The Lion, the Witch, and the Dishwasher 

My friend Kevin – whom I’ve mentioned [here] and [here] – recently shared something he wrote that I really liked. I liked it enough to invite him to be this week’s “guest columnist.” Enjoy!

On a perfectly typical Tuesday morning, while standing by the dishwasher and stacking clean dinner plates, a completely unprovoked memory emerges: 

All five feet, one inch of seventh-grade Kevin is standing in front of his English class. It’s time for the annual season of poetry recitation. For my contribution, I had chosen the wildly popular, annoyingly overused Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. (Note to seventh-grade self: Jabberwocky would have been a far superior poetic art form.) After absolutely nailing the opening three lines with confidence and aplomb, my mind goes blank. I gaze at the floor tiles beneath my feet, look nervously around the room, and stare back at my teacher, desperately waiting for her to throw out the lifeline of a prompt. 

There’s a truly good reason my mind went blank. I didn’t prepare. Thus, an awkward liturgical call-and-response ensues: Ms. English Teacher recites each line, and I mumble it back with decreasing volume and enthusiasm. As this public ordeal mercilessly comes to a humiliating conclusion, my teacher states the obvious: “You need to prepare more diligently next time, Kevin.” She’s not wrong. 

As this scene spins across my consciousness, an emotional trigger-fest ensues: 

  • Embarrassment: Yep, there’s pathetic little Kevin, stammering in front of a jury of his middle school peers. 
  • Indignation: Why the heck didn’t I spend ten minutes each evening memorizing the @#$% poem? I’m good at memorizing things. Why didn’t I employ my mnemonic powers for good?
  • Resentment: Why do English teachers coerce their students into this tortuous form of public humiliation? Don’t they understand the permanent damage this could cause? 

I gotta wonder: Of all the memories stored in my data banks, why did THAT memory suddenly reemerge? It hadn’t crossed my mind in 48 years. Why now? What is this memory attempting to say to me? 

I will spare you the boredom of trying to explain neural pathways and frontal-lobe recall. Recalling this memory wasn’t a science experiment. It turns out it was a rather mystical experience. I’m left wondering:  what does this all mean for 5’9¾”, 60-year-old Kevin? 

For those few moments, the dishwasher became my own Narnian wardrobe—a passageway back into my land of past memories. Though these memories have certainly morphed over time, they somehow remain alarmingly fresh and alive. 

Through this scene in my personal Narnia, my first encounter was all too predictable: The Witch grabbed me by the ear, yanked me down the classroom aisle, and dumped me into a chair at the front of the room. 

“Take a close look, you little turd,” she jeered. “See how you respond to pressure? You caved. 

Again. You can’t be trusted, can you?” 

With this terse accusation, she slipped away—her voice still echoing in my little heart. “Yep, she’s right,” I say to myself. “I cave under pressure. I don’t prepare adequately. I’m always disappointing people.” OUCH. Ouch. ouch. 

As my head drops and I gaze into those ubiquitous gray 12-by-12-inch classroom floor tiles, I sense a large shadow brushing up behind me. Turning slowly, I catch sight of what’s moving: a very large Lion, obviously quite capable of eating a 5’1” middle schooler. 

“Hello?” I say, trying to be polite. 

“Hello,” says the Lion in return, staring me straight in the eyes while his tail swishes happily. 

“Um, may I help you?” I ask. 

“Oh, I was just curious,” the Lion offers. 

“Curious?” 

“Yes, curious. What do you think of that little guy in front of the classroom?” 

“Him? Honestly? I’d rather not think about middle school Kevin at all. It’s all rather embarrassing, don’t you think?” 

“Not to me. I really like that little guy.” 

“Really? You really like him?” 

“Yes, of course.” 

And with this declaration of deep, quiet confidence, the very large Lion slowly turns and begins to walk away, almost as if inviting me to follow him into a future of grace, love, and acceptance. 

I’d rather not undersell the poetic irony of this seventh-grade English scene. That insecure little dude somehow grew up to love standing before groups and reciting what he had carefully prepared. It’s quite true that the Lion may, at times, appear solemn. Yet the Lion also possesses a rather wicked sense of humor, somersaulting past failures into present-day breakthroughs. 

Whether standing at the dishwasher, mowing the lawn, or staring into a mirror, unexpected memories might emerge for each of us. With each recollection, the Witch lures us into a world of shame, embarrassment, despair, and defeat, while the Lion invites us toward insight, courage, strength, and peace. The Witch revels in a good ol’ walk of shame, but the Lion enjoys a peaceful stroll through his patience, compassion, and kindhearted joy. 

We may all soon inhale a past memory before our minds can adequately process it. We might then ask: “Where did that memory come from? Why now? What does it mean?” 

My simple prayer for us all: 

May we brush aside the voice of the Witch and calmly enjoy the presence of the Lion. 

Blessed Are the Pure in Heart…

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
— Matthew 5:8

I have to admit that “pure in heart” is one of those phrases that can make me a little nervous.

It sounds like Jesus is describing people who have somehow managed to get their inner lives completely cleaned up. Their motives are pure. Their thoughts are pure. Their desires are pure. Their hearts are free of all the clutter that seems to characterize mine.

If that’s what Jesus meant, I’m probably in trouble!

But perhaps we’re hearing the word pure through a modern lens that misses what Jesus was actually saying.

The Greek word Matthew used was katharos. It could describe something clean or pure, but it could also describe something unmixed, genuine, or free from contamination. And Jesus didn’t simply say, “Blessed are the pure.” He said, “Blessed are the pure in heart.”

The Greek word here for heart is kardia. In biblical understanding, the kardia encompassed far more than our emotions; it was the center of thought, desire, intention, will, and character.

Jesus was getting beneath the surface.

And that shouldn’t surprise us. The Sermon on the Mount, especially the Beatitudes, is not simply a collection of moral teachings about how to become good religious people. It is Jesus’ announcement of the kind of people we become when God’s Kingdom takes root in us from the inside out.

