For this first post, I paraphrase something written by a great Methodist minster I never knew, my grandfather, Henry Gibbons Ruark.
When we speak of the beatitudes we usually mean the eight blessings with which the Sermon on the Mount opens. But there are recorded in the gospels at least ten other instances in which the Master used the words, "Blessed are ye" or "Blessed are they,". Taken together these eighteen constitute a brief but clear description of what Jesus considered to be the good life.
Most people approach these sayings of Christ very much like a tourist in an art gallery standing before a great painting: "He knows that he ought to admire it but does not quite understand why." (E. Russell). So we feel we ought to admire the virtues which Jesus extols in the beatitudes. But they are so much at variance with the qualities valued in the world. We are apt to set them apart in a gallery of their own; beautiful ideas to be praised, but remote from the reality of daily living. Yet if, Jesus claimed and our heart surmise that his words contain the truth of life, it is imperative that we take them out of their cloister and interpret them in terms of our actual experience.
We need to define the word "blessed". Some translators render the word "happy". It does mean that, and to read it so brings it closer to our understanding. But there is danger of supposing that it means merely the kind of happiness we commonly think we want. "Happy" originally meant those to whom things happen well; and to most of us it retains much of that same sense. Our attention is on the outward circumstances that surround us. Another similar translation would mean "fortunate". This is what the Greeks meant by the word; those to whom the fates are kind. But on the lips of Jesus the word "blessed" certainly does not mean a condition which is the result of chance. One scholar suggests the rendering "successful" and this would not be untrue to the intent of the Master. But for us "success" has come to consist so much of material reward or outward rank that it is difficult for us to use the word in any other sense. And Jesus obviously didn't mean that.
We may find a better clue in the original Greek. Dr. Adam Clark points out that the word here combines two shorter words "not" and "fate." So he concludes that the blessed man is he who is not subject to the caprices of fate. No matter how strongly the storm agitates the surface of the sea, the waters in the depths are calm. So the blessed man has deep within him a serenity and strength and joy which are not daunted by the changes and chances of life. This inwardness of meaning is accentuated by the fact that the Master described as blessed just those people whose circumstances we should hardly consider fortunate: the poor, the mournful, the persecuted. Dr. William Barclay paraphrases it: "O the joy of following Christ!"
The kind of blessedness of which he spoke can begin NOW. If, indeed, like him we see the whole of life bound together by the purpose of God, it seems only natural that it should begin here and now.
This blog is about trying to follow Christ in the here and now. Loving Well and Living Differently. I promise to throw in cute pictures and stories of our beautiful children along the way.
When we speak of the beatitudes we usually mean the eight blessings with which the Sermon on the Mount opens. But there are recorded in the gospels at least ten other instances in which the Master used the words, "Blessed are ye" or "Blessed are they,". Taken together these eighteen constitute a brief but clear description of what Jesus considered to be the good life.
Most people approach these sayings of Christ very much like a tourist in an art gallery standing before a great painting: "He knows that he ought to admire it but does not quite understand why." (E. Russell). So we feel we ought to admire the virtues which Jesus extols in the beatitudes. But they are so much at variance with the qualities valued in the world. We are apt to set them apart in a gallery of their own; beautiful ideas to be praised, but remote from the reality of daily living. Yet if, Jesus claimed and our heart surmise that his words contain the truth of life, it is imperative that we take them out of their cloister and interpret them in terms of our actual experience.
We need to define the word "blessed". Some translators render the word "happy". It does mean that, and to read it so brings it closer to our understanding. But there is danger of supposing that it means merely the kind of happiness we commonly think we want. "Happy" originally meant those to whom things happen well; and to most of us it retains much of that same sense. Our attention is on the outward circumstances that surround us. Another similar translation would mean "fortunate". This is what the Greeks meant by the word; those to whom the fates are kind. But on the lips of Jesus the word "blessed" certainly does not mean a condition which is the result of chance. One scholar suggests the rendering "successful" and this would not be untrue to the intent of the Master. But for us "success" has come to consist so much of material reward or outward rank that it is difficult for us to use the word in any other sense. And Jesus obviously didn't mean that.
We may find a better clue in the original Greek. Dr. Adam Clark points out that the word here combines two shorter words "not" and "fate." So he concludes that the blessed man is he who is not subject to the caprices of fate. No matter how strongly the storm agitates the surface of the sea, the waters in the depths are calm. So the blessed man has deep within him a serenity and strength and joy which are not daunted by the changes and chances of life. This inwardness of meaning is accentuated by the fact that the Master described as blessed just those people whose circumstances we should hardly consider fortunate: the poor, the mournful, the persecuted. Dr. William Barclay paraphrases it: "O the joy of following Christ!"
The kind of blessedness of which he spoke can begin NOW. If, indeed, like him we see the whole of life bound together by the purpose of God, it seems only natural that it should begin here and now.
This blog is about trying to follow Christ in the here and now. Loving Well and Living Differently. I promise to throw in cute pictures and stories of our beautiful children along the way.
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