The Beatitudes

I’ve been thinking about the Beatitudes today, and doing a little reading about them. I’m toying with the idea of a series of posts about them – I’m not sure how that will work out, but I do have some thoughts about the Beatitudes as a whole.

I found an internet source today for a set of lessons for children based on the Beatitudes. The general philosophy of the lessons was that Jesus explained to us what behavior are necessary to be happy. To quote the site, “Jesus gave us eight Beatitudes. Follow these Beatitudes and you will be doing the right thing all the time and you will make Jesus very happy.” I’m sorry, but what a load of malarkey. I can’t believe that anyone would teach that to children. What awful pressure to place on a child. “You will be doing the right thing all the time?” Where’s the grace? This is number 1 on my list of What the Beatitudes are not – they are not a list of what to do to make Jesus happy.

I found out today that the word “blessed” in the Beatitudes is translated from the Greek word makarios. I like Wikipedia’s literal translation of that word: "possessing an inward contentedness and joy that is not affected by the physical circumstances." I think that the word blessed in the usual translation of this section of Matthew is misleading. The way we normally read it, blessed connotes gifts – we are blessed because we receive gifts from God. Think about a Beatitude: Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted (Matthew 5:4). If we read “blessed” to mean receiving a gift from God, then is it too far a stretch to read this passage as “God blesses us with mourning so that we will be comforted”? I personally think that that kind of translation is misleading. John Ortberg, in the book that I reading now, says that that kind of theology -- that all human suffering is merely a moral object lesson from God -- "trivializes human tragedy and blasphemes God's character." Amen. Number 2 on my list of what the Beatitudes are not – they are not a list of the ways in which God will bring us heartache so that we will learn that He has the power to make us happy.

I also think that the Beatitudes are not a checklist. Only if I am mourning, or meek or hungering for righteousness, will I be blessed by God. I don’t believe that this is a list to be used by us to compare our lives against. We shouldn’t read the Beatitudes and come away with the feeling – “Wow, my life is just too good for me to truly know the blessings of God.” These are also not steps to take to get to know God. In other words (number 3), the Beatitudes are not The Way.

So, what are they? I think Jesus is painting a picture for us of what life can be like in the presence of God. When we read them as a description of life with God, then they make so much more sense in the context of the entire picture of God that we find in the Bible. What are they? The Beatitudes list the evidence of grace. Instead of describing The Way, they tell us what happens after we begin to walk with God. They are a description of what it is like to live a life surrounded by grace. At least, that is my working theory.

If it works out, I may take each one and use it as a starter for a post – not right away, but over the next few weeks. We’ll see if anything I think about the Beatitudes makes any sense at all.