Purity beyond appearances

Jesus lived in a religious culture deeply concerned with purity.

The Hebrew Scriptures contained legitimate commands concerning ritual purity, cleanliness, sacrifice, food, and worship. But by Jesus’ day, traditions had also developed around those commands. Some of these traditions were intended to help people faithfully live out the Torah, but they could also become ends in themselves.

We see this tension dramatically in Mark 7. Some Pharisees and scribes questioned Jesus because his disciples were eating without performing the customary handwashing. Mark explicitly identified these practices as the “tradition of the elders,” and Jesus challenged the way such traditions could end up overshadowing God’s actual commands. 

Jesus’ concern wasn’t that purity didn’t matter. It was that purity could never be reduced to what happens on the outside.

That is why “pure in heart” is such an important phrase.  For Kingdom people, it isn’t simply about clean hands. It’s about a clean heart.  It isn’t primarily about appearing righteous. It’s about becoming righteous from the inside.  It isn’t about carefully managing what others can see while leaving the interior life untouched.

The King wants the whole person.

A pure heart is an undivided heart

Perhaps one way to understand purity of heart is an increasingly undivided heart. Not a perfect heart.  Not a heart that never struggles.  Not a heart that has somehow eliminated every wrong desire or selfish motive.

An undivided heart is a heart whose deepest allegiance is becoming increasingly clear.

Psalm 24 asks a question that would have been familiar to Jesus’ Jewish audience:

“Who may ascend the mountain of the LORD?
Who may stand in his holy place?”

The answer?

“The one who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not trust in an idol
or swear by a false god.”

Notice what happens here. A pure heart isn’t simply about having nothing bad inside. It is connected to where our allegiance lies. The opposite of purity is not merely dirtiness. It is divided loyalty – trusting something other than God, allowing something else to become the object of our deepest allegiance.

And that makes Jesus’ words particularly relevant to Kingdom life.

The question isn’t simply, What needs to be removed from my life? It is also: What has my heart’s allegiance?

What competes for my trust?  What occupies my imagination?  What do I fear losing?  What are the things that can cloud the heart and obscure our vision of God?

David understood something about a pure heart

This is where David becomes an interesting companion to Jesus’ words. David was called a man after God’s own heart, but David certainly wasn’t a man whose history could be described as morally spotless.

After his devastating failure with Bathsheba and Uriah, David prayed:

“Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” 

David wasn’t asking God to help him manufacture a pure heart. He was asking God to create one. Notice what David connected to that prayer: “Do not cast me from your presence…”

A pure heart and God’s presence belonged together.

That sounds remarkably close to Jesus: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”

Purity isn’t about achieving a state in which we feel like we have become worthy of God’s presence. It is about becoming the kind of people who are increasingly able to recognize, receive, and live in God’s presence.

Seeing God

And this brings us to the promise: “They will see God.”

That may be the most extraordinary promise in all the Beatitudes.

Psalm 24 moves from the person with a pure heart to those who “seek your face.” The longing of the Psalmist was not merely to know about God. It was to encounter God – to seek God himself, his presence, his relationship.

And Jesus says that those whose hearts are pure will see God. There is certainly an ultimate, future dimension to that promise. But Jesus’ words suggest something we can experience now.

A crowded heart can cloud our vision of God.  Fear, resentment, ambition, self-protection, and competing loyalties can make it harder to recognize his presence and activity – not because God is absent, but because something has gotten in the way of our seeing.

The People the Kingdom Is Forming

Jesus isn’t promising that the pure will suddenly have supernatural eyesight. He’s describing people whose inner lives are being reordered by the Kingdom – and whose ability to recognize the King becomes clearer.

Perhaps that’s the blessing of a pure heart…

Not that God becomes more present, but that we become more present to him.

Blessed Are the Merciful

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.”
 – Matthew 5:7

Mercy That Didn’t Make Sense

Our son Jonathan has lived with Tourette Syndrome since childhood. During his middle school years, one particular classmate – who also happened to be a neighbor – made his life miserable. The teasing became relentless. Others joined in. It became painful enough that we even discussed homeschooling.

As parents, we wanted justice. We wanted the bullying to stop. If I’m honest, part of us wanted that young man to experience some consequences.

Jonathan saw something different.

Rather than responding with bitterness, he wondered what might be happening in his classmate’s life. Maybe, he suggested, this boy was searching for the love, attention, or security that he wasn’t finding at home. 

Jonathan didn’t excuse what happened.  He chose mercy.

That is exactly the kind of mercy Jesus blesses.

More Than “Please Forgive Me”

When most English speakers hear the word mercy, we instinctively think, I did something wrong. Please show me.  Certainly, mercy includes forgiveness. But Jesus’ listeners would have heard something much richer.

The Greek word translated merciful is eleēmōn, closely related to eleos, a word Matthew uses repeatedly throughout his Gospel.  Interestingly, many of those occurrences aren’t about guilty people asking for forgiveness. They’re about desperate people asking for help. 

Blind men cried out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.”

A Canaanite mother begged Jesus to show mercy to her demon-oppressed daughter.

Their request wasn’t, “I’ve sinned against You.”  It was more like, “You don’t know me, and You don’t owe me anything. Would You please act with kindness toward me in my desperate need?”

Mercy is compassionate action toward someone who cannot repay you.

Mercy Looks Like God’s Loyalty

One of the reasons I love studying Scripture is discovering how deeply the Old and New Testaments are connected.

The Greek word eleos carries with it the rich Old Testament idea of hesed – God’s steadfast love, covenant loyalty, and faithful kindness. If you’ve read my earlier post, The Two Biggies: Hesed and Emet, you’ve already encountered this beautiful word.

Mercy isn’t simply feeling sorry for someone.  It is love that moves toward another person.  It is kindness expressed in action.  It is covenant loyalty lived out in everyday relationships.

New Testament scholars W. D. Davies and Dale Allison1 summarize Matthew’s use of eleos this way: Mercy is the concrete expression of our loyalty to God, demonstrated not primarily by religious activity directed toward Him, but by loving-kindness directed toward other people.

