Monday, December 8, 2008

I Am Still Learning

Most people know the Beatitudes, right? Or at least the general format - Blessed are the...., for.....

What are they, though? And how are we supposed to read them? Take the first one for example:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

What do you read that as? Some nice words perhaps. Or maybe some kind of entry requirement for the kingdom. However, if I've learned one thing this past semester -- and I'd like to think that I have -- it's that the Beatitudes are not at all what I thought they were. For me, they were just some nice words. Largely meaningless to me personally, but nice sounding all the same. The most common view of them is probably that they're entry requirements: "If I can just make myself poor in spirit, then I'm in" etc.

Well, as Dr Autry pointed out, there's more to them than originally meets the eye. And it doesn't take a Greek scholar to see it. You just have to read the text carefully, and the truth of the passage just presents itself like one of those 3D pictures that were all the rage about 10 years ago. Take the first Beatitude again, but this time, lets make a Line A and a Line B from it:

A - Blessed are the poor in spirit
B - for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

The question Dr Autry asks, and the question I now ask you is, why is Line A true? Why are the poor in spirit "blessed" (or even "happy" in some translations)?

Well, the text says that they are blessed because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That little word "for" is sometimes a relatively meaningless word, but here it means "because", thus linking Line A with Line B. And therefore Line A is true because Line B is true. The poor in spirit are blessed, because they get to be a part of the kingdom.

So then we come to Line B. Why is Line B true? Why does Jesus say that "theirs is the kingdom of heaven"? Think about it before reading on...

Well, since you didn't think about it, I'm not going to tell you. No that's not true. I'm too excited not to tell you! This is where most of us stumble. Line A is true because Line B is true, but Line B is true not because Line A is true. A plain reading of the Beatitude never suggests as much. Read it again if you're not convinced. Rather, Line B is true simply because that's what God wants to do. God wants to include people in the kingdom of heaven. God wants to be merciful. God wants people to see Him for who He really is. Line B is true because that's God's will.

I mean how can one become poor in spirit in order to enter the kingdom? Can I just shut my eyes really tight and make myself poor in spirit, and then God will have to accept me? No, I can't. But that's the liberating thing. I'm already poor in spirit! Left to my own devices I'm a mess! All I can do is acknowledge this spiritual bankruptcy, and that's where God meets me with His offer of the kingdom.

The context in which we read these Beatitudes is also important. These sayings of Jesus are part of the gospel which He preached. That is, they're part of the good news, as is the saying "You shall be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect". A lot of the Sermon on the Mount doesn't sound like good news if we're honest. In fact, it sounds like terrible news. If I lust I've committed adultery? Yikes! Anger is akin to murder? Oh dear.

However, when we read the Beatitudes and the other teaching of Jesus as descriptions of His own character, then we begin to see what's going on. Jesus might as well have been describing His own earthly life with these sayings, but He didn't come to earth just to give us the supreme example to live by. If that's all He came to do, then He could have just come down, said these things, and then zapped back up to heaven. But that's not how the story goes. He was on His way somewhere when He said these things, and that place was the cross at Calvary. He didn't come to change the rules or to give "New law". He came to change people, by cleansing them from their sins and imparting to them His very life; a life characterised by all the things taught about in the Sermon on the Mount.

There's a whole lot more I could say on the matter, but I'll leave it to you to think about it and to kick yourself for never reading the Beatitudes the way Dr Autry reads them!

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