The Beatitudes: Happy are the Merciful
The Beatitudes, eight short teachings found at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, lay the foundation for the rest of Jesus’ teachings and are fundamental to understanding Jesus. The Beatitudes not only give us the spiritual roadmap to true happiness, but they set out the character traits of citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. Character traits of the Kingdom of Heaven are set out in the first four Beatitudes and include being poor in spirit, mourning, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and meekness. The fifth Beatitude flows naturally out of the first four. When a person recognizes their spiritual bankruptcy, mourns their sins, hunger and thirsts for God’s righteousness, and submits to the direction and control of God, then their character begins to change; it starts to reflect the nature of God. Mercy is an attribute of God’s character. The closer a person becomes to God, the more merciful towards others that person becomes. Mercy is the Greek word eleemon and means kind, compassionate, sympathetic, and merciful. Merciful people display compassion; they want to ease others’ suffering not just to appear “charitable” or to receive a benefit, but because they genuinely empathize with their plight. Like meekness, today’s world tends to view mercy as a weakness, as something undesirable. Our culture roots for the person who serves their enemies vengeance instead of serving them forgiveness. Our culture says, no mercy, you don’t deserve it, so you shouldn’t get it. Thankfully, the Lord is merciful. David said, “let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great. Do not let me fall into human hands.” 2nd Samuel 24:14 God’s Mercy The Old Testament describes God as merciful. Psalm 103:8 says, “The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.” The faithful love of the Lord never ends! “His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. Lamentations 3:22-23 We all need God’s mercy. We are all sinners. (Romans 3:23). We all deserve punishment for our sins. But because God loves us, He gave us a way to be forgiven of our sins. He sent His son Jesus who took our punishment upon himself. (Romans 6:23) Because of what Jesus did for us, we receive God’s mercy. Paul sums God’s mercy up for us in Ephesians 2:4-10 NLT, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them”. The more we understand our sinful condition, the more we appreciate the value of God’s mercy – mercy we do not deserve but that He gave us anyway because He loves us. His love lifts us from our sinful condition and seats us with “Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…” Mercy of Jesus Jesus being the image of the invisible God, was also merciful. He showed mercy to the poor, the outcast, the sick, the blind, the deaf, the dead, the tax collectors, and prostitutes. Matthew 9:36 tells us that when Jesus “saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Another verse says, “Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” Matthew 14:14 Jesus also wants us to be merciful. Jesus twice quoted Hosea 6:6 “…show mercy, not offer sacrifices.” The first time was in response to the Pharisees questioning Jesus about him hanging out with “tax collectors and other disreputable sinners.” Jesus responded, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.” Then he added, “Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.’ For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” Matthew 9:12-13 The second time was after the Pharisees protested Jesus’ disciples “harvesting grain on the Sabbath.” Jesus said, “Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.’ Matthew 12:7 Jesus took notice of the Pharisees’ tendency to care more about looking like good Pharisees than focusing on the more important aspects of the law – justice, mercy, and faith.” Matthew 23:23 In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus shows us what mercy should look like in the lives of kingdom citizens. Jesus told an expert at religious law that he must “love your neighbor as yourself.” The expert asked, “and who is my neighbor?” ” Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. “Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this
The Beatitudes: Welcome to the Upside Down
