The Beatitudes
Matthew 5:1-11
The Feast of All
Saints,2004
At some point during the Middle Ages the
Western Church made a decision concerning obedience to the
beatitudes. The beatitudes are what we find in our Gospel text for
today: “Blessed are the poor in spirit… Blessed are those who
mourn,” and so on. The medieval theologians made obedience optional.
How and why did they do that? The beatitudes were seen as completely
out of reach for the ordinary Christian. They could only serve as
precepts for the saintly elite. We scoff at this notion today but at
least the medievals tried to come up with a solution to these high
and heroic demands. We will first examine the beatitudes, and
conclude explaining why they apply to all Christians.
1. “Blessed are the poor in spirit; For theirs is the kingdom of
Heaven.” In the past, monasteries have used this verse as scriptural
proof for upholding a strict vow of poverty. Any man desiring to
become a monk had to renounce ownership of wealth and property.
Socialists have used the phrase to advocate that the government take
income from the wealthy and transfer it to the poor. There is a
problem with these two views. “Blessed are the poor in spirit” has
little to do with finances. Jesus didn’t declare, “Blessed are the
economic poor;” He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Poverty
of spirit describes the character of Christ. Not a delicate sissy
character, but conduct marked by humility. Poor in spirit means a
complete absence of pride, a complete absence of boasting. The poor
in spirit will partake of the Kingdom of Heaven.
C. S. Lewis summed up the pervasiveness of pride like this: “There
is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in
the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which
hardly any people except Christians ever imagine that they are
guilty themselves… There is no fault which makes a man more
unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in
ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it
in others.” [Close quote.]
Since pride makes one like Satan, humility must be the starting
point if one is to become Christ-like. All the saints acknowledge
the never-ending battle against pride. When St. Bernard of Clarvaix
was asked the four cardinal virtues, He replied: “Humility,
humility, humility, and humility.” “Blessed are the poor in spirit;
For theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.”
2. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Is
the Lord telling each believer to be gloomy? Are Christians to
refrain from laughter? No. This beatitude has to do with your total
depravity as you confront a Holy God. Examine yourself in the light
of God’s holiness and you soon become aware of what a vile sinner
you are. St. Paul expressed this realization in Romans 7. “For the
good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do
that I practice… O wretched man that I am!” (vv. 7:19, 24). What
were the specific sins that the apostle wrestled with? We can only
speculate: “Why am I so prideful?” Why do I have a bad temper?” Why
can’t I control my eating? Why do I harbor vindictive thoughts? The
person who mourns, mourns because he discovers this war going on in
his members, and he hates it. Nevertheless this discovery is
healthy. It means he or she must rely entirely upon God’s grace in
Christ, and that is a comfort.
There is another way to interpret, “Blessed are those who mourn.”
Mourning has to do with suffering, ordinary human suffering. Jesus
promises that we may not be perpetually happy in our sorrows, but we
will be blessed. God can bless any suffering, from a headache to
dying. How can that be? Suffering makes a place for God’s comfort.
Think of the lady who refuses to get an abortion. The pro-choice
crowd urges the unmarried teenage girl, the older woman, and the
victim of rape to abort. That is the quick solution to unwanted
pregnancy. We shouldn’t minimize the nine months of suffering a
pregnant woman endures. But what a blessing when she carries the
baby to term and gives it up for adoption! Jesus’ words apply to
her, “Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted.”
Think of those who obey the commandment against adultery, premarital
or extramarital sex. To remain chaste in a culture that bombards us
with sexual indulgence is a kind of mourning, a sort of suffering.
But what a blessing and a joy when sexual faithfulness is done out
of love for Christ! “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be
comforted.”
3. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” What is
meekness? Let’s begin by stating what it is not. It is not sloth,
nor spinelessness, nor niceness. Meekness is a mixture of gentleness
and strength. It has to do with power and emotions that are kept
under discipline. The dentist who repairs a tooth uses a combination
of strength and gentleness. The doctor who performs heart surgery
does the same. Moses was the meekest of all men because he was an
example of self-control. Moreover, the meek person is not sensitive
about himself; he doesn’t fly off the handle. One of the greatest
curses in life is touchiness; people who are easily offended.
Meekness is not easily offended. It is the opposite of out of
control anger. Beware of walking time bombs; they won’t get far.
Rather, “Blessed are the meek; For they shall inherit the earth.”
4. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For
they shall be filled.” Here Jesus teaches us to hunger and thirst
for the right thing. If we hunger for the wrong things we’ll never
be satisfied at the deepest level of the soul. Our souls, like our
bodies, need food. Unfortunately, people hunger for what satisfies
merely temporarily and superficially: they live for the weekend, for
experiences, for adrenaline rushes, for money and sex. The deep and
permanent fulfillment that Christ promises is linked to
righteousness. That is what Jesus wants you to hunger and thirst
after. What does it mean? The desire for righteousness, the act of
hungering and thirsting for it, means ultimately the desire to be
free from sin in all its forms, a desperate need to be liberated
from the power of sin, and even to be free from the very desire for
sin. It means the desire to be like Christ; to love Him and live for
Him and feed on Him in perfect union and obedience.
How can you tell whether you are hungering and thirsting after
righteousness? One way is to read biographies of exceptional
Christians from the past. The Church uses the feast of All Saints to
remind us of our heritage. Their examples can help us understand how
to hunger and thirst for righteousness. They show us in concrete
flesh and blood situations what it is to desperately starve for the
righteousness Jesus talks about in the beatitudes. Confessions by
St. Augustine is a must read. Here I Stand by Roland Bainton is a
stirring account of Martin Luther. John Wesley’s Journal is
unforgettable. At some point everyone should learn a little about
Abraham Kuyper of Holland, Johann Sebastian Bach, Jonathan Edwards,
and Charles Spurgeon. The English Reformers are spiritual heroes for
Anglicanism. They include Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, Bishop Nicholas
Ridley, and Bishop Hugh Latimer. The Early Church and Middle Age
history provide numerous models of faith. Perpetua and Felicitas
were brave women who faced the lions of the coliseum. The ascetics’
desire for holiness should inspire us, and The Life of St. Antony by
Athanasius will do that. G. K. Chesterton’s biographies of St.
Francis of Assisi and St. Thomas Aquinas are superb. Let’s not
forget missionary biographies. Captain Allen Gardiner, missionary to
South America will move you deeply. Every young person should
eventually get acquainted with the adventures of David Livingstone
who explored and evangelized the continent of Africa, Hudson Taylor,
a missionary to China, as well as the amazingly sacrificial labors
of William Carey and Mother Teresa in India. These are the saints of
God that show us how to hunger and thirst after righteousness, and
truly be filled with joy.
5. “Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy.” How can
we be merciful? It would be helpful to mention one negative. It does
not mean that we should tolerate everything. In our current climate
of moral relativism, with no absolute truth permitted, it is
expected that we overlook every sin, or pretend we don’t see it.
This is a flabby kind of faith that tries too hard to get along with
everybody. Winking at flagrant sin is not the way to be merciful.
The essential meaning of being merciful is pity toward those in
need, plus action. The Christian has a feeling of pity. His concern
about the misery of people leads him to an anxiety to relieve it.
The Good Samaritan is an example. On his journey he sees the poor
man who has been mugged by robbers. He stops, and goes across the
road to where the man is lying. The others have seen the man and
continued on. They may have felt pity yet they didn’t do anything
about it. The Samaritan is merciful; he is sorry for the victim. He
would have clobbered those robbers if he had caught them in the act
of committing violence and theft. The Samaritan goes across the
road, bends down, his heart breaks. He dresses the wounds, lifts the
man on his donkey and makes provision for him at the inn. That is
being merciful. It does not mean only feeling empathy; it means
making the effort to do something to remedy the situation. This is
hard. By nature we lack compassion. We need God’s Holy Spirit to
create sympathy for others within us. And on top of that we are
busy. It takes time to help people. It’s easier to get the
government to do it with a state-run program. We need the grace of
God to make us merciful, filling us with so much empathy that we
find the time, and make the time to do whatever it takes to
alleviate the suffering of others. “Blessed are the merciful; For
they shall obtain mercy.”
6. “Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.” Notice
that Jesus promises blessing to the pure in heart. The heart must be
pure. In other words we have to remind ourselves that the Christian
faith is not only a matter of intellect, it is a condition of the
heart. Doctrine and theological rigor are absolutely essential in
our TV watching, anti-intellectual age, but it can’t be the only
thing. When people have merely an intellectual interest in spiritual
matters this narrow focus becomes a curse to the Church. You can’t
have merely academic interest in the Bible, or liturgy, or the
sacraments. You must be concerned to sanctify the head and the
heart, the heart especially. The saints in Heaven enjoy purity of
heart, and they see God. St. John received the vision. The 144,000,
“the great multitude of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples and
tongues stood before the throne and before the Lamb. Clothed with
white robes and palms in their hands” they worshipped. These are
blessed because they are doing what they were created to do,
rejoicing in the vision of God, bowing to serve and worship Him
forever. Man is homo adorens, worshipping man. If he will not
worship the one holy glorious and blessed Trinity, He will create a
substitute, and idol or an ideology, for he must worship. He was
created to worship.
