Our youth group had this assignment recently - to understand the Beatitudes or the statements of promised Blessings by Christ that He spoke during what would be called His Sermon on the Mount.
Here they are listed as they occur in Matthew's Gospel. The Bible version is the New Revised Standard Version.
Matthew
5:1-12
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went
up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he
began to speak, and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor
in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be
filled.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds
of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward
is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were
before you."
A view from a mount near the Sea of Galilee. Jesus preached His Sermon on the Mount
on a hillside near the Sea.
Here is the initial and general write up I provided:
Many of us are growing up
in households where we are told the “do-nots” and the “dos” of behavior by our
parents, and then when we go to school we are given more! Things like, “say
thank you, say please, don’t read in the dark – turn on some light, don’t hit
your brother/sister, don’t watch tv – do your homework, don’t chase a ball into
the street, don’t eat so many sweets, don’t push the swing too high, don’t
touch the stove, don’t run with scissors – even as you read this you are
remembering some of those and other “do-nots” and “dos” from your parents,
uncles, aunties, and grandparents. Sometimes we are kind of ‘bribed’ (clearing my
throat) – I mean, taught that we could be rewarded for good behavior;
consequently, the reward became our goal for “obeying the law”. So the
standards were “do-not, do this” and you receive a reward for obedience. From
time to time the parents or other authoritative figures would explain to you
the “underpinnings” [look this up if you don’t know what it means] of those
household laws – that is, why they were important, how they would protect you
and keep you safe, how they would help shape you into a responsible adult, how
it involved a closer relationship with your parents and one another in your
family and with your friends. Maybe even how does God feel by the way you act.
And maybe we didn’t want to hear the explanation and just focused on the
rewards!
Something
similar happened with the ancient nation of Israel. When God gave them the Law
at Mount Sinai through Moses (found in Exodus, Leviticus and emphasized in Deuteronomy), after He saved and delivered them from bondage in Egypt, it was
His follow-up to what Moses told Pharaoh several times – God wanted to bring
the people out of Egypt to bring them into relationship with Him, so that they
could serve and worship Him according to His promise. God created the Law to
teach His people how to worship, to teach them the proper way to depend upon
Him, to reveal to them who He was (for 400 years they lived in a society that
worshiped animal spirits, humans, Pharoahs, idols and images, things of nature and magic; they only had
stories of this God of Abraham and who He was; now He was there, showing
them that He was the true God, that no power – not even the mighty Egyptian Pharaoh
and his armies which kept them in bondage and fear for hundreds of years – could
trump this God of Abraham). God wanted them to learn that He was their true reward,
their true Promised Land. That a relationship with God was the best; that
treating family members and neighbors/others with a new level of righteousness,
i.e., being fair and respectful, would reflect their LORD’s character and bring
them peace and joy – the ‘side effects’ of worshiping the true God. This God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would reward them with lands full of crops, the rain to keep their crops alive and flourishing, the fruit of the womb, no shortage of livestock and other animals that would give provisions to the people, that He would protect them from their warring neighbor countries, would provide healthcare and all needs - when and only if they obeyed Yahweh, the Great I Am. They would be the most prosperous and the strongest nation in all of that known world - if they obeyed Yahweh. Readers of
Israel’s history know that, despite all of what God had done and provided, the people still rebelled. For centuries. The rewards of obedience were not enough for them!
Religious
leaders sought to “improve the law” by adding interpretations that would
require more duties and create burdens on people to try to keep them in line, but
mostly in line in ways that benefited the rich, the king, and the religious
establishment. Only a small few grasped the essence of the Law of Moses God had
given them – that God was not only a
Rewarder, but that He was a Father to them who wanted a reciprocal [look
it up if you don’t know what that word means] relationship. By the time Jesus
came, the religious establishment had enlarged the Law – adding various rules
and regulations that had little to do with relationship with God.
