Vince Deagler

last sunday we were looking at the beatitudes (matthew 5:1-12).  each stanza starts with the phrase “blessed are” and then jesus describes these blessed people.  the idea of blessed is these people have a sense of personal happiness, they feel fortunate about life.  some of them are somewhat simple to get, at least it seems that way to me.  meekness, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, mercy, purity of heart, peacemaking all seem to be an easy fit when it comes to personal happiness or feeling fortunate.  after all, look at the opposite.  are the out of control happy?  do they feel fortunate?  how about those pursuing unrighteousness and impurity?  those quick to give another what they deserve are not often happy in my experience.  same goes for those who do not seek to be peacemakers, experience tells me they are always in some kind of a skirmish.  these are not the thoughts that cause me to pause, i get it.

but there are 3 that do not seem to make sense, unless you factor in jesus.  think about it.  blessed are the poor in spirit…the powerless, the hopeless, the helpless.  i do not like to be in that position.  in fact i usually rage against being there.  or how about what i think is a real contradiction in terms.  blessed are the mourners.  how does blessing and mourning go together?  aren’t they mutually exclusive?  if you are mourning you are not happy, and vice versa.  and how about blessed are you when you are persecuted…b/c of righteousness.  doesn’t that just tick you off when you are right, but are treated as if you were wrong.  that doesn’t make me feel happy.  how about you?  see what i mean, these don’t seem to make sense.  unless you factor in christ, which i have, which i shared on sunday. 

what about you?  how do you process these statements so they make sense?  rather than tell you what i think, i’d prefer to hear from you and interact on that one to one level.  so get out your bibles, look at the beatitudes,  do they make sense to you?  if so, how?  i think jesus is the answer, but i want to hear your thoughts.  thanks for reading.  blessings.  vince