A Beatitudinal Return to Joy

For a long time, I have viewed the Beatitudes of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount[1] like a valley. The first four lead down to rock bottom; the second four lead up to joy that cannot be hindered by anything we go through. It looks something like this:

This morning, being up unusually early set the stage for a new focus in the Beatitudinal Valley. It felt like finding a new viewpoint from which to see how everything in the kingdom operates. And what it showed me was the work the Triune was doing to return me to joy in the very areas of life Jesus described. 

From there, I looked up the Beatitudes as recorded by both Matthew and Luke and focused on the last one recorded in both gospels.[2] I made a chart to see what they looked like side-by-side.         

Matthew 5:11-12	Luke 6:22-23
“Blessed are you	“Blessed are you
when others revile you	when people hate you
and persecute you	and when they exclude you
and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely	and revile you
	and spurn your name as evil,
on my account.	on account of the Son of Man!
Rejoice	Rejoice in that day,
and be glad,	and leap for joy,
for your reward is great in heaven,	for behold, your reward is great in heaven;
for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.	for so their fathers did to the prophets.

Before continuing with today’s lesson, there are a few possible reasons why Matthew and Luke have different wordings. One, that Jesus said a lot more than what was recorded and both men are picking different words and phrases from the whole message. Two, that Jesus taught these things on more than one occasion and the men are using words and phrases that came up at different times. Three, that both are summarizing Jesus’ teaching with different choices of words, or one is giving a verbatim account while the other is summarizing. And, of course, since there is also the dimension of this that the men were writing down the words “breathed-out by God”,[3] they were simply recording things as they were “carried along by the Holy Spirit” to write them considering the different readership on which they were focused.[4] 

I am always reading God’s word with the aim of answering the three questions: What is God saying? What is God doing? How am I to join God in his work? And that led to me realizing that God was speaking directly to things I have been through recently enough that they still hit the feels on a regular basis. He had something to say about his will in the matter; he is doing something about it that is different from what comes naturally to me, and he intends for me to adjust to what he is doing with some distinctive changes to my focus on feelings.

Which led to adjusting the chart to allow room to prayer-journal about everything.         

Matthew 5:11-12	Luke 6:22-23	Prayer Focus
“Blessed are you	“Blessed are you
when others revile you	when people hate you
and persecute you	and when they exclude you
and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely	and revile you
	and spurn your name as evil,
on my account.	on account of the Son of Man!
Rejoice	Rejoice in that day,
and be glad,	and leap for joy,
for your reward is great in heaven,	for behold, your reward is great in heaven;
for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.	for so their fathers did to the prophets.

I will likely be at this viewpoint for a while, so here is just a summary of what it looks like to pray God’s word back to him:    

Matthew 5:11-12	Luke 6:22-23	Prayer Focus
“Blessed are you	“Blessed are you	To process how mistreatment because of Christ is to be seen as an expression of God’s favor that is cause for joy.
when others revile you	when people hate you	To acknowledge to Father how these things have applied in real life scenarios and what it has felt like to experience them.
and persecute you	and when they exclude you	To acknowledge the experiences of persecution and disowning that have taken place and that God is fully aware of them.
and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely	and revile you	To address the distinctive attachment-pain of loved ones speaking to others about us with lies and reviling, and that God’s view of this is still contrary to what is natural.
	and spurn your name as evil,	To face how painful it is to be given a bad name by slanderous spreading of lies and accept that God doesn’t see this the way we do.
on my account.	on account of the Son of Man!	To acknowledge this qualifier that determines why the descriptions of hatred are a blessing and not a condemnation, that the negative way we have been treated is distinctly because of Jesus Christ.
Rejoice	Rejoice in that day,	To receive this command as Jesus’ will for returning us to joy, and then to join him in his work of returning us to joy by responding to his word with rejoicing!
and be glad,	and leap for joy,	To pray through whatever “deepers” are exposed by this “higher” of being so glad in how we are treated that we would leap for joy (at least in our hearts, if not in our actions) in response to things that would normally fill us with sorrow.
for your reward is great in heaven,	for behold, your reward is great in heaven;	To pray through any “deepers” exposing how little we live with this mindset, and to allow ourselves to attach to this “higher” that we are laying up treasure in heaven simply by being mistreated for living for Jesus Christ our Lord.
for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.	for so their fathers did to the prophets.	And finally, to talk with Father about this wondrous reality of his kingdom, that the prophets we admire so much in God’s word were also mistreated by God’s people for speaking God’s word to them. There may be feelings to process, but there still must be an acknowledgement of God’s word and will.

At the time of writing down these thoughts I have not finished my own prayer-journaling through this Beatitudinal viewpoint. However, I hear how God is speaking to me about his Beatitudinal work to return me to joy; I see a variety of things he is doing to make this real in my life, and praying through these things is just the first step in joining God in his work. The other steps will follow as I face the feelings of grief that accompany the mistreatment of this past while, surrender them to the healing of Christ and the helping of the Holy Spirit, and join God in each particular assignment where these same things come up again, or I see the people who have done the harm, or I need to relate to others I meet out of joy instead of sorrow. 

And all I know right now is that God will not fail to work this for good beyond what I can ask or imagine!

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 

 

 

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[1] Matthew 5:1-12

[2] Matthew 5:11-12; Luke 6:22-23

[3] II Timothy 3:16-17

[4] II Peter 1:21 (Matthew was showing a predominantly Jewish readership how Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets; Luke was focused on a detailed historical record for Theophilus and others with the same need to see how certain we are that Jesus lived, died, rose, ascended, and established his church to proclaim the gospel throughout the world)