That sounds exactly like Jesus.

Justice Alone Isn’t Enough

We tend to think of justice and mercy as disconnected, maybe even opposites.

Scripture rarely does.

The Old Testament prophets repeatedly called God’s people to pursue both justice and mercy. Jesus did the same, even rebuking the Pharisees for neglecting “the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy and faithfulness.” (Matthew 23:23)

Justice matters.  

But there is a dangerous road between being wounded and pursuing justice.  That road passes through the valley of revenge.

When we’ve been hurt, something inside us whispers, I want them to hurt because they hurt me. Mercy interrupts that instinct.  Mercy says, I may have the right to retaliate, but I choose another path.

That doesn’t eliminate accountability. It doesn’t pretend evil never happened. Mercy never calls evil good.  Instead, mercy refuses to let another person’s sin determine the condition of my own heart.

Seeing Beyond the Hurt

Perhaps mercy begins with a simple question: What pain might this person be carrying that I cannot see?

It reminds us that broken people often wound other broken people. Jonathan somehow saw that before his mom and I did.  He looked beyond the insults and imagined a hurting kid.

That’s empathy.  That’s compassion.  That’s mercy.

In a culture that often rewards outrage, celebrates public humiliation, and quickly divides people into heroes and villains, mercy can seem almost naïve.

Yet Jesus calls it blessed.

Not because mercy is weak, but because it reflects the very character of our King.

Those Who Show Mercy Will Be Shown Mercy

Jesus ends this Beatitude with a promise: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

Notice what He doesn’t say.

He doesn’t say, “The merciful will eventually be appreciated.” He doesn’t promise that people will return our kindness, acknowledge our sacrifice, or treat us fairly.

Instead, the promise is passive: they will be shown mercy.

The implied subject is God Himself.

Jesus is saying that those who practice mercy can confidently entrust themselves to a merciful Father. They need not seize revenge, demand repayment, or insist on settling every score, because the God who reigns over His Kingdom sees, knows, and will act with mercy toward His own.

That doesn’t mean we earn God’s mercy by showing mercy. The Beatitudes never describe a ladder we climb into God’s favor. They describe the character of people who are living under His gracious reign.

Merciful people discover that God’s mercy never runs dry.

When they need wisdom, He is merciful.  When they fail, He is merciful.  When they suffer injustice, He is merciful.  When they come to the end of themselves, He is merciful.

The God who calls His people to mercy is Himself endlessly merciful.

Mercy doesn’t simply imitate God; it reveals Him. Every act of mercy reflects the heart of the Father to a world that desperately needs to see Him.

Mercy is God’s loyal love in action – and every time it passes through human hands, the family resemblance becomes unmistakable.

1Davies, W. D., & Allison, D. C. (1997). A critical and exegetical commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. T. & T. Clark.

A New Appetite

Hungry for the Kingdom

Few desires are more powerful than hunger and thirst.

Most of us rarely experience either for very long. If we’re hungry, we open the refrigerator. If we’re thirsty, we turn on a tap. But Jesus’ first audience knew what it meant to wonder where the next meal would come from or to travel distances under the hot Middle Eastern sun in search of water. Hunger and thirst were daily realities. 

That is the image Jesus chose. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)

Jesus did not say, “Blessed are those who appreciate righteousness,” or even, “Blessed are those who try to do the right thing.” He spoke of a longing as intense as hunger after days without food or thirst in the heat of the desert.

What Does Jesus Mean by “Righteousness”?

If you asked most Christians what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness, many would answer in terms of personal holiness. That’s not wrong. It’s just not the whole picture.

Jesus’ Jewish audience would have heard echoes of the Hebrew word tsedaqah – a word that speaks of life lived rightly under God’s covenant. It includes faithfulness to God, justice toward others, integrity, compassion, and relationships restored to the way God intended them to be.

The BibleProject summarizes biblical righteousness with a wonderfully simple phrase:

Doing right by God and others.

That captures far more than personal morality. It is life lived under God’s reign. It is loving God wholeheartedly and our neighbors faithfully. It is the Kingdom taking root in ordinary people.

Throughout Matthew’s Gospel, righteousness is inseparable from God’s Kingdom. Later in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will say,

“Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness…” (Matthew 6:33)

Those are not two separate pursuits. God’s righteousness is simply what life looks like when His rule shapes every part of life.

The Turning Point

That has been Jesus’ message from the beginning – “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”  Repent.  Believe the good news.

Now, in the Beatitudes, Jesus begins describing the kind of people who naturally flourish under God’s reign.

The BibleProject makes an observation I find particularly helpful. Rather than reading the Beatitudes as eight unrelated blessings, they suggest reading them as three movements.

The first movement (poor in spirit, those who mourn, and the meek) describes people who recognize their need before God.

The second movement begins here. Jesus starts describing the kind of people God is forming under His reign. They hunger and thirst for righteousness. They become merciful. They grow pure in heart.

The final movement turns outward as these Kingdom people become peacemakers who remain faithful even when that faithfulness brings persecution.

Whether or not this was Jesus’ intended literary structure, the progression is compelling. The Beatitudes are not merely a list of virtues to admire. They describe the kind of people the Kingdom of God is producing.

The first movement leaves us empty-handed. The second gives us a new appetite.

Those who have come to the end of themselves begin longing for something entirely different. They hunger and thirst for God’s righteousness – for His will to be done, His Kingdom to come, and His ways to shape every part of life.

What Kingdom People Hunger and Thirst For?

Notice what Jesus does not bless.  He does not bless those who believe they have already become righteous.  Nor does He bless those who hunger for success, influence, comfort, or even religious achievement.

He blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

There is profound humility built into this beatitude. Hungry and thirsty people admit they still need what they seek.  They know they are not yet satisfied.  

Hunger is satisfied by bread. Thirst is satisfied by water. Yet Jesus says the deepest needs of the human soul are satisfied by righteousness.

That is a startling claim.

