μακάριος



Luke 6:20-26
20And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
21“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
22“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!
23Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
24“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
25“Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. “Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
26“Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

Luke has made a distinction here for us. These words are for “His disciples”. This teaching is for us. Even in that is a lesson for us. You meet people where they are at on the journey. For the most part, you don’t start with Ezekiel or Revelation when dealing with a new Christian. You start with John or Genesis. Jesus isn’t sharing these words with the crowd. He’s teaching those who are already His disciples.

Now, on to what He has to say to us. First we start with the word “blessed”. In some translations, the word “happy” has been used here. In fact, several years ago, Robert Schuller published a book called The Be Happy Attitudes. I remember thinking at the time that this was a gross trivialization of what Jesus intended. I still think that. The word here is makarios which could indeed include happiness, but that word has connotations in English that don’t really fit here with the context of the passage.

“Happy” implies a human emotion, while “blessed” implies that God’s grace and favor rest upon the person. The promise of bliss for those who are blessed is eschatological, not temporal. The blessing of joy does not come from being poor, but from the promise of God’s kingdom that comes to those who understand the eschatological meaning of their poverty.
Just, A. A., Jr. ©1996. Luke 1:1–9:50 (p. 279). St. Louis, MO: CPH.

So, if you want to read “happy” here, it wouldn’t exactly be wrong, but it is certainly less than what I think Jesus meant.

These verses divide into two categories. The blessings and the woes and they correspond to one another as a whole.

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.
“Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!
“Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

When seen in this way, you can make some correlations between embracing the earthly life versus embracing the Kingdom of God. These words probably refer to both the physical world and the spiritual. If we want to place all of our trust and energies into what the flesh has to offer, our rewards are going to be shallow and short term. If we want to place our trust in God and His way for us, we will receive the Kingdom of God, satisfied and rejoicing. The praise of man, while pleasant enough is also short-term and useless.

Already, as Jesus teaches His disciples He is painting them a realistic picture of what their lives will look like here on earth and in the realm of Heaven. If you can forgo the rewards of the flesh which are fleeting you will gain the reward of heaven which is eternal. That might sound like a no-brainer, but we all know that living in the now, facing the hatred of those who don’t want anything to do with the faith, is tough. Keeping the future blessings of heaven in mind can also be difficult but those blessings are even played out for us right here, right now, as we get to spend our days with Jesus even before we reach heaven.

I know, it’s deep. That’s why He taught it to the disciples, not the crowd.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

יהוה שָׁמַר--Yahweh Shamar (God Watches)

Image
Psalm 121 1 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. There are numerous passages I cling to when stress takes over my life. I would be hard pressed to declare a favorite, but this psalm would come close. So this morning I listened to Psalm 121 about 20 times as I meditated through the verses. First, I want to point out that the word or idea of shamar appears in every verse expect 6. The NIV uses the word "watch" while the ESV uses "keep". The...
Read more

Excusez-moi

Image
2 Kings 23:31-37 31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 32 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his fathers had done. 33 And Pharaoh Neco put him in bonds at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and laid on the land a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. 34 And Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. But he took Jehoahaz away, and he came to Egypt and died there. 35 And Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh, but he taxed the land to give the money according to the command of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, from everyone according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Neco. 36 Jehoiakim was twenty-fiv...
Read more

Narrow Door

Image
Luke 13:22-30 22 He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. 23 And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them , 24 “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ 26 Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ 27 But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ 28 In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. 29 And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at tabl...
Read more