Matthew 5.3-12,
Luke 6.20-26.
Many of Jesus’s teachings are bunched together as the
And let’s be blunt: They’re not blessings. Jesus is not blessing us with poverty, misery, injustice, no peace, and persecution. He’s telling us our Father intends to relieve the people suffering from these things. I’ll explain further, but first let’s get to the beatitudes in these two gospels.
Matthew 5.3-12 KWL 3 “The spiritually poor: How awesome!- —the heavenly kingdom is theirs.
4 Those mourning: How awesome!- they’ll be comforted.
5 The gentle: How awesome!- —they’ll inherit the land.
6 Those hungry and thirsty for justice: How awesome!- —they’ll be filled.
7 The merciful: How awesome!—- they’ll be shown mercy.
8 Those of clean mind: How awesome!—- they’ll see God.
9 Those making peace: How awesome!—- they’ll be called God’s children.
10 Those hunted down because of justice: How awesome!- —the heavenly kingdom is theirs.
11 When people condemn you, hunt you down,- say everything evil against you, lie,
- all because of me: How awesome you are!
12 Rejoice and celebrate for your great reward in heaven!- For they persecuted the prophets before you this way.”
Luke 6.20-23 KWL 20 Jesus, lifting his eyes to his students, said:- “The poor: How awesome!
- —God’s kingdom is yours.
21 Those hungry now: How awesome!- —you’ll be filled.
- Those crying now: How awesome!
- —you’ll laugh.
22 When the people hate you, segregate you,- condemn and throw out your names as if evil,
- all because of me: How awesome you are!
23 Rejoice on that day! Skip!- Look at your great reward in heaven!
- Their ancestors did likewise to the prophets.”
Yeah, you likely noticed I went with a much different translation of
Awesome.
Language evolves, folks. When
Back then, the word you wanted for “impressively great” was “blessed.” But nowadays “blessed” either means holy or approved of—or if you’re going with the way popular culture defines it,
“Awesome” isn’t meant to describe the crummy situations people suffer from. Jesus isn’t saying, “The poor in spirit are awesome.” There’s no
- The spiritually poor in Matthew, the literally poor in Luke, and the fugitive: They get to receive the kingdom. As do we all, but these are the folks who really need it most.
- The mourning get comfort, and the crying get to laugh.
- The gentle get land. I know; this sounds weird to a lot of Christians. (Sounds weirder in the
KJV : “The meek” get to “inherit the earth.”) Butthe gentle weren’t the people trying, at the time, to overthrow the Roman occupation in order to get their land back. That’d be the opposite;the zealous. That’s literally what they called themselves; aζηλωτής /zilotís was an insurgent. They didn’t control their emotions; they were pissed. And they didn’t inherit the land either; 40 years laterthe Romans finally had enough and wiped ’em out. But the gentle survived. - Those of clean mind (literally of
καρδία /kardía, “heart,” butthe ancients believed we think with the heart, so “mind” is a proper translation) get to see God. And why not? A clean mind means we’ve not filled it with sin, and for us, sin makes God cloudy… if not invisible. - Those making peace get called God’s children. It’s the devil’s children who make war, strife, needless competition, and chaos—who pretend they’re interested in peace through strength, but who are itching for the chance to show that strength off, and defeat and step on others, in warfare.
- Those hungry for justice, and those who are literally hungry: They’ll be filled. Either way. God wants to meet these needs.
Certain scholars like to notice the Matthew beatitudes have kind of a
| WHO | GETS WHAT |
|---|---|
| …get the kingdom. | |
| …get comfort. | |
| …get land. | |
| …get filled. | |
| …get mercy. | |
| …get God-experiences. | |
| …get praise. | |
| …get the kingdom. | |
| …get a heavenly reward. |
Anyway, they try to find a parallel between mourning and peace-making, comfort and praise; between gentleness and a clean mind, land and seeing God; between justice and mercy, getting filled and mercy. Since a lot of these traits
In the Luke beatitudes it’s more obvious there’s no such structure. It’s just poor, hungry, crying, hassled; receiving the kingdom, fullness, laughter, and reward. Those who don’t have, receive.
