GOOD SHEPHERD CHURCH SEMINARY
MODULE 56
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT:
THE NEW MOSES SPEAKS FROM THE MOUNTAIN
SEATED IN THE MIDST OF THE MULTITUDE ON THE MOUNTAINSIDE, JESUS BEGAN TO TEACH THE DISCOURSE WHICH WE NOW CALL 'THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT'.
Jesus sat on the mountain, so symbolic of meeting with God.
The great prophet Moses had ascended the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments - the Great Laws - from the Hand of God.
Now Jesus, the Son of God, as the new and greater Moses proclaimed a new and developed law from the seat of divine revelation.
The fourth beatitude as taught by Christ explains the bliss of the hungry spirit.
The Fourth Beatitude
Blessed are those who crave holiness
In the ancient world many knew what it is to be desperately hungry or really thirsty. A working man's wage was the equivalent of three pence a day.
A working man in Palestine ate meat only once a week, and together with the day laborer were never far from real hunger and actual starvation.
Many of us today are deeply blessed to have pure running water immediately available.
A man caught in a sandstorm on journey would have to wrap his burnous around his face and form, and wait for the choking sand to eventually abate. As the storm raged, he would steadily became parched with deep thirst.
Jesus describes just this desperate hunger and thirst in the beatitude 'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied,' Matthew Chapter 5 verse 6.
This is the hunger of the man who is starving for food, the thirst of one who will die unless he drinks.
This beatitude challenges us as to how much we desire goodness. Do we crave goodness as a starving man wants food, or as much as a man trapped in the heat of a desert sandstorm craves water? How intense, how sincere, is our desire for goodness?
Jesus knows our frailty and weakness. He knows too, that many of us - despite our very best intentions - sin.
Yet this beatitude is one which comforts.
It is not necessarily the seeker who achieves goodness who is blessed. Rather it is the one who longs whole-heartedly for goodness.
Blessedness comes to the one who, despite failure and filings, still clutches to him the passionate love of the highest. [1]
In His Mercy, God judges us not only by our achievements, but also by our dreams.
The essence of the human heart is noble, because this is how we were created; in the royal dignity of the Image of God Himself.
The fourth beatitude counsels us to hunger for the fullness of the goodness of God our Father.
The Fifth Beatitude
Blessed are those who show mercy to others
Jesus explained that the Heart of God is compassionate mercy and forgiveness. Were we all to receive true justice, none would prove pure enough to enter within the holy Presence of God.
Humanity carries within the strain of sin inherited as consequence of our ancestors' Fall.
But all is not lost. Christ teaches us that we can regain the Image of God within us,
We are required to practice the attributes which make God the perfection of holiness, one of which is to show mercy and understanding in the face of another's weakness.
Our gentle, tender and loving God extends mercy to the weeping sinner, understanding to the repentant wrongdoer, forgiveness to the broken Image of God in humanity.
Jesus teaches us plainly, 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' Matthew Chapter 5, verse 7.
Necessity of forgiveness
Jesus insists that we extend forgiveness as essential for discipleship. He emphasizes that as a consequence of our own mercy to others, God will show mercy for our own faults and failings.
The Hebrew word for mercy is 'Chesedh'. Chesedh, mercy, means the ability to enter another's being and see things with his eyes, think about things as he does, feel things with his emotions.
It is the understanding of another with their faults and failings with a compassion that can only come from God. [2]
This is exactly what God did. He came in the truly human body of Jesus, seeing life as we do.
He felt with our emotions, thought with the same brain humans think with.
God completely identified with our reality to the point that He became one of us.
Thus He can judge with compassion because He knows how difficult issues and relationships in humanity can prove.
Oh the bliss of the one who has the serenity of understanding and forgiving another.
It is the one who seeks to become holy through the fifth beatitude of mercy who will be blessed by mercy at the Judgement Seat of God.
