Matthew 5:1-12 Commentary

This series of promises known as the Beatitudes continues to speak with hope, comfort, and possibly a little challenge. Most of us don’t want to claim these promises as prizes or rewards, and future glory can be a small comfort during current tragedy and hardship. But remembering the one who speaks these words may just boost the power of their balm.

Jesus has just completed the first leg of his ministry in the Galilee region, and according to Matthew, he and the disciples are now being followed by a great crowd of people from beyond the region because of all the works of hope and physical redemption he has done. Jesus has become a popular healer and people are coming to them because they need that kind of hope.

My thanks to Karoline Lewis for pointing out that these Beatitudes are Jesus’s first act of teaching in the Gospel of Matthew. Given his Jewish audience, the first appearance of something is important. The first thing that Jesus teaches about life in the kingdom of God is that it is for people who are in need. It is also significant that the kingdom of God is built on promises. And, let us not miss the detail that Jesus sits down to teach. To sit is to join with those you teach, and to sit is to proclaim authority. To sit and discuss these hard things is to be calm, purposeful, not afraid of the challenges ahead.

So, Jesus’s first words of teaching are a word of comforting blessing filled with promises, made from a position of joining those he teaches. The fact that it comes after a volley of healings and miracles really rounds out the sense of Jesus’s ministry, doesn’t it?

Let us imagine ourselves among the crowd. Would our ears perk up as the first word Jesus says is, “Blessed”? Then what would we feel when we heard “poor in spirit”? If this was the first time we heard this series of promises, would the descriptor feel like a record scratch? A shocking choice that would never match the category of blessed in our own minds? Even for those of us who have heard these words so many times, we might still scoff, “Yeah, right!” It can be difficult to believe these promises—or to want these promises when we’d rather have an end to the current suffering.

Did Jesus mean for us to try to apply the promises to current sufferings? He said them in the future tense, but in a significant way, the Christian life only really works by living a future reality. Perhaps a helpful way to integrate these promises is to move towards the sense of reality they communicate. If we cannot change the particulars of a situation, like what makes us poor in spirit or in mourning, what has necessitated being merciful and a peacemaker, the situations that have left us reflecting on our meekness or yearning for the righteousness of others, then perhaps we can focus on the kind of world described by God’s promises as we take the next step in life.

God’s Beatitudes help us to neither wallow nor become victims while allowing us to still tell the truth about the hardships we currently face. We do not have deny the difficulties or the injustices and wrongs in order to pursue a beautiful life and future. Jesus doesn’t require us to pretend, but he does give us reason to hope.

Revisiting his words here, we find that each of these blessings comes with a liberating power.

The poor in spirit can know that there is a kingdom that they can be part of already now, and that they are more keenly aware of the qualities of this kingdom and how to live in it, seeking God’s face. Those who mourn will find comfort and the meek will have the jeers and jokes made at their expense lightened by remembering that the way God wants the earth to look is how they already live: gentle with others. Similarly, those hungering for mercy and justice will be ready to celebrate when God’s justice rolls down. The merciful are ready to be like God, mercy flowing free. The pure in heart who feel so out of place in this world will find their rest and their heart’s desire even as they keep striving to see God. Peacemakers will help build God’s world, brick by proverbial brick. And as those facing persecution continue to suffer, they can strengthen their souls in the fact that they belong to another world.

From these promises come a redirection for current hardships. From these promises come hints to our next steps when we’ve chosen to live counterculturally. From these promises comes the realization that we are people in need, but those needs are met by a God who understands and chooses to join us in every way, never running away from hardship and suffering. Jesus is the fulfillment of each of these promises, through his Spirit he will birth the kingdom of heaven because he is the kingdom, flesh and blood. Because, like these promises, he is the one who gives the kingdom.

Textual Point

As is known by many, Luke has his own version of the Beatitudes, but verses 10-13 are completely unique to Matthew. Matthew’s original audience knew the pressures of persecution quite well, so the extended words of Jesus, echoing the first promise, might have been especially encouraging for them to hear.

Illustration Idea

The Christian tradition has connected the Beatitudes to the seven virtues, signalling that they are not only descriptive, but prescriptive for the Christian life. Here’s one such representation from the Medieval church. The Beatitudes are represented as trees growing and being cultivated from the roots of the virtues. It is a sobering reminder that, like it or not, we live a life of need.