The beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount have always intrigued me. For one, when I first read them they seem so simple, but the more I reflect on them at a greater depth, more complex contours begin to appear.
Blessed are the poor in spirit
Why does Jesus start here? I think Jesus is challenging the common thought of his day concerning blessing. Most people believed then (as they do now) that blessing was primarily economic. Jesus is redefining blessing for us. So what is blessing? Jesus is teaching us that blessing, ultimately, is the fruit of a dynamic and personal relationship of with the Father. The “poor in spirit”, then, are those who recognize their need for God to sustain them daily.
Humility is what Jesus is talking about. Jesus is saying that those who understand that they need God’s involvement and provision in in the midst of their everyday lives will be blessed with knowing him and entering the Kingdom. Arrogance has no place in the Kingdom. After all, he came for those who are sick, not for those who are healthy. Let’s come to him poor in spirit.
Blessed are those who mourn
“The spiritual, emotional, or financial loss resulting from sin should lead to mourning and a longing for God’s forgiveness and healing (cf. 2 Cor. 7:10)” (ESV Study Bible Notes). This beatitude is directly connected to the previous one. It has everything to do with desiring God out of human need. When we truly recognize our need, we have a deep longing for God, his forgiveness and his healing. Let’s come to him broken.
Blessed are the meek
Do you believe that God will direct the outcome of events in life? If you do then you don’t force yourself on others and manipulate circumstances and people in such a way so as to control outcomes. What a relief! God is in control of how things will turn out. This means that we can relax our anxieties and concerns and inherit a posture of meekness because of a strong faith in God’s involvement in life’s circumstances. We can move through life gently with an inner peace trusting that God is directing the outcomes.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
We had poor, mourn, meek (i.e., gentle), and now hunger and thirst. Hunger and thirst are signs of need. Sadly, there are those who don’t hunger or thirst at all for righteousness! They may hunger and thirst for the things of the world. They maybe temporarily satisfied, but only those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be eternally satisfied. Again, the metaphor of hunger and thirst demonstrate the recognition of NEED. It is those who recognize their need for God that will be blessed.
But what is “blessing”? The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary offers this:
Bless/blessing has been most frequently understood in terms of benefits conveyed—prosperity, power, and especially fertility. This focus on the content of the benefit is now being viewed as secondary. The primary factor of blessing is the statement of relationship between parties. God blesses with a benefit on the basis of the relationship. The blessing makes known the positive relationship between the parties, whether a single individual (Gen 12:1–3) or a group (Deut 7:14–16) (Kent Harold Richards, “Bless/Blessing,” ed. David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 754).
So what is blessing? Once again, blessing is the fruit of a dynamic relationship with God. Jesus, then, is teaching us that a dynamic relationship with God starts with having humility enough to recognize our need for him. He offers his hand to those who reach for him.
