Blessed Misery: The Paradox of the Beatitudes
Matthew: The Sermon on the Mount • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction
Introduction
Story of Anna falling into the ice. (Hypothermia saved her from a heart attack, her motabolism was so slowed that her body wasn’t using up oxygen nearly as fast, which is why she didn’t die).
As we read the beatitudes carefully, in some ways they may not make sense to a logical mind. As Jesus begins one of his most famous discourses, one that mirrors the ministry of Moses bringing the law down to the people of Israel from Mt Sinai, he lays the foundation with a list of blessings, blessings directed at those both with the inward misery at seeing the state of their sinfulness, and outward misery through persecution for righteousness sake.
Just as Anna’s life was saved because of a condition that would normally be harmful to our bodies, when God brings a heart from death to life, he does so by putting it through inward and outward misery which, when endured with faith, prove that they are truly blessed.
The Nature of the Beatitudes
The Nature of the Beatitudes
A Rabbi speaking to his disciples, an evangelist speaking to the larger crowd, a new Moses giving, not the law, but describing those who have the law written in their hearts.
Blessed
Happy, but not just happy.
Those who have every reason to rejoice because in what Christ is describing these ‘blessed’ proved the regenerating favour and power of God in their lives.
These are characteristics that exist in all those who are blessed in this way. Rather than giving a “do this and you will live” command, Jesus blesses those whose hearts are affected by redeeming grace. In this way, he does not abolish the law but rather reveals what the law was always meant to accomplish. These blessings are not simply for the outwardly obedient, but the inwardly changed.
These characteristics, however, are not necessarily what we might expect. While we might expect something like, “blessed are the kind” or “blessed are the righteous” but instead, Jesus seems to focus in on the misery of his disciples. In five of the eight beatitudes, Jesus essentially says, “blessed are the miserable.”
The Poor in Spirit: those who, despite their physical or financial state, consider themselves destitute in a spiritual sense. This poverty overwhelms them so that the do not consider anything else of worth.
The Mourners: those who, seeing their sin and their participation in a sinful world, open themselves to shameful truths about themselves. Like Isaiah, they cry out woe for themselves as those with unclean lips among a people of unclean lips. They mourn as if at their own funeral because of the deadly state they are naturally in.
Meek: Those who do not assert themselves because they are devoid of any sense of self-importance. The meek are submissive, quiet, humbled.
Hungry and Thirsty: their sense of spiritual poverty gives them an intense desire for righteousness that they know they cannot aquire for themselves.
Persecuted: The final misery is that the immediate result of the godly characteristics that result from their inward brokenness.
Merciful since mercy is what they desire for themselves. Their need of mercy makes them merciful as they look in faith at the mercy promised to them in Christ.
Pure in heart: because of their poverty of Spirit, their desire to see God is un-compromised by other desires. There is no contestt in them, God is purely their desire.
Peacemakers: a result of their meek attitude. Peacemakers are not powerhungry nor manipulative, but they seek to apease anger and vengance through an example of peaceful living and speaking.
Persecution is an outward misery from a world that is opposed to the character that Christ is describing.
Blessed
Blessed
So why would anyone want to be included in this list? Why would Jesus call these people blessed? This is either a blatent contradiction, a tasteless mockery, or a spiritually discerned paradox.
What we know about the blessed state:
It is centred on future realities.
For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.
The blessed are passive in recieving the blessing.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
The blessings counter their current misery.
And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.
The blessings make the short time of misery worth the greater blessing.
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
Conclusion: Living the Paradoxical Blessed Life
Conclusion: Living the Paradoxical Blessed Life
The Beatitudes describes a disciple whose life is centred on Christ:
A soul that views Christ, and the gulf between what they have all that Christ has to give.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
A soul that is in Christ by faith, holding on to him as the only hope for their miserable condition.
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
A soul that goes after Christ, walking according to his Word, suffering as he suffered, living as he taught us, humbling ourselves as he humbled himself, dying to ourselves as he died for us.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.