We often assume our deepest needs are security, success, comfort, love, or significance. Jesus points us somewhere else. He suggests that we were created to flourish when our lives are rightly ordered under God’s reign – when we are learning to do right by God and others.

Perhaps that is one of the clearest marks of Kingdom people. The more they experience God’s grace, the more they long for His character to shape their lives and His justice to shape the world. Their deepest desires begin to change.

They Will Be Filled

The promise is as remarkable as the hunger.

“They will be filled.”

God begins satisfying that hunger now as He reshapes our hearts. We increasingly learn to love what He loves and desire what He desires. Yet the promise also points forward to the day when His Kingdom comes in all its fullness, and everything broken is finally made right.

Jesus suggests that we were created to flourish when our lives are rightly ordered under God’s reign. 

The Rest of the Sermon Begins Here

This beatitude also serves as a bridge into the rest of the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus is about to show us what righteousness looks like. It reaches far beyond external behavior. It confronts anger as well as murder, lust as well as adultery, love for enemies as well as neighbors, hidden generosity as well as public religion. The King orders every part of life.

The rest of the sermon is simply Jesus answering the question raised here: What does it look like to hunger and thirst for righteousness?

Or, as Jesus will soon say, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness…” (Matthew 6:33). 

In other words, they began wanting what the King wants.

The poor in spirit discovered their need.  Those who mourn grieved what is broken.  The meek surrendered control.

Now Jesus describes the desire that begins to shape every citizen of His Kingdom.  Empty hands become hungry hands – for life under God’s reign.

And those who hunger most deeply for His Kingdom discover a remarkable promise.

They will be filled.

Blessed Are the Meek

A Word We May Not Understand

If there is one word in the Beatitudes that has almost disappeared from our vocabulary, it is meek.

We simply don’t know what to do with it.

To many of us, meek sounds timid. Passive. Weak. It describes someone who avoids conflict, gets overlooked, or lacks the confidence to lead. And if we’re honest, meekness doesn’t seem like much of an asset in today’s world. We live in a culture that rewards confidence, celebrates self-promotion, and admires people who know how to take charge.

Yet Jesus looked across a hillside full of ordinary people and said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”(Matthew 5:5)

Nothing about those words sounded obvious then, and they don’t sound obvious now. Perhaps that is because it may be one of the most misunderstood of Jesus’ Beatitudes.

Strength Under Control

The Greek word translated meek is praüs. It never meant weakness. It referred to strength under control – power that had been disciplined rather than diminished.

One of the clearest pictures of praüs came from the training of Greek warhorses. Trainers selected the strongest, most spirited stallions – not the weakest. Through months of disciplined training, those horses learned complete responsiveness to their rider without losing their courage or strength. When they reached that point, they were described as praüs.

Their power had not disappeared.  It had been mastered.

Perhaps a simple definition of meekness is this: Meekness isn’t strength that can’t do harm. It’s strength that won’t do harm.  That changes everything.

Jesus was certainly not weak.

He confronted religious hypocrisy. He challenged political powers. He overturned tables in the temple. He spoke with authority that astonished crowds and terrified His opponents.

Yet His strength was never driven by ego or the need to win. It was always tethered to the will of His Father and directed toward the good of others.

That is why Jesus could describe Himself with these remarkable words: “I am gentle and humble in heart.” (Matthew 11:29)

Interestingly, this is the only place in the Gospels where Jesus explicitly describes His own character.  Gentle.  Humble.  Meek.

Trust Instead of Grasping

Perhaps nowhere is strength under control seen more clearly than in Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Satan repeatedly invited Him to grasp what the Father had already promised – to seize power instead of trusting God to provide it in His own time.

Jesus refused every shortcut.  He trusted rather than grasped.  That is meekness.

I wonder if this is where many of us struggle. We say we believe in God.  But do we trust Him?  Those aren’t always the same thing.

It is possible to believe all the right things about God while quietly depending upon ourselves for security, recognition, success, or control. We pray for God’s help while keeping a firm grip on the outcome.

Maybe that’s why meekness feels so foreign.  It requires open hands.  

We cannot receive the kingdom while our fists are clenched around something else.

Our world still confuses forcefulness with faithfulness. We are drawn to people who project confidence, command attention, and accumulate influence. But Jesus never blessed those who demanded control.

He blessed those who surrendered it.

An Inheritance, Not a Possession

Which brings us to His surprising promise: “They will inherit the earth.”

Notice the language.  They don’t conquer the earth.  They don’t seize it.  They don’t purchase it.

They inherit it.  

An inheritance is received, not taken.  Maybe the meek are the only people prepared to inherit the earth because they already know it never belonged to them in the first place (cf. I Almost Bought the Farm).

Everything is gift.  Everything belongs to the Father.  Everything is received with gratitude.

Eugene Peterson captures the spirit of this Beatitude well:

“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are – no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.”

Jesus isn’t blessing weakness.  He is blessing people whose strength has been surrendered to the Father – people who no longer need to prove themselves because they trust Him to provide, defend, and accomplish His purposes.

That is exactly what we see in Jesus.

The Character of the King

Paul would later describe Jesus this way in Philippians 2. Although Jesus possessed every right and every privilege, He did not grasp for them. Instead, He emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, humbled Himself, and entrusted Himself completely to the Father. His path was not one of self-assertion but self-giving love.

Meekness is what power looks like after it has been surrendered to love.

That sentence doesn’t simply summarize this Beatitude. It previews the rest of the Sermon on the Mount.

As we continue listening to Jesus, we’ll discover that every command He gives – loving our enemies, turning the other cheek, forgiving instead of retaliating, serving instead of being served – flows from this same kingdom character. They are not isolated moral commands. They are portraits of a life transformed into the likeness of the King.

And that King is meek.

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”   (Matthew 5:4)

Sooner or later, there comes a hush in every person’s life – that moment when the unthinkable happens and we are left alone with our thoughts.

What then?

What happens when the phone call comes? When the diagnosis is confirmed? When someone we love is suddenly gone? When a relationship cannot be repaired? When the future we had carefully imagined disappears before our eyes?