That’s the lesson. In the kingdom (both now and when Jesus returns), God makes everything right.
Jesus says this to give us hope. Something positive to look to. When we’re in the middle of rough times—a lack of justice, peace, patience, gentleness, self-control, and comfort; when people just plain aren’t treating us right—
Skeptics mock this idea because they think it means, “Live in denial. You’re suffering now, but just concentrate on the afterlife: Pie in the sky when you die, by and by.” And y’know, some Christians actually do teach it that way. But it’s not what Jesus means.
Yes, Jesus’s reward awaits us. But he doesn’t say here—or anywhere in the Sermon on the Mount—that this reward is only for the age to come. He puts no time limit on when his kingdom will arrive. He uses future-tense verbs, but he doesn’t say “they’ll be comforted” or “they’ll be filled” or “you’ll laugh” after
And for that matter, the rest of the Sermon has some very specific directions to us, for us to help alleviate the suffering in the world. Some of the reason these blessings come is because Christians regularly get off our comfortable behinds and make ’em happen:
- We fight injustice, instead of turning a blind eye to unjust institutions ’cause they’re how things have always been.
- We comfort the mourning, instead of telling ’em to buck up, or dumping happy pills on them till they feel nothing at all.
- We feed the hungry, not
demand they get jobs or point ’em to underfunded charities, or government programs which could be shut down whenever we elect evil people. - We house the refugees, not leave that to other countries, nor “house” them in prisons and take away their children.
- We stand up for the condemned, the persecuted, the slandered.
We do. Assuming we’re legitimately following Jesus. We’re part of God’s kingdom, after all. The kingdom is here now, and is made obvious when Christians act like it’s here. So act like it!
Awful.
In his Sermon on the Plain, Jesus follows his positives with some negatives. Unlike the Sermon on the Mount there is a parallel here. Jesus says the poor, the hungry, the crying, and the hassled are awesome; now he says the wealthy, the full, the laughing, and the praised are not. He used the Greek exclamation
Me, I figured I’d just use a parallel English word to “awesome” which carries the same idea.
Luke 6.24-26 KWL 24 “But the wealthy: How awful for you- —you’ve been encouraged long enough.
25 Those who’ve been full now: How awful for you- —you’ll be hungry.
- Those laughing now: How awful for you
- —you’ll cry.
26 When the people say everything good about you: How awful.- Their ancestors did likewise to the fake prophets.”
Problem is, people too often assume when Jesus says “Woe unto you,”
See, when you’re comfortable now, you don’t really want a Kingdom Come. You’re quite happy in this kingdom. If the United States is the greatest country in the world, those who love this nation don’t want Jesus to overthrow it and establish his own. If we have the best economy, the freest markets, the greatest opportunities, and we’re sitting on fat stacks of cash, we don’t want Jesus to topple it, regulate it, and especially redistribute it. As he will.
When we’re happy now, we have serious suspicions about life under Jesus. How many teenage Christians have begged Jesus to not return before they might lose their virginity? How many gamers, addicted to first-person shooters, worry this particular type of video game will no longer be acceptable in Jesus’s kingdom? How many music fans are scared to death
If we’re getting praised now…. I admit this verse always made me worry about getting compliments. If people are speaking well of me now, does this mean I’m losing some heavenly reward? I don’t wanna miss out on some prize Jesus has for me, just because somebody at my church thanked me for some lesson I taught, or some video I produced. But no, that isn’t what Jesus means. He’s talking about unmerited public acclaim. You know, like reality show celebrities.
The lesson here: If we’re doing just fine in the present age, we’re not ready for the next one. We’re not gonna groan, with the rest of creation, because we want God to fix creation and complete his work.
I’m not saying we should rather want to suffer, or should strive to suffer. Loads of Christians make that mistake. They deprive themselves, or physically hurt themselves, and suffer for no good reason. Or they take really trivial inconveniences and exaggerate them into “suffering for Jesus.” They offer these things to God like Cain offered fruit
But if you are suffering, there’s hope. And if you’re making yourself nice ’n comfortable in this world, just to warn you: You’re killing that hope. Don’t do that!
