Blessed are the pure in heart
How are you finding this ‘mask-wearing’ thing? Have you got your favourite? It’s now the law to wear a mask in enclosed public spaces, like a shop, cinema, or a church building. So, for the foreseeable future, if your entering our church building, you’ll need to wear a mask. Yes, you medics have always been wearing masks but, for us mere mortals, we’re still getting used to them. Today, we’re wearing face-coverings, not because they protect us from OTHERS, but because they protect others from US.
Another group that have long used masks are actors. Theatre, film and TV have become hugely sophisticated. Today, CGI can make you into anything. But, back in the day, actors relied on simple masks – often on a stick – to convince their audiences they were something or someone different to who they actually were. I don’t suppose too many were taken in by their cunning disguises.
The Greek word for ‘play acting’ – people who are pretending to be something thing are not – is the word we get hypocrite and hypocrisy from.
Even when I take this mask off, let’s be honest, most of us have, at times, worn masks to make others think we are something or someone different to who we actually are. 
Faced with a super-confident bunch of colleagues, who hasn’t put on a mask and pretended to be super-confident too? Or, when surrounded by Insanely Happy People, if we are feeling low, dreadful, who hasn’t reached for an Invisible Mask and pretended, just for a an hour or so, that life is great? Then there are those who use masks to make themselves appear more superior to others.
Maybe you know someone who wears an invisible mask - and you see right through it. You see their hypocrisy. Or maybe, it’s you that wears a mask – at least in certain work, social, or even church settings. You don’t want others to see the ‘real you’.
2,000 years ago the Religious Elite routinely wore masks. Deep down, they were just like everyone else – except they had a bigger Box of Masks.
They had a “I’m Deep in Prayer” mask – with that fixed yet earnest look. Or a “I’m So Spiritual I’ve Been Fasting For Days” mask - even though they’d just been eating. Then there was the more general Halo-Effect Mask
All these masks were used to project religious superiority – religious power, religious nonsense. The Religious Elite were convinced. And at times, so was everyone else. 
But not Jesus. He could see right through them. You hypocrites, he called them. Jesus meek and mild, called them out for what they were – hypocrites, Play Actors, those who pretended to be something they are not. They were hypocrites because they said one thing but did another. 
The Religious Elite projected, ‘Blessed are the two-faced for they control who has access to God.’ Jesus, on the other hand, came saying, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.”  But what did He mean?
Jesus wasn’t saying Blessed are those who follow a narrow set of religious rules and regulations. Pure here wasn’t so much about a moral code.
Following Christ must have been heck of an adventure. Never a dull moment. Full of surprises. People accused Jesus of all sorts, but never of being dull. So, what happened? How did that vivacious life and spiritual freedom revert back into a list of do’s, but mainly, don’ts? Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t have sex, don’t…. blah, blah, blah. We’ve missed the point if we think Christianity is about following a moral code; a set of Victorian-era values or social rules, where the upright and pure are prim, proper, polite, posh.
“Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God” then becomes, if you keep yourself pure, then God will bless you.  As if God will only bless you if you prove you deserve it. The problem with this is that it has no need of grace, mercy or anything to do with God. It doesn’t really matter that Jesus lived, died or rose. All that matters is that you live – or at least, pretend to live – a pure life. It becomes blessed are the self-righteous, the smug… 
So, what does it mean to be PURE? 
It’s the difference between a blended whisky and a single malt whisky. Or a blended wine that masks the content with a jazzy label, and a wine from a single vineyard.
I like tea
I love coffee
I hate Cofftea – a blend of coffee and tea mixed together. Somethings just don’t mix
To be ‘pure’ is to be single-source, not mixed with other stuff. To be ‘pure’ in relation to God, is to be single-source, filled with God, focused on Him alone, not God plus whatever else is mixed. 
Blessed are those whose heart is not divided, who aren’t faking this God-life.  They may not get it all right, but at least their heart is in the right place.
Excuse me [clean glasses] My glasses were dirty, from all the dust of activity, I couldn’t see so well. I can see so much better when I take time to clean them. Imagine how little I’d see if I tried to put on a number of glasses at once.
That’s why Jesus said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will SEE better – see God and all He is doing. His activity all around us.
That was shocking to the Pharisees. They taught God was like Holy Fire, who burns up all impurities. For them, God was remote, distant, totally separate from His creation – us. You could / should revere God, fear the Lord. Or He’ll get you.
In Old Testament times, there was an assumption that we could make ourselves pure by following certain rules and regulations. Just look at the book of Leviticus.
No cross-breeding animals, so no Cav-a-Poos, Cock-a-Poos…
No getting a tattoo or your eyebrows shaped.
“Who can ascend the hill of the Lord or stand in His holy place? Those with clean hands and a pure heart.”
That excluded just about everyone.
Jesus came saying, if you’ve messed up, God is on your side. He’s here and wants you to know Him. Blessed are you who don’t fake it or pretend with God. YOU – not these play-acting Pharisees, hypocrites – will see God.
Through Jesus, we are adopted into God’s family. And family is the place where we least have to pretend. Take off your masks – we’re family. You’re home now. In Christ, you are a child of God, adopted into His family.
It’s not about how holy and acceptable you and I are. 
It’s all about how holy and acceptable Jesus is.
So, this week, stop playing acting with God. Don’t try and be anything you’re not. 
Instead, allow yourself to be a single-malt for God. 
Come as you are to Him
And open your eyes to all that He is doing around you. You’ll see a new reality – a God reality. Kingdom of God reality, on earth now as it is in Heaven.
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DannyBrierley@ChesterRoadBaptist.org.uk