Redirected Blessedness Text: Luke 11:27-28
Introduction: Sentimentalism versus Substance
We live in an age that is drowning in sentiment. Our culture prizes feelings above facts, personal experience above objective truth, and good intentions above biblical obedience. This is not a new problem, but it is a pervasive one, and it has crept into the church like a fog. We have a tendency to want a religion that feels good, that affirms our natural instincts, and that honors the things we already think are honorable. We like a faith that can be put on a greeting card. But the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ is not a sentimental journey; it is a bloody, glorious, world-altering war. It is about substance, not saccharine.
In our text today, we see a collision between these two approaches to God. A woman in the crowd, doubtless moved by the power of Christ's teaching and His casting out of a demon just prior, cries out with a blessing. Her heart is in the right place, we might say. She is full of admiration. She wants to honor Jesus by honoring His mother. This is a very natural, very human, and very understandable impulse. It is the kind of thing that would get murmurs of approval in many church prayer meetings today. "Oh, what a sweet thought."
But Jesus, in His characteristic way, refuses to let the sweet thought stand. He does not rebuke the woman harshly, but He does something far more radical. He redirects her blessing entirely. He takes her well-intentioned, but earthbound, compliment and He recalibrates it according to a divine standard. He pivots from the natural to the supernatural, from the biological to the covenantal, from the womb that bore Him to the Word that He brought. In doing so, He defines for all time what true blessedness actually is. It is not found in proximity to greatness, but in obedience to God. This is a foundational lesson, and if we miss it, we will find ourselves building our houses on the sand of sweet sentiment instead of the rock of Christ's commands.
The Text
Now it happened that while Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed."
But He said, "On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it."
(Luke 11:27-28 LSB)
A Natural (But Misguided) Blessing (v. 27)
We begin with the woman's exclamation in verse 27:
"Now it happened that while Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, 'Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.'" (Luke 11:27 LSB)
Jesus had just been in a sharp confrontation with the Pharisees. He had cast out a demon, and they had accused Him of doing so by the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons. Jesus dismantled their logic with surgical precision, showing that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. He was speaking with immense authority and demonstrating divine power. This woman was clearly impressed. She saw His greatness, and in a flash of insight, she wanted to bless the source of this man. Her mind went immediately to His mother.
This is a thoroughly natural way of thinking. In the ancient world, and still in many cultures today, a man's honor is a reflection on his family, and particularly on his mother. To say, "Your mother must be so proud," is a high compliment. This woman is essentially saying, "What a magnificent son! The woman who raised you is the most fortunate, the most blessed, among women." She is honoring Jesus by exalting Mary. She is focusing on the physical, biological connection. The womb, the breasts, these are the instruments of maternity. She is blessing the vessel.
Now, was Mary blessed? Absolutely. The angel Gabriel had said as much: "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you! ... you have found favor with God" (Luke 1:28, 30). Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cried out, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!" (Luke 1:42). Mary herself prophesied, "For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed" (Luke 1:48). So the woman in the crowd is not wrong to think Mary is blessed. Her error is in where she locates the foundation of that blessedness. She locates it in the biology of motherhood. She sees the blessing in the physical act of bearing and nursing the Messiah.
This is the root of all Mariolatry. It begins with a right admiration for the mother of our Lord, but it stops there, fixating on her role as the physical vessel. It elevates her biological function to a place of spiritual merit, and from there it is a short trip to seeing her as a co-redemptrix or a dispenser of grace. But Jesus will not allow this. He loves His mother, but He loves the truth of God more. He will not allow a sentimental attachment to His earthly mother to obscure the very purpose for which He came into the world.
The Great Recalibration (v. 28)
Jesus' response is a swift and decisive course correction. It is not a denial, but a redefinition. It is a "yes, but."
"But He said, 'On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.'" (Luke 11:28 LSB)
The phrase "On the contrary" is a strong adversative. Jesus is setting up a contrast. He is saying, "You think blessedness is found in this biological proximity to me? I tell you, true blessedness, the kind that lasts for eternity, is found somewhere else entirely." He shifts the focus from the womb to the Word. He moves from physical kinship to spiritual obedience.
