I have a hope; and I hope it. What is hope? For the benefit of all the women who didn’t attend the 2010 Diocesan Men’s Retreat, and the men who couldn’t make it either (and as a refresher to those who did attend), let’s talk about hope. During our preparation for the retreat, the leadership team discussed the theme. During the course of our conversation, my brother Larry Green confessed that he felt that hope was something weak and uncertain, like a fragile form of faith. But as our dear brother Mike witnessed to us, hope is powerful and compelling. Hope is “something desired with the expectation of attainment, or a confident expectation.” Hoping is the opposite extreme of wishing; whereas wishing is desiring something with little to no anticipation satisfaction, hoping is desire that expects fulfillment. A hope is not a wishy-washy pipe dream, but something that you completely expect to receive.
|| So what’s your hope? || Today’s psalm is one of my favorites and it succinctly states what is my hope: “Who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?” (Ps. 15:1). Dwelling in God’s sanctuary, not clinging to the horns of the altar to escape punishment, but residing there—residing here—to offer unbroken worship and service to the King of King, this is my hope. Abiding on His holy hill, living on Mount Zion, always near to the Most Holy Place is what I eagerly anticipate. What more could I ask for? It’s the life that Adam and Eve enjoyed in Eden, walking with God in the garden in the cool of the day (cf. Gen 3:8).
And the rest of the psalm speaks to the other part of Adam and Eve’s fellowship with God: “The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” (Gen. 2:25). How does one enjoy that blessed life with God? By walking blamelessly, and doing his neighbor no wrong, and, as the KJV puts it, “He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not,” and so forth. “He who does these things will never be shaken.” How could you be shaken if you do these these? For then fellowship with God, unashamedly walking with Him, would then truly be your daily bread.
The Beatitudes speak of a life of hope. They are marvelous declarations, promises, of our Lord. In them, He encourages, exhorts, and instructs His disciples concerning their lives. In them, Jesus tells us the rewards that we can expect for acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God. Are you ready to dig in?
Let’s first look back at 4:24: “News about him spread over all Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them” (Mt. 4:24). “Now when [Jesus] saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down” (Mt. 5:1). Jesus saw the crowds and, seeking to draw them to better things, he went up on a mountainside. Christ comes to us and heals us in our current state. But He is ever calling us to go up the mountainside—to draw away from the busyness and the business of our daily lives. He calls us out from our common, profane lives. He wants us to be with Him on the mountain, the holy hill and sanctuary: a place set apart (consecrated) from the ordinary, where God and man can converse.
“His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them” (Mt. 5:1,2). As they see Jesus going up the mountain, some refuse to leave what they already have, the comfort and security of things as-they-always-were, the world of the status quo, the life of the mediocre. Others don’t go because they are worried that the journey will be too hard for them, that their own weakness will hinder their ascent. Still others start out on the journey, but are discouraged because there is no highway, only a trail blazed before them by Jesus and the disciples who have gone before them, and so the steepness of the slope, the difficulty of the way makes them turn back. So the crowds thin until Jesus is left only with His disciples.
These words of blessing are not for the passers-by, the curious onlookers, those who are not ready or who are unwilling to make a commitment to follow Jesus, to learn from Him, to imitate Him, to accept His teaching and His rebuke. If we are to receive the blessings of the promise, we must be ready to receive the hardships and responsibilities that go with fulfilling our part of the promise. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (Jn. 16:33). And so the disciples, who have willingly climbed the mountain with Christ, now hear His words of promise, of hope.
As we look at the Beatitudes, we something about us, and something about our Lord. Jesus said, “Remember the words I have spoken to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me they, will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also” (Jn. 15:20). You and I are called by the name “Christian,” which means what? Little Christ. That means that the likeness of Christ is borne, or at least should be borne, by Joan, Dick, Isabelle, Jon Mark, all of us.
What’s true about Jesus is, by extension, true of His Body, the Church; and, by further extension, it’s true of the members of His Body, you and me. And going the other way, what’s true of you and me is true of the Body, and is true of our Head. This interconnection underpins our hope. As St. Paul wrote to the church in Rome, “All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Rom. 6:3,4).
So when Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” to us, He can say this because it is even more true of Him. Now, I don’t usually think of Jesus as poor in spirit, but majestic and triumphant. “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’” (Ps. 110:1). Yet that’s one facet of Who He is. Jesus—God the Son incarnate—was not about to disregard the purpose of His coming so that He could grandstand. His poverty of spirit kept His attitude perfect. As St. Paul wrote, “Your attitude show be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped at, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant” (Php. 2:5–7). And Jesus said, ‘The Father is greater than I” (Jn. 14:28). The incarnate Son, Himself God of the same being as the Father, One God, sharing equal glory and coeternal majesty with the Father, unashamedly acknowledges His own right and proper place in the Trinity.
For the poor in spirit, the promise, the hope is this, “For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The promise is the kingdom. When they pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” God grants them their hearts desire. He grants them His most gracious rule over their earthly lives, and also in the age to come. Surely they will dwell in His sanctuary.