What is True Happiness? What is true happiness? Philosophers, scholars, and psychologists have pondered this question throughout the years and have offered us definition after definition. However, because they base their ideas of happiness on human wisdom, they only provide a fleeting type of happiness: happiness that relies on self-gratification and external factors instead of internal peace. Jesus, on the other hand, shows us a way to true, lasting happiness in a series of short teachings called the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes are part of the Sermon on the Mount, a sermon given by Jesus and documented by Matthew in Matthew 5 through 7. The Sermon on the Mount is the most extended discourse by Jesus recorded in the Bible and is probably the most famous Sermon ever. Understanding this Sermon is foundational to understanding Jesus’ other teachings. Jesus Turned the World Upside Down As Jesus often did, He turned the world upside down with the Beatitudes. According to Jesus, to find true happiness, we must forget what the world tells us about the pursuit of happiness and instead look to Him. Jesus tells us that He came to give us a “rich and satisfying life” (John 10:10, NLT). Not only does Jesus give us the keys to true happiness, but He also presents a spiritual blueprint of the Kingdom of Heaven itself. Jesus opened His Sermon with this truth: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3 NIV). Jesus taught with order and purpose. He presents this Beatitude first because we can’t spiritually discern the remaining eight without making sense of it. To grasp the meaning of this Beatitude, let’s take a closer look at three keywords: “blessed,” “poor in spirit,” and “kingdom of heaven.” Blessed We toss around the word “blessed” a lot these days, Christians and non-Christians alike. When someone asks how we are doing, we might respond, “I am blessed”; when someone speaks of something good that happened in their life, they might say, “I was blessed.” In fact, over the past couple of years, the hashtag #blessed has been trending to a point where media outlets have published articles on the overuse of #blessed. In all this blessedness, the real meaning of blessed gets lost. Jesus also used the word “blessed” a lot. In fact, His first recorded Sermon began with the word “Blessed” and each of the Beatitudes that follow begins with the words “Blessed are”. Blessed is the Greek word makarios, which means happy. As we will see, the world’s idea of what it means to be “blessed” or “happy” is very different from the true meaning of happiness presented by Jesus in His teachings. Poor in Spirit The word “poor” in the American culture is viewed negatively and is associated with those who want for money, food, clothing, or housing. Our culture either feels sorry for the poor or looks down upon them as useless and worthless. Indeed, no one in the American culture aspires to be “poor,” and to my knowledge #poor has not trended on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. The meaning of poor in Greek is no different than how we define poor. In Greek, it means a beggar, a person of few resources, a person who is culturally considered oppressed, despised, and miserable. Notice that Jesus did not say, “Blessed are the poor”, but He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Being “poor in spirit” does not mean that a person lacks in spirit, but that they lack in self-reliance and self-assurance. Those who are poor in spirit look outside of themselves for their provision. Being “poor in spirit” has nothing to do with lacking financial resources but has everything to do with lacking in self. What is the Kingdom of Heaven? Another important concept we need to grasp to understand the teachings of Jesus better is the Kingdom of Heaven. In the Sermon on the Mount and throughout the Gospels, Jesus spends a lot of time talking about it. He says that this Kingdom is not of this world, it can’t be observed by visible signs, and it is already among us (John 18:36, Luke 17:20-21). What exactly does Jesus mean by the Kingdom of Heaven? A kingdom is defined as a rule or realm, a dominion of a king. Kings exert their rule over their subjects, and their subjects submit to their king’s authority. Kingdom rule is what Americans revolted against in 1776. Kingdom rule is in direct contradiction to most Americans’ innate sense of self-rule and independence. Yet, Jesus is telling us to seek the Kingdom of Heaven first, above all else (Matthew 6:33). With the birth of Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven was brought to earth, and Jesus was crowned the King. Upon Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension into Heaven, the Kingdom’s realm resides in the hearts of those who submit to the rule of Jesus, His followers. Spiritual Bankruptcy To enter the Kingdom of Heaven and receive its blessings, we must be poor in spirit. God “opposes the proud” (James 4:6), but “lives in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble” (Isaiah 57:15 NLT). The story of Jacob’s wrestling match with God found in Genesis 32: 22-32 demonstrates the spiritual principle of the first Beatitude. After fleeing his father-in-law Laban, Jacob wanted to return home but first would have to face his brother Esau, whom he had betrayed years before. Fearing Esau might retaliate for Jacob’s past betrayal, Jacob, on his own, devised a plan. Only when he realized that his plan might fail and there was nothing he could do in his own power to save himself did he turn to God in prayer. Wrestling With God One night, in response to Jacob’s prayer, God appeared to Jacob and wrestled with him until daybreak. When God saw that Jacob would not give up, He touched Jacob’s hip and lamed him. It was then that Jacob realized that he was