What made Mary truly blessed was not that she gave birth to Jesus, but that she first believed the word of God delivered to her by Gabriel. Remember what Elizabeth, filled with the Spirit, said to her? "And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord" (Luke 1:45). Mary's blessedness was rooted in her faith, in her hearing and keeping the word of God. Her response to Gabriel was the epitome of this: "Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38). Her motherhood was the result of her faith, not the cause of her blessedness.
Jesus is democratizing blessedness. The woman's exclamation made blessedness an exclusive club of one. Only one woman could be the mother of the Messiah. But Jesus throws the doors wide open. Who is blessed? Anyone. Anyone who hears the word of God and keeps it. A poor farmer in Galilee, a Roman centurion, a tax collector, a prostitute, a woman in a crowd in the 21st century, you and me. We can all have the very same blessedness that Mary had, and we obtain it in the very same way she did: by hearing the Word and doing it.
This is a consistent theme in Jesus' ministry. On another occasion, when told His mother and brothers were outside seeking Him, what did He say? "My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it" (Luke 8:21). He is consistently defining His true family not by bloodlines but by faith and obedience. He is establishing the terms of the New Covenant, where spiritual kinship trumps all earthly relationships.
Hearing and Keeping
Let us not glide past the two conditions Jesus lays down. Blessedness comes to those who "hear the word of God" and "keep it."
First, you must hear. This is not just about auditory function. It means to listen with intent to understand, to receive the Word as what it is: the very speech of the living God. It means sitting under faithful preaching. It means reading your Bible diligently. It means silencing the clamor of the world and your own sinful heart long enough to let God speak. In the parable of the sower, the seed is the Word of God, and the first three soils are all failures because of how they heard. The path was hard, the rocky ground was shallow, and the thorny ground was choked. Only the good soil "heard the word and understood it" (Matthew 13:23). Hearing is the entry point of grace.
But hearing is not enough. James warns us sternly, "But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves" (James 1:22). Jesus concludes His Sermon on the Mount with the same principle. The wise man is the one who hears His words and acts on them. The foolish man is the one who hears and does nothing (Matthew 7:24-27). To "keep" the Word means to guard it, to treasure it, and to obey it. It is an active, ongoing submission to the authority of Scripture in every area of life. It is not a pick-and-choose buffet. It is not a list of suggestions. It is the command of our King.
This is where substance triumphs over sentiment. Sentiment hears the nice parts about love and forgiveness and feels a warm glow. Substance hears the hard parts about repentance, self-denial, and obedience, and gets to work. Sentiment wants to praise Jesus' mother. Substance wants to obey Jesus' commands. Sentiment builds a shrine to Mary. Substance builds a life on the Word.
Conclusion: The Only True Honor
In this brief exchange, Jesus gives us a profound lesson. He teaches us that the highest honor we can pay Him is not through flowery compliments or by venerating His relatives. The highest honor we can pay to the King of kings is simple, rugged obedience. When we hear His Word and we do it, we are declaring to the world that He is Lord. We are showing that His commands are more important to us than our feelings, our traditions, or our natural affections.
This woman wanted to bless Jesus, and her instinct was good. But Jesus taught her, and us, how to do it properly. Do you want to bless Christ? Then open His book. Read His commands. Hear His gospel. And then, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, get up and do what it says. When you forgive that person who wronged you, you are blessing Christ. When you refuse to compromise your integrity in the marketplace, you are blessing Christ. When you discipline your children in the fear of the Lord, you are blessing Christ. When you gather with the saints on the Lord's Day to worship Him in Spirit and in truth, you are blessing Christ.
The womb that bore Him was indeed blessed, but only because it belonged to a woman who first believed the Word. The breasts at which He nursed were blessed, but only because they belonged to a woman who treasured up all these things in her heart. Her blessedness was her obedience. And by God's grace, that same blessedness is offered to us. Therefore, let us not be content with mere admiration from a distance. Let us draw near, hear the Word of God, and keep it. For in this, and in this alone, is true and everlasting blessedness found.