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Scripture for the day: Matthew 5:1-2 And seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them saying:
Thought for the day: I want us to try to get the picture here if we can. Jesus had left home, been baptized by His cousin, John the Baptist, spent 40 days and nights alone in the wilderness, praying and fasting and getting clear direction concerning His mission for the Father, and had just recently begun to preach. And what was the subject of His messages? Why, just the same as that of John the Baptist: “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Jesus had called the first of His disciples and had begun to attract a sizeable following. One day, as He looked at the multitude of people wanting to hear some word of encouragement from Him, He went up on a mountainside and sat with His disciples. He began to teach them and gave what we have come to call the Sermon on the Mount, beginning of course, with the Beatitudes. And aren’t those the most wonderful, soothing, uplifting bits of wisdom you’ve ever heard? That’s exactly the way we treat them, isn’t it? But let’s take them in their cultural context for a few moments and we’ll see them in a very different light.
To the Jews of that time (and to more or less all of us today), the evidence of God’s loving favor consisted of a good life, a strong family, wealth, fame, power, happiness, an abundance of food, psychological well-being and good prospects for the future. And here comes Jesus, in His first real teaching experience, telling them they’re blessed in every way that is contrary to everything they’ve been taught since childhood. Can you imagine the reaction? They just knew a person was blessed because he was one of the chosen seed of Israel’s race, and here came Jesus, one of their own they thought, telling them they’re actually blessed when they realize how spiritually poor they are! Everyone knew a person was blessed when there was no tragedy in their lives and this Jesus dared to tell them they were blessed when they could truly mourn, for only then would they know real comfort.
What kind of teacher was this? Common sense said that the blessed person was the one who had wealth and power, not the meek; they never seemed to achieve much of anything. The spiritually satisfied were an example of God’s blessing, not the spiritually destitute. Mercy had little to do with their thinking for they didn’t serve a merciful God; theirs was one of justice and law. Pure in heart; peacemakers; persecuted; surely He didn’t mean those things literally. Why, any thinking man would understand that those things belonged to the downtrodden, the outcasts, the sinners. A man or woman of God, one who was truly blessed, would experience none of those things. And yet here was this Jesus, sitting calmly on a large stone, tearing down everything they’d ever known to be true of their religion.
And isn’t it just like Him to destroy our most cherished beliefs in favor of the true nature of the Father? Isn’t it just like Jesus to challenge our “knowledge” of Him by throwing out nuggets of truth and then expecting us to live out that truth in the power of His Spirit? Well, what do we do with what He’s given us?
Now go take on your world. - Bill