Blessed people (2)

A New York Christian pastor said this about Jesus: “Christ has outlasted the empire that crucified him twenty centuries ago. He will outlast the dictators who defy him now.”

Will you therefore come with me again to that hillside in Galilee around AD 30 where Jesus Christ is sitting down and teaching his disciples. Great crowds are all around them, listening in. He’s around 30 years old himself and his new teaching is radically different.

 

“Blessed,” Jesus is saying, “are the poor in spirit because theirs is the realm of the skies. Blessed,” he goes on, “are those who sorrow because they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek,” he adds, “because they shall inherit the earth.”

That word macro - “makarios” in the Greek - means “large”. It’s the opposite of micro. Macro-economics, for instance, is large-scale, big-picture economics. Let’s pick up from there to find out what are the other attributes of a human being who is blessed in Jesus’ eyes.

“Blessed”, he is saying, “are those hungering and thirsting for rightness because they shall be satisfied. Blessed,” he goes on, “are the merciful because they will receive mercy. Blessed are the clean in heart,” he adds, “because they shall see God.”

Well, well, well. Blessed are the ones who are longing for rightness, the ones who are merciful, the ones who are clean in heart. Jesus Christ is teaching something which still applies 2,000 years later. Those longing for rightness, those who ae merciful, those who are pure in heart, those are the blessed people. Others, by implication, are not blessed.

Why is it that those particular people who are blessed and not others? Jesus says that the reason that such people are indeed blessed is because they will be filled with rightness; they will receive mercy, despite all they are and all they do; they will also truly see God, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ?

But, these days and here in Jersey, does this teaching of Jesus make sense? 

First, what happens when a person hungers and thirst after rightness?  Would such a person defraud his or her employer? Would such a person lie to others? Or  harm others? Or kill?

Second, what about a merciful person – one who is merciful inside as well as in practice? Would you like a boss like that – merciful even when you confess that you’ve messed up big time? Would you like to know forgiving kindness? Blessed are the merciful - those who suffer loss and forgive.

Third, what about a person who is clean in heart? Would a person like that do bad things? Not if his or her heart was clean inside. Would a person like that go with others into evil-doing?

 

Let’s leave behind the Galilee hillside for now. What about Jesus Christ himself - the Jesus Christ who has indeed outlasted the empire that crucified him – as that New York Pastor stated? The one who rose from the dead three days after his crucifixion.

The wonderful thing is that he demonstrated totally, while on earth, that he is just like the people whom he called blessed – longing for rightness, full of mercy towards all, clean in heart.