2 April | Youth
«And he began to teach them.» Matthew 5:2, NIV
Contrary to what Plato said, no one is born knowing things. Someone needs to show us the “way.” Therefore, at the beginning of His ministry, Jesus climbed a mountain and began to teach His disciples the principles of His kingdom. This movement of the Master is parallel to that of Moses on Mount Sinai. Just as the Hebrew prophet went up to the mountain to receive the tablets of the Ten Commandments, Jesus went to a mountain in Galilee to expand the understanding of His eternal law. For Matthew, Jesus is the new Moses, who delivers the new law at the new Sinai.
In the beatitudes, instead of saying a series of “no’s,” Jesus described the central virtues of the Kingdom: humility, meekness, mercy, purity of heart, among other attributes. Instead of a code of conduct, Jesus pointed to His own character. This teaching was completely different from anything the people had heard. There were no opinions, conjectures, or the promise of liberation from the Roman yoke. His every sentence was a universe of grace, the essence of truth, spoken with love and authority.
Aiden W. Tozer stated that, if we wanted to present “a faithful picture of the human race to someone who did not know it, we would only have to take the beatitudes and reverse their meaning” (The Best of A. W. Tozer, p. 14). Instead of humility, today we see pride in the highest degree. Instead of meekness, there is arrogance. Instead of mercy, cruelty prevails. What about purity? We do not usually see it in the actions and intentions of most people.
Note that the Sermon on the Mount describes a sequence of miracles that Jesus needs to perform in us, from the inside out. It is as if He probed the depths of our being and said, with a smile on His face, that we need a heart transplant. The beatitudes are a kind of self-portrait of Jesus. Each one of them is a “happiness pill” to promote a change of direction in life. When studying them, we realize that the kingdom of God is not related to human riches, power and glories; it is the progressive path of grace. Do you want to walk this inverted path?