad. They were making me upset for the bad language being shared in public. Their unhappiness was becoming my unhappiness. What were they unhappy with, you may ask? I do not want to say because then you would be unhappy, too. I do not want to share their misery.

I recall learning in school that in the Middle Ages, “melancholy” was considered a real illness that could be communicated from one person to another. And, although there is not an “unhappy” germ or virus, it does seem to be a communicable disease. If you stand in a room full of unhappy people, you will also become unhappy unless you build up an immunity to unhappiness first. I will put forth the supposition today that the Beatitudes that we read from the Sermon on the Mount today are our inoculations against communicable melancholy–being affected by others’ unhappiness.

Conversely, if you were to come into a room of happy people, then you would start to pick up on that happiness, have it change you, and then communicate it out to others. We call this “church.” One goes to the market to buy food. One goes to the mechanic to fix the car. One goes to church to be blessed–to be happy again! “Joy to the World, the Lord Is Come!” The church is about bringing joy to the world.

Of course, I bring this to your attention because our text for today talks about happiness. Our pew Bibles tell us that “blessed are the poor in spirit”; however, this word “blessed” in the Greek (makarios) literally means “happy.” Perhaps your personal Bible will have the word “happy” rather than “blessed.” That translation of the word is becoming more popular today. We understand that if we are blessed, then we are probably happy. And, if we are happy, we are probably blessed.

In fact the only difference between these two words is a point of view. Have you ever noticed at funerals that people say: “He lived a blessed life.” But, we never ask in the present tense “Is he blessed?” We can look back in hindsight and see that God has blessed someone’s life. We just have trouble seeing it in the midst of our own daily lives.

“Blessed” is a “God-given happiness.” To be blessed means that God is working in your life, bringing on great blessings from heaven, even when you might be in an unhappy environment. I like to say that you have that immortal gladness of which we sing in our hymns of praise.

I need to bring out that in that day and age when Jesus was up on the mount preaching these words, people had a lot to be unhappy about. They were poor people. Many were living from hand to mouth, not knowing where the next meal was going to come from. They may have had only the clothes on their backs. So, Jesus was telling a people who had every right to be unhappy that they should be happy. This was the message from the Lord to them that they needed to hear.

As we look at this list from the Beatitudes we see these words “hungry, thirsty, and poor.” The promise is that we will be filled. We will be filled. We will have more than enough.

On this point of being filled with God’s happiness, I want to expand. You see, I believe in this world we are told over and over again by various people that we can be and ought to be happy if we buy a certain item, eat a certain food, go to a certain bar, gamble at a certain casino, or whatever one is trying to sell.

My life gets filled with joy when I listen to the Word of God. When I focus on Jesus and His ministry I am not just filled with happiness, but I am more than filled. It is as the Psalmist states in Psalm 23: “My cup runneth over.”

During and after the hurricane while power was out, we were running a generator–like so many other people. The question was every night “How much fuel to put into the generator?” I was not sure if I could get more fuel later if I needed it, so like everybody else, I rationally rationed out how much fuel we would need to charge phones and keep the food from spoiling and tipped just that much into the fuel tank.

Right in the middle of the movie you are watching, you hear the generator in the background begin to make that whomping noise just before it dies out for lack of fuel. “Whomp, whomp” and all goes dark. So, we want to watch the movie to the end, so I go out and add a quart of gasoline! The movie ends, “whomp, whomp” the generator goes to sleep, and so do we all go off by flashlight to sleep.

We cannot be living our lives like that! God fills us with happiness that is always full. We should not be feeling like we are under-fueled and about to end in the middle of the movie! Jesus says the word “happy” over and over again–this to highlight the abundance of the blessings of happiness over our lives when we have faith.

I have mentioned the Toronto Experience before, so I am reminding all of you about what happened once in a church in Toronto, Canada. The preacher was in prayer when all of the sudden he was overtaken in a spirit of laughter. He could not stop himself. Soon, the entire church was laughing along with him. When others heard about this laughing church, they came to experience this manifestation of the Spirit. They ended up taken this laughing in worship back to their own churches that also started laughing. Soon there were many laughing churches, that we call now “Toronto Experience Churches.” That was the joy of the Lord, the immortal gladness of heaven, touching people’s hearts.

All of you may be trying to remember back as to whether we ever laughed in church. Hmmm. We have groaned a few times at the Pastor’s horrible puns that really were not funny. But, have we ever really been fully filled with the joy of the Lord? Actually I know we have been. . . .I just want you all to think about it though.

The Beatitudes tell us that we have to be filled with this immortal gladness even when we otherwise don’t feel like it. Even when we are hungry, thirsty, poor, in mourning, you name it; we should have this joy from God in our hearts. That is actually a pretty tall order for us. There are those times when we will feel sad and unable to laugh. I believe, the joy of the Lord is such that when you plunge the depths of your own emotions you can always find that joy.

I recall when my father passed away, and after the funeral we gathered back at my mother’s house and sat around the dining table. The entire family was there of course. Even my father’s brother from Germany had flown in for the services. As we were there gathered, we started telling stories of my father, some of which may have been in poor taste considering the circumstances. We all started laughing. We could not help ourselves. WE laughed to the point of having tears rolling down our cheeks and then collectively realized that we were crying and grieving together while laughing.

That is the choice that I want you to consider for your lives this day: Are you going to shed tears out of anguish of a life unfulfilled, or are you going to shed tears of immortal gladness for the blessings that God sheds upon your days? Are you going to try to fill up your life yourself with things of vanity that do not matter in the end, or are you going after that full share of God’s grace that leaves you happy even though you might be suffering in this life?

Choose to be filled this day with the happiness that Jesus offers.

Amen.