1] Barclay, William. The Daily Study Bible, Gospel of Matthew Vol 1:CH.1-10. Revised Edition. 1981. Saint Andrew Press; Scotland - Page 11
2] Barclay, William. The Daily Study Bible, Gospel of Matthew Vol 1:CH.1-10. Revised Edition. 1981. Saint Andrew Press; Scotland - Page 103
The great prophet Moses had ascended the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments - the Great Laws - from the Hand of God.
Now Jesus, the Son of God, as the new and greater Moses proclaimed a new and developed law from the seat of divine revelation.
The fourth beatitude as taught by Christ explains the bliss of the hungry spirit.
The Fourth Beatitude
Blessed are those who crave holiness
In the ancient world many knew what it is to be desperately hungry or really thirsty. A working man's wage was the equivalent of three pence a day.
A working man in Palestine ate meat only once a week, and together with the day laborer were never far from real hunger and actual starvation.
Many of us today are deeply blessed to have pure running water immediately available.
A man caught in a sandstorm on journey would have to wrap his burnous around his face and form, and wait for the choking sand to eventually abate. As the storm raged, he would steadily became parched with deep thirst.
Jesus describes just this desperate hunger and thirst in the beatitude 'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied,' Matthew Chapter 5 verse 6.
This is the hunger of the man who is starving for food, the thirst of one who will die unless he drinks.
This beatitude challenges us as to how much we desire goodness. Do we crave goodness as a starving man wants food, or as much as a man trapped in the heat of a desert sandstorm craves water? How intense, how sincere, is our desire for goodness?
Jesus knows our frailty and weakness. He knows too, that many of us - despite our very best intentions - sin.
Yet this beatitude is one which comforts.
It is not necessarily the seeker who achieves goodness who is blessed. Rather it is the one who longs whole-heartedly for goodness.
Blessedness comes to the one who, despite failure and filings, still clutches to him the passionate love of the highest. [1]
In His Mercy, God judges us not only by our achievements, but also by our dreams.
The essence of the human heart is noble, because this is how we were created; in the royal dignity of the Image of God Himself.
The fourth beatitude counsels us to hunger for the fullness of the goodness of God our Father.
The Fifth Beatitude
Blessed are those who show mercy to others
Jesus explained that the Heart of God is compassionate mercy and forgiveness. Were we all to receive true justice, none would prove pure enough to enter within the holy Presence of God.
Humanity carries within the strain of sin inherited as consequence of our ancestors' Fall.
But all is not lost. Christ teaches us that we can regain the Image of God within us,
We are required to practice the attributes which make God the perfection of holiness, one of which is to show mercy and understanding in the face of another's weakness.
Our gentle, tender and loving God extends mercy to the weeping sinner, understanding to the repentant wrongdoer, forgiveness to the broken Image of God in humanity.
Jesus teaches us plainly, 'Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' Matthew Chapter 5, verse 7.
Necessity of forgiveness
Jesus insists that we extend forgiveness as essential for discipleship. He emphasizes that as a consequence of our own mercy to others, God will show mercy for our own faults and failings.
The Hebrew word for mercy is 'Chesedh'. Chesedh, mercy, means the ability to enter another's being and see things with his eyes, think about things as he does, feel things with his emotions.
It is the understanding of another with their faults and failings with a compassion that can only come from God. [2]
This is exactly what God did. He came in the truly human body of Jesus, seeing life as we do.
He felt with our emotions, thought with the same brain humans think with.
God completely identified with our reality to the point that He became one of us.
Thus He can judge with compassion because He knows how difficult issues and relationships in humanity can prove.
Oh the bliss of the one who has the serenity of understanding and forgiving another.
It is the one who seeks to become holy through the fifth beatitude of mercy who will be blessed by mercy at the Judgement Seat of God.
1] Barclay, William. The Daily Study Bible, Gospel of Matthew Vol 1:CH.1-10. Revised Edition. 1981. Saint Andrew Press; Scotland - Page 11
2] Barclay, William. The Daily Study Bible, Gospel of Matthew Vol 1:CH.1-10. Revised Edition. 1981. Saint Andrew Press; Scotland - Page 103
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