We grieve.

When Grief Finds a Voice

Grief is the internal experience of loss. It is what happens within us when something – or someone – we deeply value is taken away. Grief can leave us exhausted, disoriented, angry, numb, confused, or unable to imagine life ever feeling normal again.

Mourning is something slightly different.

If grief is the inward experience of loss, mourning is the outward expression of that grief. We grieve within; we mourn when we give our grief a voice. Mourning happens when sorrow finds expression through tears, lament, prayer, silence, stories, rituals, or simply the willingness to admit:

Something precious has been lost, and life will never be quite the same.

In our culture, grief is often treated as something private – something to process quietly and eventually move beyond. We may be given permission to grieve for a while, but sooner or later there can be an unspoken expectation that we will get back to normal.

The biblical world understood mourning differently.

Throughout Scripture, mourning was visible, embodied, and often communal. People tore their clothes, wore sackcloth, sat in ashes, fasted, wept aloud, and gathered together in sorrow. Their mourning was not hidden or hurried. It created space to acknowledge that something was terribly wrong.

When Jacob believed Joseph had died, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned for many days (Genesis 37:34–35). When David learned that Saul and Jonathan had been killed, he composed a public lament and invited the people to join him in remembering what had been lost (2 Samuel 1:17–27). When Nehemiah heard that Jerusalem remained broken and its gates had been burned, he sat down and wept. For days, he mourned, fasted, and prayed (Nehemiah 1).

Biblical mourning was brutal honesty.    It was the refusal to pretend that everything was fine when everything was not fine.

Blessed Are the Mourners?

Perhaps that is why Jesus included mourning among the Beatitudes.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Once again, Jesus’ words sound strange to us.

We naturally assume that the blessed life is the life untouched by sorrow – the life in which our families remain healthy, our relationships flourish, our plans succeed, and tragedy keeps its distance. We often use the word  blessed  to describe the moments when life turns out the way we hoped.

But Jesus declared the mourners blessed.

The Greek word translated “mourn” is  pentheō. It describes deep sorrow or grief that is openly expressed.   Pentheō  carries the sense of lament – the kind of sorrow that can no longer remain hidden.

Jesus was not saying, “Blessed are those who feel sad.”    He pronounced blessing upon those willing to face loss and brokenness honestly – those who refused to numb their sorrow, deny their pain, or look away from suffering.

Eugene Peterson paraphrased the Beatitude this way in  The Message:

“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.”

Peterson captured something deeply human in Jesus’ words. Loss has a way of stripping away our illusions of control. When what is most dear to us is gone, our usual explanations may no longer satisfy us. The things we depended upon to make life feel secure suddenly seem fragile.

And there, in the quiet left behind, we may discover that God is not standing at a distance. He draws near.    Not with platitudes.    Not with easy answers.    Not by minimizing our loss or rushing us through our pain.

He meets us in our mourning.

Mourning What Is Broken

But Jesus’ words likely reached beyond the personal grief we experience when we lose someone or something we love.

Throughout Scripture, people mourned not only death but also sin, injustice, oppression, exile, violence, broken relationships, and the consequences of humanity’s rebellion against God. The prophets mourned what had become of Israel. Ezra mourned the people’s unfaithfulness. Nehemiah mourned the broken condition of Jerusalem.

They looked honestly at the world and recognized that it was not as God intended it to be.

Kingdom people do the same.    They mourn what sin has done – to themselves, to others, and to God’s good creation.

They mourn when children suffer.    They mourn when the vulnerable are exploited.    They mourn when violence becomes ordinary.    They mourn when power is used to protect the powerful rather than serve the powerless.  

Mourning is what happens when we stop looking away.

It is what happens when we allow the suffering of others to affect us. It is what happens when we become honest about our own failures. It is what happens when we remember that the world we experience is not yet the world God intends.

This Beatitude naturally followed the first: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Those who recognize their spiritual poverty also begin to recognize the depth of the brokenness within them and around them. Once we stop pretending that we have everything together, we become free to see more clearly.

And what we see causes us to mourn.    Kingdom people have learned to see!

They Will Be Comforted

Yet Jesus did not end the Beatitude with mourning.

“For they will be comforted.”

The comfort Jesus promised was more than reassurance that someday we would feel better. His promise pointed toward the kingdom of God – the restoration of all things.

The prophets had spoken of a day when God would comfort His people, bind up the brokenhearted, rebuild what had been devastated, and exchange their mourning for joy (cf. Isaiah 40:1–2; 61:1–4; Jeremiah 31:13). Jesus announced that this long-awaited kingdom had drawn near.

And one day, everything that causes mourning will be made right.

Until then, Jesus invites his followers neither to deny sorrow nor to be overcome by it. He invites us to bring our grief into the presence of God – to mourn honestly while trusting that sorrow would not have the final word.

Sooner or later, the hush comes for all of us.    The unthinkable happens.    We find ourselves sitting with questions that have no easy answers.    What then?

We mourn. We name what has been lost. We refuse to pretend that everything is fine. We bring our sorrow into the presence of God.

And somewhere within that sacred space, we discover the promise hidden inside this unlikely blessing:

“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.”

Everyone Knew Their Place

It occurred to me that it might be important to grasp the first-century Jewish “pecking order”1 to better understand the beatitudes and the rest of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.  Such and Understanding helps us appreciate just how radical Jesus’ ministry and the Sermon really were.

Though not a “caste system,” like the rigid hereditary structures of places like India, first-century Judaism did have a well-defined hierarchy of religious, social, economic, and political status that shaped people’s lives. One’s standing in society depended on a combination of birth, occupation, wealth, ritual purity, education, and proximity to the Temple.

The Priestly Elite

At the top stood the priestly aristocracy, especially the families associated with the Temple in Jerusalem.

  • The High Priest occupied the highest religious office.
  • A small number of wealthy priestly families controlled the Temple operations.
  • Many belonged to the wealthy Sadducee sect.
  • They worked closely with Roman authorities to preserve stability.
  • They controlled enormous economic resources through sacrifices, offerings, and Temple commerce.