“Blessed are those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart.” For each one of these blessed states, Christ Himself is the epitome and perfection. And in Him and through Him we hope to attain what is promised.
So up to this point, do we have any disagreement? Jesus was poor in spirit, meek, hungry for righteousness, merciful, and pure in heart. Agreed? Yes, we could argue about certain points.
He claims to be the Son of God, how humble is that? He drinks wine and he feasts, how much does He really mourn? He calls the Pharisees hypocrites, how meek is that? He hangs out with tax collectors and sinners, how much does He actually hunger for righteousness? He tells people their sins are forgiven but only God can forgive sins, how can His heart be pure?
Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch for the crowds to admit these characteristics. But when we come to the last two beatitudes, and the tenor changes. Here I believe the crowds depart from Christ.
“Blessed are the peacemakers.” Was Jesus a peacemaker? He Himself said, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Mt. 10:34). Jesus seemed to agitate the people wherever He went. “Man, who appointed me judge and arbiter between you and your brother?” (Lk. 12:14). “I have come to bring fire on the earth” (Lk. 12:49). And after feeding the 5000, “Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself” (Jn. 6:15). It’s interesting how once more no one of the crowd followed Jesus to the mountain. Jesus was presented, and He rejected, many opportunities to create peace. And isn’t peace part of our hope?
But He brought a sword because the peace that He came to establish was not of this world. Pax Romana, the Roman Peace under which the world was then at rest was one of the most effective secular peacetimes ever. But beneath it, peoples were crushed in oppression, nations subdued, human spirits thwarted.
Jesus did not come to establish His own form of the world’s peace, a better substitute, Peace 2.0. He came to declare that man’s ideas of peace were inadequate—wrong in administration, wrong in justice, wrong all the way down to their foundations. He came to say, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives” (Jn. 14:27). It’s not Peace 2.0, 3.0, or 1 million-point-0. Jesus gives us His peace, which is entirely unlike the peace of the world. God’s peace is more than freedom from strife; it’s the presence of rest, true Sabbath, the time of blessing and fellowship and communion. God’s peace is not preservation of any status quo; it is the presence of God’s perfection—and we abide in His presence going from glory to glory, never standing still, but pressing onward to discover new truths in Him. It’s our hope!
His peace is the foundation on which all other peace must be based. For man was separated from God at the fall. Until God and man are brought together, man can never hope to properly relate to his fellow man. “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in [Christ], and through him to reconcile all things to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross” (Col. 1:19,20).
The world couldn’t offer this peace. Even if everyone brought all their treasures, if all labored to one end, if every man offered his firstborn in sacrifice, all for the sake of just one person, it would not be enough to bring one man to peace with God. It would not be enough. But Jesus Himself is our peace. At the celebration of the Passover, the refrain is said over and over again, “Dayenu… dayenu…” it would have been enough. And it is enough, for Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us! (Therefore let us keep the feast. Alleluia!) “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God” (2 Cor. 1:20).
Just as Christ’s peace is rejected by the world, so is His justice. “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness.” Blessed? Jesus didn't say that if you lead a holy life, if you follow His example, if you do all that you’re supposed to do, then you won’t have trouble. He says, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first” (Jn. 14:18). Remember that we are Christians, little Christs, and we should be like Him, for no servant is greater than his master. If we do what Jesus did, if we say what He said, if we live like He lived, then we will come into confrontation with the world, because we will be living witnesses of the love, holiness, and righteousness of God.
This rejection is not blessed in the world’s eyes; for popularity, common opinion, and established norms are the measures of success and happiness. Persecution—suffering ill-treatment because of belief—is senseless from a worldly view. If there is no God and this world is all we’ve got, why suffer unnecessarily? Why put out your neck if you know it’s going to get chopped? But we have a hope: we hope to dwell in God’s sanctuary and abide on His holy hill. And no insult, no persecution, no slander can rob us of our hope.
So where’s your hope? What do you hope for? Christ has laid a roadmap for us in the Beatitudes. If we want to be comforted, let us mourn. If we want to be children of God, let us make peace. If we wish to inherit the earth, let us be meek. If we desire to see God, let our hearts be pure. If we want to be filled, let us crave righteousness. If we wish to receive mercy, let us be merciful. And, if our hope is the kingdom of heaven, let our spirits be poor, and let us rejoice and be glad in persecution. For such persecution is the mark of assurance of our blessed hope.
What do we do with this? Where’s your hope? What does your life point to? I pray and struggle to make my life point to dwelling in God’s sanctuary. But sometimes my actions betray what I really want. Do my actions lead me to His holy hill, or to elsewhere: career, pleasure, family, care of this physical body, sports? These are just some of what I see at my in my own life and at my secular job. What basket have you put your eggs into? Where’s your hope? Andrew Carnegie said, “Put all your eggs in one basket, and watch that basket! Take ome time this week to evaluate what your life points to. And if you’re not happy with where it is, seek out our prayer teams to pray with you for a renewed hope.
