So three weeks ago at Hillside's Thursday night college Bible study, we studied the Beatitudes. It was interesting because there's so much more to learn from Jesus' first statement in the sermon on the mount than you might notice at first glance. To start, what are the Beatitudes?
After Jesus had called His disciples and had begun His ministry of healing, He went up on a mountain to give His famous "Sermon on the Mount." This sermon takes up the entirety of Matthew 5-7. The Beatitudes are found at the very beginning of this sermon in Matthew 5:1-12.
"Now when He saw the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them, saying:
'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
'Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.'"
Actually, let me stop there. For the next few days, I'm going to try to make (relatively) short posts for a change. So I'm going to take each statement of the Beatitudes one at a time, since we talked for a long time about each one of them at the Bible study.
So for today, I just want to present this idea (not my own; Ross Wesely mentioned it at the Bible study, and he was referencing what he had heard from someone else): beatitude is a weird word, isn't it? What does it mean? Well, literally, it means "blessedness." But is Jesus really just saying, "You will be blessed if you fall into one or more of these categories"? There has to be more to it than that. There's a reason He's advertising the blessings that come with these qualities: so that we would strive to fit His description of the ones who will be blessed. He wants us to be poor in spirit, to mourn, to be meek, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to be merciful, to be pure in heart, to be peacemakers, and to be persecuted because of righteousness and rejoice because of it. If you break down the word beatitude, you can separate it into the words be and attitude. To be is a verb. Great, thanks for the grammar lesson. Now look at Exodus 3:14: "God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: "I AM has sent me to you."'" I am is the first person conjugation of the verb to be, right? So if you replace the be in beatitude with I AM, or in other words, with God, the Beatitudes now become "God-attitudes": the attitudes of God, the behavior of the Lord, the manner in which Jesus carried Himself. Jesus was the most highly blessed Person to ever walk the face of the earth. Why? Because of who He was, not only in His identity as the Son of God, but also in the type of Person people saw Him as.
The Beatitudes aren't just Jesus' way of saying, "Guess what? If you can describe yourself as any of the things I'm about to mention, then good job! You deserve a pat on the back." They're a command with a promise: "Become the man (or woman) I am describing, and you will be blessed. Allow My Father to mold you to be like Me, and all these blessings will be yours. So what are you waiting for? Get to work! Come to Me, and I will send My Spirit to dwell in you to guide you in My footsteps."
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