These were the nation’s religious and political elite.

The Levites

Below the priests were the Levites.  They were descendants of Levi but not of Aaron, so they could not offer sacrifices.  Their Temple responsibilities included:

  • music
  • guarding the Temple
  • maintenance
  • assisting priests
  • teaching

They possessed honor because of their ancestry but not the authority of priests.

The Torah Scholars and Religious Teachers

Not everyone with authority inherited it.  The scribes and rabbis earned influence through education.  Many belonged to the sect of the Pharisees.

Their authority came from:

  • expertise in Torah
  • teaching
  • interpreting Scripture
  • guiding everyday religious life

Although some were wealthy, many were respected primarily because of their learning.

The Ordinary Israelites

A vast majority of the first-century Jewish population belonged in this grouping.

These included:

  • farmers
  • fishermen
  • craftsmen
  • shepherds
  • merchants
  • laborers

Some owned land.  Many lived close to subsistence.  Most faithfully practiced Judaism but had little influence.  These people were referred to as the “people of the land”.   The Hebrew term am ha’aretz (“people of the land”) had become something of a social label.

They lacked formal Torah education, could not always observe the purity laws perfectly, and were viewed as religiously uninformed.

Jesus spent nearly all His ministry among these people.  These were the people he grew up with.  Many of Jesus’ followers were “ordinary Israelites.”

The Tax Collectors and Other “Sinners”

Certain occupations carried social disgrace. 

Tax collectors fell in that category and were despised because they worked for Rome and often became wealthy through exploitation.  They were viewed as traitors.  The Gospels frequently pair them with “sinners.”

“Sinners” did not simply mean immoral people, though some certainly were.  It often referred to those who lived outside accepted religious norms or whose occupations made full participation in religious life difficult.

Jesus repeatedly ate with such people.

The Marginalized

At the bottom socially were people with little protection or status:

  • widows and orphans
  • the poor and beggars
  • the disabled and diseased
  • resident foreigners

(The Old Testament repeatedly refers to these groups as those requiring God’s special concern.)

Jesus consistently elevated them.

The Gentiles

Outside Jewish society altogether were Gentiles.

Although many Jews interacted with Gentiles daily through commerce, Gentiles remained outside God’s covenant people unless they became proselytes.

Roman occupation heightened tensions between Jews and Gentiles throughout the first century.

Honor and Shame

Overlaying all these categories was the prevailing culture of honor and shame.  Status was measured by ancestry, education, wealth, religiosity, and public reputation.

People constantly evaluated where they stood relative to others.  Honor was a limited commodity; one person’s gain often implied another’s loss.

Why This Matters for the Beatitudes

This social world provides essential context for the beatitudes and the entire Sermon on the Mount.  For example, when Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” he immediately challenged prevailing assumptions about who enjoyed God’s favor.

Rather than climbing the social ladder toward honor, Jesus redefined honor itself. The question was no longer who society admired, but whom God declared to be flourishing under His reign.

That reversal helps explain why the Beatitudes would have sounded both astonishing and deeply hopeful to Jesus’ original audience.

1 The term “pecking order” originated in the 1920s from behavioral studies of barnyard chickens. Norwegian zoologist Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe observed that poultry flocks maintain strict dominance hierarchies where top-ranking birds can peck subordinate birds without retaliation. 

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

Who Finds Life in God’s Kingdom?

Jake Porter never earned his touchdown.  That’s exactly why everyone remembers it.

For three years, Jake suited up for every football practice at Northwest High School in Ohio. He loved the game. He wore the uniform. He encouraged his teammates. But because he was born with Fragile X syndrome, everyone assumed he would never experience what every football player dreams about – Scoring a touchdown.

Near the end of Jake’s final game, his coach asked the opposing coach if Jake could enter for one play. Instead of simply allowing Jake to kneel and end the game, the opposing coach gathered his defense and quietly instructed them not to tackle him.

Jake took the handoff.  Overwhelmed by the moment, he wasn’t sure which direction to run. Players from both teams pointed him in the right direction. Soon, teammates and opponents alike were running behind him, cheering as he crossed the goal line.

The stadium erupted.  Not because Jake had scored a touchdown.  But because everyone present had witnessed grace. Football is usually about earning your place.  For one beautiful play, it became about receiving a gift.

I wonder if that’s how Jesus intended his first Beatitude to land on his listeners.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

The Announcement No One Expected

In recent posts, I suggested that the Beatitudes are less like commands and more like announcements. The Greek word behind “blessed” echoes the Hebrew ashrei – a word that describes the flourishing life of someone who has discovered the goodness of living under God’s reign.

Jesus was announcing who was discovering life in the kingdom.

If the Sermon on the Mount was a constitution of God’s kingdom, then the Beatitudes were its preamble. Before Jesus described how kingdom citizens live, He identified the surprising people who belong there.

And His opening sentence must have left the crowd speechless – “The poor in spirit.”

Really? Not the religious experts?  Not the morally accomplished?  Not the spiritually elite?

No.  The poor in spirit.

Empty Hands

We often misunderstand this phrase because we tend to hear it through modern ears.

Jesus wasn’t describing a lack of confidence or a poor self-image. He was describing the posture of those who had stopped trying to qualify for God’s kingdom. Unable to approach God with a résumé of accomplishments, all they possessed were open hands ready to receive His grace.

The kingdom belongs to such.

One translation captures the idea well: “Blessed are those who realize their spiritual poverty.”

Again, the Great Reversal

Every kingdom has its values, and you don’t have to read its constitution to discover them. Just watch who gets applauded. Our world celebrates achievement – credentials, influence, power, wealth, and success. Those are the people we assume have discovered the good life.

Even our religious instincts can mirror the kingdoms around us. We begin measuring spiritual success by visible accomplishments, assuming that those who pray more, know more, serve more, or sacrifice more must occupy the seats of honor in God’s kingdom.

