05.01. "Blessed Are Ye"
I "BLESSED ARE YE"
Matthew 5:10 THE EIGHT GATES INTO THE CITY OF BLESSEDNESS
AFTER a year’s ministry in Judaea, the records of which are scanty, the Lord Jesus went down to inaugurate His public ministry in Galilee. Rejected, because of the Bethesda miracle, by the Scribes and Pharisees, He threw Himself on the masses of the people. Threatened with death, He took steps to make His kingdom permanent by gathering around Him His closest friends, and by selecting from them twelve to be with Him, and to go forth to preach the glad tidings of the Gospel of Peace. The night before the morning, which was to be thus signalized, was spent by Him in prayer. He assured Himself, during those lone dark hours, more fully of His Father’s purpose; received definitely at the Father’s hands those that had been His, but who were now to be transferred to Himself; asked with a new tenderness that they might be worthy of their high calling as the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem. Thus He girded Himself beneath the quiet stars for what awaited Him on the morrow. As the dawn broke He called unto Him whom He would. The band of the disciples furnished those who were now chosen apostles. From those who had been attracted to Him by His marvellous personality, as well as by the indication of the Baptist, He selected the twelve who were summoned to be foremost in peril and temptation, as they were to be nearest and closest in sympathy and friendship.
Finally, with these beside Him, He descended the mountain slope to a little level place, where a vast crowd awaited Him, gathered from the whole surrounding country, and beseeching His miraculous healing for their sick. "And He healed them." Then the multitudes settled down to hear this marvellous discourse, the inauguration of His kingdom, the unfolding of His Galilean ministry. It was a great occasion. Below, the lake; above, the morning sky; around, the hills, on the flanks of which lay long lines of fleecy cloud; the air fragrant with the scent of flowers and new-mown grass, and thrilling with the expectation of the expectant throng. The newly-healed and their bearers, friends and critics, apostles and disciples, hanging on those lips that spake as never man spake. This was the Sinai of the New Dispensation. But how great the contrasts! Moses was a servant; here the Son.
Moses spake amid the peal of thunder and the quivering of the earth; here it was a perfect spring morning, and the only sounds were those of nature, or the murmur of the towns below stealing around.
Moses bore ten awful words, graven on granite tables; but these were gentle, tender words, written on fleshly tablets of the heart.
Moses was storm-girt and terrible; but grace and truth came by this wondrous Man, whose words reach down to the weakest, humblest.
Moses spake of the curse; but He opened His mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed.
It was meet that the Master should open His public ministry with beatitudes.--It was thus He finished it. " It came to pass, while He blessed them, He parted from them, and was carried up into heaven." His last words bent back again to His first words, as in a bridal ring; and all were goldened with the radiance of eternity. And since He has been hidden from our gaze, unseen though loved, His voice from out the throne has spoken many a beatitude beside, recorded for us in the Book of Revelation. How ill do they understand our Master, who fear Him as hard and austere. He is inspired by motives of the purest benevolence; and if He use the knife it is only to cut away what conflicts with our purest bliss, and of which we would be eager to be relieved, if we knew, as certainly as He, what makes for our peace.
"His every act pure blessing is, His path, unsullied light."
Blessedness is the attitude of Deity.--Before Jesus came men were content, or happy, or mad with hilarious excitement, but not really blessed. This was a new word for them, or it was an old word, new minted. They knew nothing of this deep sweet secret of enjoying even in this world something of the very life of the Deity. No climber had as yet made his way to the lake that lay far up among the hills, mirroring Infinity and Eternity in its pellucid surface. Only He who had come down from heaven, and during His earthly ministry was in heaven, knew of its existence, or of the path that led to it.
God is significantly called " the Blessed God." From all eternity, His vast and glorious nature has been as blessed as the vault of heaven seems full of ether. And Jesus came down from heaven to discover to us this fact, and to make us understand our privilege. Since we have been made in the likeness of God, we are capable, each one, of a similar blessedness. One spirit with the Lord, we are privileged to share the very blessedness that fills His heart. Not in quantity, but in quality; not in measure, but in essence, we may know what the blessedness of the blessed God is.
It is for us now and here.--Not away in some distant world of bliss, where our circumstances shall be entirely favorable, and the mystery of sin and death ended, but in whatsoever situation we may be found at this present hour. Our real troubles are not in our circumstances, but in ourselves; and there have been thousands who, in precisely those straits which now cost us such anguish, have been deeply and infinitely blessed. If we had lived Paul’s life, in our present state of heart, we should have known nothing of his rapturous experiences; and if he could live in ours to-day, however tempest-tost and troubled, he would find in it the elements of such exceeding rapture, that whether in the body or out of it, he would not be able to tell.
Jesus came to show that blessedness did not consist in our outward environment. Indeed, He distinctly taught that we might expect to suffer additional distresses for His and righteousness’ sake. But amidst all He was intent on teaching that, if we possessed certain moods and were animated by a certain temper, we might be truly blessed. He shows in these matchless words that blessedness is possible in the saddest lives, if only we will bear ourselves simply, bravely, truly, purely. Blessed are the poor in spirit .... Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:10). This blessedness is for all--These waters run in the valley, accessible to the rootlets of the tiniest flower, and to the cup of the child. I used to think that God had put His best gifts on a high shelf for us to reach up to them. I now find that the best are on the lowest shelves, on the level of the nursery floor, that the babes may get them. There is a capacity for blessedness in each and all, just as there is a capacity for beauty, for love, for joy. The water of the well of Bethlehem was for David alone, but the water of the deep well of God’s bliss, which our mighty Saviour has won for us at awful cost, is for each poor outcast who comes, pitcher in hand, to take it freely.
