Jesus tells us the meek will inherit the earth. They will be the ones to enjoy the fulfillment of the promise when the new heaven and the new earth come. Jesus commends what he already is. Jesus is meek; he commends meekness. Jesus puts up with a lot. Is that what he means by meekness: patience, tolerance, perseverance? Meek. That doesn’t sound like something we want to be, does it? Meek. What is that, even: shy and retiring; spineless? A meek woman. Get some character! Stand up for yourself! A meek man. Coward. Pushover. How can we want something so unattractive? The world continually asks Christians that same question.

In the ancient world, among the Greeks, especially, the happy life was thought of as a middle way: not too much, not too little; no excess, either way. No deficiency, either way. Meekness is the closest English can get to this happy balance, this joyful poise that Jesus means. This healthy, holy balance meant by meekness is like a fusion of humility and self-discipline. The meek are those who have holy peace from God: holy peace that comes through holy living, which is also enabled by God. God renews our will to want such holy, healthy, humble living more than some other way: more than pursuing the pleasures of the flesh, more than wealth, prestige, or power, or youth, or comfort, or popularity.

The meek have finished with all that. The meek, by grace, have come to realize that humble obedience is the way of joy. Then, the task is to stay humble and to strive for obedience, because neither of those things is easy, in this world, in these times. The Scottish pastor, professor, and student of the Bible William Barclay paraphrases this beatitude this way: “blessed is the man who has the humility to know his own ignorance, his own weakness, and his own need.”[1] The way taught by this society is to ignore our own ignorance, to deny our weakness, and to seek to fulfill need in any way but a godly way.

This is to reject relationship with God. We cannot have a healthy, holy relationship with God if we will not admit our ignorance, confess our weakness, and acknowledge our need for God.

We feel this need for God in part when we hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus tells us those who hunger and thirst in this way will be filled. That is a wonderful promise. How people hunger and thirst for what is not God: power, popularity, prestige, vengeance, youth, beauty, material comfort, ease, freedom. Justice may be part of righteousness, but righteousness is so much more, more profound, higher, more blessed, more holy. Where is righteousness? Who has it? Where can we get it? God. God is righteous and He is righteousness. Apart from Him, without Him, there is no righteousness, and if justice is a part of righteousness, then, without God, apart from God, there is no justice, just angry clamor, resentment, hatred, rage, jealousy, thirst for vengeance, lust for power. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for God.

Of all the things for which people hunger, how many hunger for God, really hunger, feel pangs of longing to be filled with God? How many feel parched, thirsting for God? Do we even know such feelings, such physical pangs, here amid our plenty? I mean, faith is great and all, and God is good and all, but let’s not get carried away, right? We’re Presbyterian here, after all. Even you rogue Baptists and stray Methodists.

When we hunger and thirst for righteousness, we hunger and thirst for God; this hunger and thirst is the way to God. Christ is the way to God, and Christ is the righteousness of God, and Christ has much to say about the way to live in this world. Once we have come to faith, we spend the remainder of our lives struggling to live the way Jesus describes. Some days are better than others, but probably no day has ever been especially great, especially successful.

We make gestures that way, but we haven’t yet begun really to live as Christ would have his followers live; some days, we even know it. This awareness could seem very discouraging: why bother, if I’ll never succeed? But remember the blessedness of the meek, those who are humble before God, trusting in God to give them daily grace, trusting God to renew and transform their living, and striving to be transformed from love of God. God is with us for a reason, beloved! Not our superhuman efforts but God’s divine love will accomplish it!

The vision we have in our hearts, our souls, always exceeds what our hands are able to perform. Any artist will tell you this. The paintings we would paint have not yet been painted. The words we would write have not yet been written. The songs we would sing have not yet been sung. The dance we would dance has not yet been danced. The music we hear we cannot perform, for it all comes to us in the language of heaven: a language we are still learning. This life is our school in that language. So, we do not let our failures overwhelm us, for we have a Savior and Lord who overcomes all our failures, always urging us onward, homeward, always holding out his hands to help us up. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for God, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. If we would engrave these words upon our hearts, recite them to ourselves each morning, how different life in this world would be! When we strive for holy meekness, that humble life in the presence of God, when we hunger and thirst for the presence of God, when we long for this, we learn mercy. When we reflect upon our own ignorance, weakness, and need, when we live in maybe even painful awareness of these, we keep the way open for God to teach us mercy. Mercy comes to those who seek it. Not everyone seeks mercy. When we have received mercy from God, and we know it and welcome it, we begin to give it. This is a most Christ-like thing: to give mercy, show mercy, to have mercy. And how we need it! How everyone needs it. Oh beloved, we live in angry times, filled with angry clamor. Shall we be anger and clamor with the rest, or shall we show mercy and have humility?

Blessed are the pure in heart. Apart from Jesus, who has ever been pure in heart? The pure in heart will see God. What is this purity of heart? Is Jesus putting things beyond our grasp? Perhaps even purity of heart is possible, with faith. Purity of heart is not the absence of temptation. Most likely, the pure in heart are tempted all the more often. Impure thoughts come. Impure desires, whispering, hungering, scratching at the door. Alloyed, adulterated thoughts: did God really say? Call such thoughts and desires by their name and reject them. This is the way of the pure in heart, which is the way of longing for a pure heart, an unalloyed heart, a heart that is not divided.

I serve God and sin. How can that be? Sin may come, but the pure in heart do not serve it. Purity is not perfection. Purity is a process of purging, a lifelong process that requires the Holy Spirit, righteousness, and a growing awareness of our ignorance—how often still we call good what is in fact sin!—of our weakness—how often we continue to stumble, even into the same old traps!—and a continual awareness of our deep, fundamental need: we can’t do anything worth doing, apart from God. With God alone can we hope to get anywhere worth going.

We don’t start out fully committed to God, and even now, after all these years, we still struggle. Let there be the struggle, then, and don’t be surprised or dismayed. The failure, the fall, is when you stop struggling, stop striving: there is impurity of heart, wanting God and wanting sin, wanting a god who will bless your sin, who will change the name of your sin to blessing. Idols are wonderfully accommodating, that way. The ignorant can do no wrong. The humble know the wrong they have done, and the wrong that still plots in their heart.

It matters what you listen to. It matters what you read. It matters what you watch. When you eat at the world’s table, you come away stained. When we eat at God’s table, we are filled. You leave the world’s table hungry, empty, and a little nauseous. We come from God’s table joyful, at peace, hopeful, affirmed in faith, quiet with the fullness of love. The world smothers you with flesh; God feasts us with the Spirit.

In these Beatitudes, Jesus reminds us of the kind of life we must seek, must strive for, the kind of life that pleases God, relying upon and demonstrating grace: that holy identity of love and righteousness, not fused, not mixed, but one and the same, indivisible and sacred. What makes Christians different from everyone else bumping around out there, getting wounded again by the world, is that we know our need for God. Others know their need for something, but they won’t call that something God. They don’t want to; they would be offended, indignant. Knowing our need, we seek God with purpose, with life-altering devotion. This knowledge, this seeking, and this change are all from the Holy Spirit. In Christ, we have been caught up in the power of the Spirit. God will carry us higher. Blessed are those caught up by the Spirit. Blessed are those in Christ Jesus.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

               [1] William Barclay, Gospel of Matthew. Vol. 1 Daily Study Bible. Philadelphia: Westminster P, 1975. 98.