Jesus’ first Beatitude gently but firmly overturns that way of thinking. The kingdom isn’t awarded to those who have done enough; it is received by those who know they never could.

That is the great reversal we see running through the entire Sermon on the Mount. The poor in spirit are flourishing not because poverty itself is virtuous, but because they have reached the only posture from which the kingdom can actually be received.

Open hands can receive gifts.  Clenched fists cannot.

You Start Seeing Them Everywhere

As we read, we begin noticing “poor in spirit” people throughout the Gospels…

A Roman centurion quietly confessed, “Lord, I am not worthy… Just say the word.”  (Matthew 8:5-13)

A desperate Canaanite mother threw herself entirely upon Jesus’ mercy.  (Matt 15:21-28)

A tax collector stood in the Temple and simply prayed, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” (Luke 18:9-14)

These people had little in common socially, politically, or religiously. What they did share was something far more important. Each came to Jesus with empty hands.

None tried to impress Him. None pointed to religious accomplishments or moral credentials. None assumed they deserved His attention.

They simply trusted Him.

Ironically, those who struggle most to receive Jesus are often the people most convinced they already possess what He came to give. The religious leaders measured themselves by their knowledge, their discipline, and their performance.

In the Luke parable, the Pharisee confidently recited his spiritual résumé while the tax collector could only plead for mercy. Jesus’ conclusion was startling: “All those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

That should give us pause.

The greatest obstacle to entering God’s kingdom may not be our sin but our imagined self-sufficiency.

The Doorway into Every Other Beatitude

This first Beatitude isn’t merely the first in the list.  It’s a doorway into all the others.  

I cannot mourn over my sin until I recognize my need. I cannot hunger for righteousness until I know I don’t possess it. I cannot become merciful until I realize how much mercy has been shown to me.

This is why I suggested in an earlier post that the Beatitudes answer who before they answer how.  They are not eight virtues we develop so God will welcome us.   They are eight portraits of people who have surrendered to the reign of King Jesus.

Everything that follows grows out of this first beatitude.

The King Who Lived the Beatitudes

Perhaps the most beautiful thing to consider is this: Jesus isn’t asking us to become something He was unwilling to become Himself.  Every Beatitude first describes the King.

Paul tells us that although Jesus existed in the very nature of God, He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant. He entrusted Himself completely to His Father. (Philippians 2)

The King Himself lived with open hands.  Every Beatitude finds its fullest expression in Him.  And because we belong to Him, His life slowly begins to take shape in ours.

Jake Porter crossed the goal line because dozens of people chose grace over merit.

The kingdom of heaven begins the very same way.  Not with people who have finally become good enough.  But with people who finally discover they never had to.

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Leaning Into the Beatitudes

A Quick Reminder About “Blessed”

In my previous post, we explored the words ashrei and makarios, the Hebrew and Greek words often translated as “blessed.” We discovered that these words carry far more meaning than a simple description of happiness or good fortune. They point toward a life that is flourishing because it is aligned with God’s purposes and experienced under God’s favor.

That understanding becomes especially important when we come to the Beatitudes.

For many of us, the Beatitudes have been familiar for so long that we no longer hear them. We read them as a list of virtues to acquire or spiritual achievements to pursue. We assume Jesus is giving us a set of character traits that we must develop if we want God’s blessing.

But what if that is not what Jesus was doing?

The Upside-Down Kingdom

It was New Testament scholar George Eldon Ladd who famously described the kingdom of God as an “upside-down kingdom.” Dallas Willard used similar language. The kingdom announced by Jesus often appeared to reverse the values and assumptions of the surrounding world.

The powerful are not necessarily the ones who flourish. The rich are not always the fortunate ones. The successful are not automatically the blessed.

Again and again, Jesus turned conventional wisdom on its head.

Yet perhaps “upside-down” is not quite the best description. From God’s perspective, the kingdom is actually right-side up. It is our world – with its obsession with power, status, wealth, and self-promotion – that has been turned upside down. Jesus came announcing that God’s reign was setting things right.

And remarkably, the right-siding work would happen through ordinary people.

Not celebrities. Not religious elites. Not political insiders.

Ordinary people…

People who mourn.

People who feel spiritually bankrupt.

People who are overlooked.

People who hunger for something better.

People who have been wounded and are trying to show mercy anyway.

When God is in Charge

The Beatitudes describe what life looks like when God is in charge.

Remember Luke describing the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry? In Luke 4, He entered the synagogue in Nazareth and began reading from Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor…” (Luke 4:18)

The passage continues with freedom for captives, sight for the blind, and liberation for the oppressed. Jesus concluded by declaring that this Scripture had been fulfilled in their hearing.

The Isaiah passage ends with a fascinating phrase announcing “the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:19).  In a way, Jesus had been describing God’s favorites.

So, when we arrive at the Beatitudes, we hear the same kingdom message. Jesus is identifying the very people upon whom God’s favor rests.

A Different Way to Read the Beatitudes

I want to encourage you to spend some time with the Beatitudes from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, The Message.

Interestingly, Peterson never set out to write a paraphrase of the New Testament. As a pastor, he found himself continually rephrasing biblical passages in sermons, Bible studies, and conversations so that the people in his congregation could hear them with fresh ears. Over time, those pastoral paraphrases eventually became The Message.

Whether or not you regularly read paraphrases, Peterson often helps familiar passages sound unfamiliar again – and that can be a gift.

The Beatitudes are one of those passages.

Many of us hear “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and immediately begin wondering how to become poor in spirit.

Peterson’s rendering slows us down. It invites us to hear Jesus speaking to real people in real circumstances in their everyday language. With Peterson’s help, instead of sounding like a spiritual checklist, the Beatitudes begin to sound like an announcement.

An Invitation to Listen Again

As we continue our journey through the Sermon on the Mount, I want to encourage you to try a simple practice.  Read The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) every day for the next week or two from The Message.

Read it slowly.  Read it prayerfully.  Read it more than once.

And see what happens.

