Mike was right. I lobbied for a four-week series on the Beatitudes but Dr. Mike Graves thought eight would be better since there are eight beatitudes. I thought you might get bored. Or I would! But now that we are approaching week eight, I realize that there is so much left to learn about these few verses from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. (Matthew 5:1-12)

“Blessed are the…for they will…“ is the formula. I was shocked when I realized this didn’t originate with Jesus. I was touring the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit with a Bible study group at our church when I saw under glass the manuscripts that were more than 2000 years old. They were called The Beatitudes but they were not the ones in our Bible. This astounded me. Jesus used a formula from ancient literature known to his audience. He inserted his radical, challenging and countercultural notions into the cadence that felt familiar to teach them about God’s ways for a whole life. Would they risk following his vision?

On our trip to the Holy Land we visit the Church of the Beatitudes. No one can say for sure where Jesus first offered the famous sermon. Even the gospel writers do not agree if it was a mountain or a plain. But the site we visited was a hilltop overlooking the Sea of Galilee.  And Dr. Graves pointed out that here you can see how the slope of the earth forms a natural amphitheater where it would have been possible for large crowds to hear Jesus speaking. It gave me goosebumps and the Beatitudes became for me not poems but words of hope declared aloud on a grassy hillside to hundreds of women, men and children eager for wholeness and hope in a brutal world. Many of them dared follow him.

Professor Tom Long says that the Sermon on the Mount is like the Constitution of the U.S. It is a pivotal founding document that is key to our identity as Christians. And the Beatitudes are like the preamble. “We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility…” The Beatitudes are foundational to who we are. “Blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers…“ Just as the Constitution turned the world upside down, so the Beatitudes radically altered how folks came to see the core values of life in the kingdom of heaven. They deserve more than eight weeks, they deserve a lifetime of devotion to pattern our lives in the ways of the living Christ.

See you Sunday,
Carla

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