The Blessing of a Pure Heart

"Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God."

Matthew 5:8

Do you remember the joke I told a couple of weeks ago?  It was about a man who has fallen off a cliff.  There was a branch sticking out from the side of the mountain.  The man is holding on to that branch for dear life and crying for help.  “Help Me!  Help Me!  Is anyone up there?”  I’m here,” came a voice.  “Who are you?  Can you help me?”  It’s me!  It’s the Lord.  I’ll help you.  Just let go.” The man looks down at the valley floor far below him.  Looks back up a second time and cries out, “Is anyone else up there?”  I tell that story again because it is the perfect illustration of why this beatitude worries me.

“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God!”  This is what worries me about this beatitude What does it mean to be “pure in heart?”  The best answer to that question is given by King David in Psalm 24 “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.”  Do you see the problem?  First and foremost, a person with a pure heart is someone who puts His trust only in God.  He never puts his faith in a false god.  The man hanging from that branch does exactly the opposite.  He asks, “Is there anyone else up there?”  You and I too often ask the same question. What are the false gods you look to? Money? Hard work?  Popularity?  Staying young?  Things?  For me, one god in my life has been the desire to be liked?  If everyone would like me, then I would be happy.  Of course David doesn’t stop there. He adds that someone pure in heart is also someone with no deceit in his heart.  How’s that look for you?  How hard is it to admit when you were wrong, in particularly to someone you don’t like?  How many of us wear a mask, pretend to be happy… put on a show of being great Christians to hide the things that go on in secret?  Do any of us ever live a lie… let alone tell one?   That’s why this beatitude troubles me.  How can I… How can any of us ever hope to see God?  After all we are anything but pure in heart!

But then, it occurs to me,  how is it that David could write those words in Psalm 24.  Adulterer… murderer.. liar – even to God.   His hands weren’t clean.  His heart wasn’t pure.  The answer lies in the next verse of Psalm 24.  He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.  He will receive blessing from the Lord and mercy from the God of his salvation.  Two words that tell us that a pure heart is a gift of God – salvation and mercy.  David had received mercy.  When God finally stripped away the veil of lies… when David finally gave up his deceits and confessed his sin, God cleansed His heart.  Listen to David’s own words.  For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.  For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.”  Hiding his sin hid God from David’s eyes.  That is until, as David himself describes it,  “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.”  A pure heart is to be found in only one place – the purity of God’s forgiving heart.

That’s where we find it too.  For God has made known to us the purity of His heart and His love in Jesus Christ.  “This is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and gave His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”  God made His heart known to us His own Son took on flesh and blood, lived among us, died on the cross for our sins and rose again the third day.  IN Jesus we have beheld the purity of God’s love – full of grace and truth.  Then God made His pure heart known to you personally in baptism… when even though He knows all about your sin, He adopted you into His family anyway… makes His love known to you when at the Holy Supper He invites you to His table. . 

My friends, we will never see God by trying to white wash our sin… Hiding our sin from God, we end up hiding God from our eyes.  We will never see God by trusting in ourselves to make up for our wrongs… or by trusting in our ability to lie to ourselves or each other or even Him… That’s what David calls lifting up our soul to what is false… The Apostle John said it so well in his first epistle.   If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.   A pure heart is one that lifts up its sin to God in Jesus Christ and trusts alone in Him.  Such a heart,  made pure by God’s forgiveness,  will one day see God face to face.  Indeed, confessing your sins you will see Him right now - in the pure, loving, forgiving heart of Jesus. 

Now I get it.  “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God!”  Amen!