Eugene Peterson’s Paraphrase of the Beatitudes…

1-2 When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:

3 “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

4 “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

5 “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are – no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

6 “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.

7 “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.

8 “You’re blessed when you get your inside world – your mind and heart – put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

9 “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.

10 “You’re blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God’s kingdom.

11-12 “Not only that – count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens – give a cheer, even! – for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.

Addendum: This is NT Wright’s translation from Matthew for Everyone* – another opportunity to read the familiar in a new way.

3Wonderful news for the poor in spirit! The kingdom of heaven is yours.

4Wonderful news for the mourners! You’re going to be comforted.

5Wonderful news for the meek! You’re going to inherit the earth.

6Wonderful news for people who hunger and thirst for God’s justice! You’re going to be satisfied.

7Wonderful news for the merciful! You’ll receive mercy yourselves.

8Wonderful news for the pure in heart! You will see God.

9Wonderful news for the peacemakers! You’ll be called God’s children.

10Wonderful news for people who are persecuted because of God’s way! The kingdom of heaven belongs to you.

11Wonderful news for you, when people slander you and persecute you, and say all kinds of wicked things about you falsely because of me!

12Celebrate and rejoice: there’s a great reward for you in heaven. That’s how they persecuted the prophets who went before you.

* Wright, N. T.. Matthew for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-15 (The New Testament for Everyone) (pp. 34-35). Kindle Edition.

Who Does Jesus Call Blessed?

When Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount, He started with a word that most of us think we understand.

“Blessed”

  • Blessed are the poor in spirit.
  • Blessed are those who mourn.
  • Blessed are the meek.
  • Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

The problem is that the word “blessed” can be misleading. For many of us, it has become a religious catch-all term. We use it to describe a new job, a healthy family, a successful ministry, or a season when life seems to be going our way.

But Jesus’ listeners would have heard something much richer.

The Greek word for blessed in the Beatitudes is makarios, which echoes the Hebrew word ashrei. This is not the usual Hebrew word for blessing. That word is barukh, which refers to the blessing that God gives. Ashrei is something different. It is a wisdom word. It is the word someone uses when looking at another person’s life, saying, “Now that’s the good life.”

The book of Psalms opens this way: “Blessed (ashrei) is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked…” (Psalm 1:1)

The idea is not that God is pronouncing a blessing. Rather, the psalmist is observing a life that is flourishing under God’s care and saying, “Look at that person. What a fortunate way to live.”

For centuries, ashrei pointed to people whose lives looked enviable. They were secure. Stable. Flourishing. They had found life as God intended it.

Then Jesus stood before a crowd of ordinary Galileans and started applying the word to people nobody envied.  He took this familiar word and turned it upside down.

Or perhaps right side up.

The Surprise of the Beatitudes

Imagine standing on that hillside in Galilee.  Who had likely gathered around Jesus?  Not Rome’s elite.  Not the wealthy landowners.  Not the religious leaders.  Not the people everyone assumed were especially favored by God.

The crowd was filled with ordinary people. Many were poor. Some were sick. Others carried grief, disappointment, shame, or uncertainty. They lived under Roman occupation. They lived under the heavy-handedness of the religious system.  They struggled to make ends meet. Most would never have been considered examples of the good life.

And then Jesus began speaking.  “Ashrei are the poor in spirit.”

What?

What if Jesus were not primarily describing virtues to achieve?  What if He were identifying people who assume they don’t qualify for God’s kingdom? Dallas Willard suggested that the Beatitudes are less about spiritual achievement and more about kingdom availability.

Jesus continued: Ashrei are those who mourn.  Ashrei are the meek, etc. 

Nobody looked at a grieving person and said, “That’s the good life.”  Nobody looked at the powerless and said, “That’s who I want to become.”  Nobody looked at the persecuted and thought, “They are the fortunate ones.”

Yet Jesus did.

Why?

Because he was not simply describing people’s circumstances. He was revealing what God was doing in their midst.

More Than a List of Virtues

Many Christians read the Beatitudes as a list of virtues to pursue.

Be humble. Be meek. Be merciful. Be pure in heart.

There is certainly a place for that reading. The qualities Jesus describes should characterize His followers.

But I do not think that was Jesus’ starting point.

The Beatitudes were not addressed to spiritual superstars.  They were addressed to people who may have assumed they were disqualified.  The people who look at their lives and thought, “Surely God’s kingdom is for someone else.”

Jesus said otherwise.

The kingdom belongs to these people, too.  In fact, it is arriving among them.  One of the most fascinating aspects of the Beatitudes is that Jesus identified people whom society would not normally associate with flourishing.

The Beatitudes are a list of the kingdom’s surprising citizens.

Even more, they are a list of surprised citizens – people who never imagined they would find themselves included in God’s kingdom

A Word for the “Disqualified”

Perhaps this is why the Beatitudes can continue to resonate so deeply.  Many of us spend our lives feeling like we are on the outside looking in.

We compare ourselves to others.  We measure our spiritual lives against people who seem more mature.  We assume God’s favor belongs to those who are stronger, wiser, more successful, or more put-together.

The Beatitudes challenge those assumptions.

Jesus began His most famous sermon by identifying people who do not appear blessed and declaring that God’s kingdom was arriving among them.

Not someday.  Now!

The Good News of Ashrei

The primary question Jesus is answering is not: “What qualities should I develop?”  The primary question is: “Who belongs in the kingdom of God?”

The Beatitudes are an invitation to see the world through kingdom eyes.  They reveal that God’s definition of flourishing differs dramatically from our own.

This is why the Beatitudes can never be reduced to something other than what they are – kingdom announcements.  Jesus declares that God’s reign is breaking into places where people least expect to find it.

Before He tells us what kingdom life looks like, He tells us who the kingdom is for.  And the answer is wonderfully surprising.

The people least likely to claim a seat at the table are often the very people Jesus invites to sit down first.  That is the scandal of the Beatitudes. That’s the scandal of the Kingdom.

And that is the good news.  Very good news!