For
example, the sabbath law which was a simple, concise Word
from God in the Ten Commandments that would give His people an opportunity for
true rest from labor and to enter more deeply into relationship with God, where
they learned how to trust and depend on Him for their lives and livelihood, that law had become polluted and expanded to hundreds of regulations by the religious
establishment: how many steps you could walk on the sabbath; that you were not
allowed to pick up sticks to keep the fires going – in fact, they iterated all the things you could not do. They were very big on not
even getting medical attention on the sabbath – you’d have to wait until the
next day. The laws were strict and restricting; much of the essence, i.e., the
things of God, had faded from the law and now it was all about being legally
right. Instead of drawing people to God, the religious establishment was
seeking to be more important than God, in fact, to be a god to be obeyed, or
else.
So,
for hundreds and hundreds of years, the
people of Israel/Judah were subjected to religious teachers who did not teach
the essence of the law of Moses, only the legal demands – adding rules and
regulations that created burdensome obligations. These superfluous additions took the
focus off the true God and Father, rather than encouraging a relationship with
God. The leaders exalted Abraham as Father – claiming their worth and righteousness
in his name; they would even make it wrong for a person to say the LORD's name. It seemed like the “dos” and “do-nots” – those legal burdens on
the people that had little to do with God or had a "God flavor", would continue to be the norm for His
people.
In Jesus’ first advent, His commission was two-fold:
He came as the Lamb to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29, 35-36), not
just the sins of Israel. He also came to bring good news to the poor, to
proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let those
long oppressed by burdens and taxes to be set free, to proclaim the year of the
Lord’s favor (Luke 4:16-21). He would teach the truth about the kingdom of God
and be a revelation of the God of Moses and Abraham. (Matthew 4:12-17,23;Matthew 5-7; 13:1-53).
Jesus would reframe the true Law of Moses through teaching the true essence of God’s law. In
interpreting the Law and God’s intent behind it – for the religious
establishment had failed in their obligations to do that, Jesus taught the
people the fundamentals of worship that the Law was intended to bring to people –
the essence and underpinnings of the Law to instruct the people what a real
relationship with God was about. One of the most notable and recognizable of
Jesus’ teachings of such are found in the Sermon on the Mount; Matthew's Gospel reports the Sermon in three consecutive chapters - 5,6,7. In the opening
part of His sermon, Jesus speaks to the “blessings” (also referred to as
the “beatitudes”) inherent in true worship of God. He contrasts the legalistic
structure that the religious leaders had created and substantially voided out
the essence of the Law; Jesus speaks to the spirit of the Law, which was that of relationship with the
true God. As we examine these blessings - all 9 of them - that help us to see how they support God's covenant with Israel, and which transcend to those covered by God's New Covenant through Christ, we will consider what
good news Jesus is intentionally teaching to them and to us today.
It is important to reiterate: The Beatitudes and the teachings contained in the Sermon on the Mount were not just an 'event', a one-and-done and solely historic episode, nor were they given to be a palliative or a salve on our human condition; instead, these are to be fundamental means of growing in relationship with God; they were to become integrated, even renewed, into our daily faith walk. They are a
continual awareness of who we are in Christ. Jesus' initial listeners of this Sermon - persons of Jewish heritage - understood the phrases "blessing of God" or "blessed by God" differently than how it is most often used now. For the Jewish person, to be blessed or receive a blessing meant for them to be called into the presence of the LORD, Adonai, Yahweh - to experience God's shalom peace and uniquely commune with Him. Today, though, we most often equate the "blessing of God" to mean a material reward or position of some type that lasts for a little while, brings us a temporary pleasure or happiness, or easing of our situations - something which would essentially aggrandize the human and his/her circumstance. The human satisfaction is the desired focus, rather than having the most incredible experience a human can have - the privilege of uniquely communing with the Sovereign of the universe, the sanctified person's Abba Father, having an experience of eternal reverbrations. As one reads through the Beatitude expositions found at the links below, the recurring theme will be a God-centered awareness and relationship. (Psalm 34:8; Psalm 65:4; Romans 6:4,11) This and the following papers were written so that we may bathe in the Light of His wisdom and power, as our knowledge of God grows deeper and more rooted.
The promised Blessings of Jesus (the Beatitudes) in His Sermon on the Mount are posted individually, showing us the relationship with God which He continues to desire.
Bonus: "Order My Steps in Your Word," feat. HCC Choir
EXPOSITION/EXPLANATIONS OF THE BEATITUDES ARE AT LINKS BELOW. (The series is designed to be used as a small group Bible study.)
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