There is no respect of persons with God. He does not exclude any, He welcomes all. Whosoever thou art, thou art bidden to this feast; thou mayest eat angels’ food; thou mayest be blessed in thy poor measure, as the Eternal God is in His; thou mayest be ever with Him, and all that He has be thine. Sunshine and wild flowers are for village children equally as for the sons of peers; and the blessedness which thrills the holy ones within the vail, may shed its glow and fragrance on thy heart also.
There are eight doors into the blessed life.-Like the gates of the New Jerusalem, they stand open day and night; and one, at least, faces each of us. We have but to walk out of ourselves and into that open doorway, and so into the blessed life. It is impossible to be a Christian and not within easy reach of one of these open doors, because if we cannot lay claim to purity, meekness, or mercifulness, we can at least class ourselves among those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, and long to be filled; or among those who, in their deep consciousness of poverty, count themselves to have no part or lot in the matter; or among those that mourn, because they cannot mourn enough, and beat their breasts because they cannot weep purer and more unselfish tears.
Thou art not pure in heart: then that door into blessedness is blocked against thee; but thou art sore sorrowful that thou art not pure: then go into the kingdom through the door of mourning and contrition.
Thou art not meek, thy proud spirit frets within thee, never prouder than when assuming the garb of humility, not to be outdone by others in pretensions to holiness; but thou art consumed by a hunger for righteousness, which refuses to be satisfied, then pass in through that door and be blessed.
Eight is an octave; and is the number of resurrection.--Seven speaks of a completed work, as at the creation, but eight introduces a new week. It was on the eighth day that Jesus rose from the dead. Blessedness is possible only to those who have passed into the resurrection life, because to them only is opened the possibility of attaining to those properties of spirit which have been indicated.
It is not enough to look to Jesus on the cross as our Substitute, we must be identified with Him as our Head, and realize that, through our union with Him, we have been transferred to " the heavenlies," where He lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Ghost. We must belong, by spiritual affinity, to the age of Pentecost. We must know the infilling and anointing of the Holy One. We must accept the death of Christ, as isolating us from the life of worldliness and fleshliness, and introducing us into the power and grace of the Divine Spirit. When this is fully realized, and Christ is formed within us by the operation of the Holy Ghost, we shall become conscious of the uprising within, like the slender snowdrops through the hard mould of winter, of those dispositions which are the keys and doors to blessedness.
Blessedness has many aspects.--It contains the promise of victory and supremacy: "theirs is the kingdom." It breathes comfort over the troubled and perplexed: "they shall be comforted." It gives the earth as a heritage, so that all things become the property of the soul which is united with God. It satisfies and fills. It strews life’s pathway with the mercy of man as well as of God. It involves the faculty of vision. It stamps its possessor as a child of the Highest. It sheds the oil of joy on the head, and casts the mantle of praise over the spirit of heaviness. Such are the creeks, bays, and inlets of that inland sea.
All these may be thine. As each of the conditions tends to induce all the rest, so does each of the rewards pass ultimately into the possession of the obedient and believing soul. Poverty of spirit leads to mourning, and this to meekness, and this to an inappeasable hunger, and this to mercifulness, and this to purity of heart, and this to peacemaking. Similarly, we begin and end with the kingdom of heaven--that is, our experience climbs upward as a spiral, and ends where it began, only in a fuller and richer experience. It is the same day, but there is a difference between the light of the meridian and of dawn. But between these two experiences of the kingdom lie comfort, possession, filling, mercy, vision, peace, and joy, and the one inevitably unfolds into another, as one hour into the next in the upward climbing of the sun.
Christ reverses men’s most cherished notions.--But lately I stood beside a lake, in whose calm waters, as they lapped the shore, I saw the foliage of the brake, which fringed the margin, reflected. But everything was reversed. What was highest on the land was deepest in the water, what was lowest on the land was highest in the water. The tree-tops lay fathoms deep, the daisies and anemones were close at hand; and I saw that this was a parallel of what is happening around. What is much esteemed by man is reckoned little of in the estimate of eternity. The gold for which we strive, and on which we count, is employed to make the pavement of the New Jerusalem. Whilst the humility which washes disciples’ feet, the meekness which takes an insult quietly, are the royal and leading features of that heavenly world. The King rides on an ass, and an ass’s foal. Of the pride, and circumstance, and power, which men put first, Christ makes nought; of the meekness and humility, which men despise, Christ makes all. He lifts poverty out of the dunghill, and makes it sit among the princes of the heavenly realm; and Mordecai is exalted above Haman.
Christ realized the characteristics and blessedness of which He spoke.--He was poor in spirit, and classed Himself among the babes: our King was meek and lowly of heart; He hungered after God, and spent the nights in endeavoring to appease His hunger; so merciful that publicans and sinners were attracted to Him; so pure that He always beheld the Father’s presence; ever making peace, and incessantly persecuted. Oh, lovely pattern of all Thou didst inculcate! All unconsciously Thou wast limning Thyself in these sentences.
His, too, was this blessedness. Storms of evil-speaking and evil-doing might assail Him; but deep in His heart the life of God lay warm, as nature hides the secret of the coming year deep in her breast, whilst wintry storms sweep over the sky.
Listen to Him; learn of Him; be like Him; receive Him into thine heart; let Him be revealed within thee, so shalt thou also be conformed to these qualities, and participate in this bliss.
Most Blessed Christ! Those whom Thou dost bless, are blessed indeed; Lead me, I beseech thee, by Thy good Spirit, into the enjoyment of these blessings which Thou hast prepared for them that Love Thee, and which pass the mind of man to conceive.