Beatitudes - what's the connection?
I've often had a really difficult time with Jesus' teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. It seems like a statement of the law without the freedom that seems to course through the rest of the New Testament. I'm learning, though, that the beatitudes are key in providing a platform for the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. It seems to be crucial that this passage precede that of the rest of the teaching. In the beatitudes we find the blessing of wholeness. This is a similar "blessing" as found in genesis when God blesses creation. It is also similar to a father's "blessing," which can be found throughout the Old Testament. Further, the attributes of those who are blessed are those who are generally lacking or incomplete. The blessings, in general, are a completion or wholeness of the persons being blessed. It is not until one delves into the concept of "undue persecution" that the rewards expand beyond the concept of wholeness and into "great rewards." All of this is important in that God BLESSES BEFORE HE REQUIRES. The righteousness required by the law is filled in those who hunger and thirst for it - those who lack it in the first place! It is then that Jesus, stating that those who receive the blessing will be the salt and light of the earth, moves into the identity of the the new kingdom of heaven. The Sermon on the Mount mimics the Old Testament law on Mount Sinai, yet with greater depth in that it penetrates not the actions of man but the heart of man. Each exposition of the law (both OT and NT) is intended to create an identity for a nation. The Old Testament Law was intended to provide identity for the nation of Israel. The Sermon on the Mount defines the identity of the members of the Kingdom of Heaven. Thus, the law describes the actions and hearts of those who have received their blessings of wholeness, who step into the fulfillment of the law that Jesus provides, and lives the Sermon on the Mount. It seems to me that the real beauty of the blessing is found when we hunger and thirst for the righteousness described therein: we will not have to strive for it. We will surely labor for it, but it will be given like water, filling us to the brim. Surely Jesus, the true blessing, the true source of life and wholeness, fills us in each moment with the blessings of God, and empowers us, moment by moment, to walk the life and identity he established for us in the Sermon on the Mount.
