Here we reach the eighth and final blessing Jesus offers in the Beatitudes. Continuing to shake up the status quo as He always had a way of doing, Jesus tells His followers about the seemingly ironic blessing of being persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” Here we reach the fifth of the eight blessings Jesus offers in the Beatitudes.
After having mourned over our sins, we are, as a natural consequence, humbled into being meek, a term few people use these days especially since being humble and gentle towards others is perceived as more of a weakness than a virtue. However, perhaps ‘meek’ could be better translated as ‘disciplined’.
After having mourned over our sins, we are, as a natural consequence, humbled into being meek, a term few people use these days especially since being humble and gentle towards others is perceived as more of a weakness than a virtue. However, perhaps ‘meek’ could be better translated as ‘disciplined’.
The news these days seems like a doom report. At times I feel so overwhelmed by the weight of the devastation and grief that many must be experiencing around the world. According to the WHO, at the time of this writing, over 1.6M people have been infected with the virus and more than 96,000 have succumbed to it.
In a time when the corona virus is wreaking havoc on our healthcare and economic systems, we all need to hear good news, to be comforted and reassured. On the surface, this beatitude fits the job description of a blanket blessing. However, when we look a bit closer, Jesus is literally saying, “Happy are those who are sad”.
We continue our journey through the beatitudes by reflecting on what it means to be poor in spirit.
The spiritual dimension of poverty is a humble dependence on God. It is knowing deep down that we are so spiritually poor that we have nothing to bargain with to gain God’s favor and love.
Even 2000 years after it was first taught by Jesus, the “Sermon on the Mount” is still revolutionary; it is a revolution not against the powers that be, but a revolution of the heart and mind. It represents what John Stott calls a manifesto, albeit a condensed one, for a “Christian counter-culture” that illustrates the way of life in the Kingdom of God. The same Kingdom Jesus was proclaiming in chapter 4 saying: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” v.17.
After having meditated on and journeyed through the Lord’s prayer for the past seven months, the concluding words of the Lord’s Prayer remind us that it all starts and ends with God’s glory and His Sovereignty. And it is when God stops being the center of our lives that things start to fall apart.