The saints are those people who believe Jesus when he tells us what it means to be blessed.
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Most of us read the beatitudes and our eyes glaze over. The paradoxes contained therein just don't seem to make sense. What sense can we make of calling those who mourn, those who are meek, or those who hunger blessed? Aren't these states the very opposite of blessedness? Well, no, apparently not. In fact these very conditions put us in a place to care about the Kingdom of heaven more than the temporary things of earth. They help long for lasting things so much that even our relation to our present suffering is transformed.
The world can't recognize this blessedness. It couldn't recognize the Messiah in the poor Jewish man Jesus, particularly as he bore the pain and shame of the cross. It can't recognize blessedness in the saints as they suffer and yet maintain their faith and longing for God. The world looks at obedience and sees only weakness. It looks at resignation to the will of God as excessive passivity. It does not see the higher reality that motivates both Jesus and the saints, the reality which is meant to drive our daily lives.
The blessedness of the beatitudes is real. We don't have to wait for heaven to experience it although the fullness of the promise will only be consummated in heaven.
See what love the Father has bestowed on us
that we may be called the children of God.
Yet so we are.
The reason the world does not know us
is that it did not know him.
Beloved, we are God's children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
The reality of being God's obedient children can become such a blessing that it transcends any hardships we suffer for his sake. It gives us the strength, coming from love, to carry whatever crosses come our way. We follow in the footsteps of Jesus who first embodied all of the beatitudes, meek, mourning, and hungry. Yet even when he hungered he had hidden food in his Father's will (see John 4:32). Precisely in being insulted and persecuted Jesus merited the great reward of heaven for all who are united with him.
The beatitudes transform us into a people who can actually be happy in heaven. They make us a people of worship who put first things first. They teach us that to love God with our heart, mind, and strength, is not only an obligation but is in fact the only path to joy.
After this I had a vision of a great multitude,
which no one could count,
from every nation, race, people, and tongue.
They stood before the throne and before the Lamb,
wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.
They cried out in a loud voice:
"Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne,
and from the Lamb."
The Lamb himself opens the possibility of blessedness to us by covering us in his own Blood. In our own times of great distress it is his life in us that makes living the beatitudes possible. Let us cry out in praise to our God today.
Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.
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