The Law in a New LightSample

The Beatitudes - 1

I encourage you to read these verses as they are sequentially linked. This is how to live with a kingdom orientation, and it does have consequences, as we shall see in the following reflections.

Jesus taught the Beatitudes, primarily, to the disciples and not the crowd. It seems the crowd made its way to hear at some point in the discourse called, the Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 5:1 and 7:28-29) – simply speaking, people couldn’t keep away from him.

The attitudes/lifestyles, or as someone well described them, ‘the beautiful attitudes,’ being referred to are the opposite of militaristic and triumphalist beliefs. They are the opposite of Jewish, Greek, and Roman philosophies of national, cultural, and personal power. These people Jesus speaks of, kingdom inheritors, are defined by need, by the realisation and confession of being empty. They acknowledge their poverty of spirit - they aren’t self-fulfilled, self-actualised, personally empowered people. Jesus told us that finding real life was a matter of giving up our pretend lives, our self-focussed lives. But not everyone who considers themselves Christian thinks in these terms. What does this imply? It is a question seldom posed.

These ‘kingdom’ people hunger for God and his righteousness. They, in other words, thirst for the fulfillment of another world/kingdom. They aren’t self-satisfied or self-justified people. They know something is missing, that will never be fulfilled by this world. They know they are empty; they mourn this fact. This mourning is not describing sadness due to loss, although people who have faced loss may be more aware of their poverty (both spiritual and physical). This mourning is for sin, for a poverty of spirit, for the recognition we are far from God. God will bring these people kingdom comfort – if we will admit to our need.

The meek are not the weak, but they don’t resort to power to inherit, but rather humility. Inheriting with meekness takes longer than inheriting with force, power. It appears to be the loser, but it has longer legs, bigger lungs, and more resilience than raw power. It has dignity, patience, and love motivating it. The way of the cross was slower but more effective than the shortcuts provided to Jesus in the wilderness temptation by Satan. The same applies to us.

Sadly, we have been taught by this world that power is the way to inherit – might is right, especially when the appeal to might is for right. Beware, that way leads to sorrow.