How and when do we see God? Even now we see God in nature; a
snow-capped mountain, a field of daffodils. We perceive God when He
draws near to us. We see Him in our personal experiences. We see His
hand working in history. But that is nothing compared with Heaven.
In Paradise we will truly see God. The beatific vision will be ours.
Here is a potential problem. Have you every wondered why Scriptures
speak so confidently about seeing God, and also about the
impossibility of seeing God? On the one hand we have the hope of all
saints in seeing God, and yet the Bible says that God is unseeable.
The apostle Paul states that God is invisible on several occasions
(1 Timothy 1:17:6:16). How do we harmonize these teachings?
Basically, the answer is this. God, though invisible, can also be
seen, if God so reveals. Angels are like that. They are hidden from
our sight, but sometimes they make themselves visible.
Here is another related question. In light of the Second Commandment
against idolatry, can we create images or icons of God? Yes, that is
acceptable. “The Second Commandment does not prohibit depictions of
Biblical scenes. Nor does it prohibit pictures of God and Jesus.
Since Jesus came to earth in human form, there should be nothing
wrong with picturing His presence as a human male. Indeed, since God
is essentially invisible, He must make Himself visible to us in some
created form. Usually this is a man shape, as in Ezekiel 1:26. Human
beings are, after all, designed as visible images of God. Thus, to
portray God in human shape does no violation to Biblical theology,
but in fact expresses it. Such symbolic portrayals are acceptable in
art and instruction. How about venerating those same portrayals?
Bowing to icons, kissing them, and offering prayers before them as
if they were telephones that could communicate directly to God on
our behalf? This is where we have crossed the line and violated the
Second Commandment. “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image”
and “bow down thyself to them, and serve them.” You displease God
when you bow before images, and make gestures of veneration. The
saints in Heaven see God face to face. We don’t yet have that
privilege. We are therefore to be patient, and wait until we reach
glory for it. Moreover, to paint and fashion any kind of image and
venerate it suggests that we are deifying some aspect of creation.
This is what the Second Commandment is most likely prohibiting. We
are never to assume that the works of man’s hands are infused with
the divine.” [See James Jordan for more on this idea.]
7. “Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of
God.” Is this a call to pacifism? No. What then is a peacemaker? He
is peaceable, not quarrelsome. He makes peace actively. He actively
seeks peace between man and man, group and group, and nation and
nation. This entails apologies, forgiveness, patience and love. He
longs for the day when the leopard shall lie down with the young
goat (Is. 11:6). He understands that the only foundation for such
peace is peace with God. A peacemaker deals with the root cause of
war, and he does that by winning souls. “Blessed are the
peacemakers; For they shall be called the sons of God.”
8. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” This does not mean, “Blessed
are those who are persecuted because they are obnoxious.” No. It
doesn’t say that. You sometimes find Christian people who suffer
mild persecution because of foolishness. To get the blessing of God,
one must suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake. Christians in
America are not used to being persecuted. Therefore when we do
experience a little of it we often feel surprise and resentment.
This is a naïve reaction. If we read the Gospels, we should be
surprised by the absence of persecution, not by its presence. Why is
persecution blessed? Because it is Christ’s! When we suffer, Jesus
participates in our suffering. Not only does He share in our
suffering, He uses suffering to sanctify us. Besides, compared to
Heaven what is the pain and agony of this life? St. Paul says, “I
consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to
be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom.
8:18). The very worst the world can do to us is kill us. Big deal!
All that does is send us home to Heaven. There is simply nothing to
fear. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Now that we have touched upon the beatitudes, how do we deal with
them? We must see them in terms of the doctrine of grace. The
beatitudes do not mean: you must do these things in order to deserve
Heaven. No, there is no way. We would all be lost. We are addicted
to sin, self-indulgence, and selfishness. The beatitudes are like
the rest of God’s law. The law convicts us of sin and creates in us
a gnawing sense of spiritual need. Before God’s justice and holiness
we stand condemned. Therefore, the beatitudes drive us to Christ. By
faith in Christ and baptism God freely transfers the perfect
obedience of Jesus to your account. The obedience of Christ to the
beatitudes becomes your obedience. That is the Gospel. Just as the
law sends us to the Gospel for salvation, the Gospel sends us back
to the law for sanctification. Being saintly is our response to
being saved. On this Feast of All Saints, the Church reminds you
that you will one day stand before God with the heavenly hosts. You
have that assurance. Yet, this is nothing to sit back and wait for.
You must actively pursue Christlikeness with every fiber of your
being. Devote yourself to following the beatitudes; they show the
way. They are the norm for all saints.
Let us pray.
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