Salt & Light

Jesus started His Sermon on the Mount by giving eight Beatitudes or characteristics that should be present and obvious in the lives of Christ followers. These are:

• Poor in Spirit

• Mourning

• Meekness

• Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

• Merciful

• Pure in Heart

• Peacemakers

• Persecution for Righteousness’ Sake

There’s a ton to learn from and go over in those, and we have looked at them in more depth over the past couple of months, but that is not the end of His sermon, rather it’s just the intro. So, let’s look at what else Jesus has to say to us.

Matthew 5:13

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.”

Persecution

This week we reach the end of the Beatitudes, and this first section of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount ends on a bit of a surprising note. It’s all about suffering and persecution. Let’s jump into it. 

Matthew 5:10-12 ESV “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

The final things that you are blessed for are persecution, suffering, slander and accusations. I don’t know about you, but if I was trying to start a new religion or reframe an old one, I’m not sure that I would make it a defining bullet point that those who follow it can expect and even be guaranteed difficulty and persecution. It seems a bit counterintuitive, right? Yet that is exactly what Jesus did, and it wasn’t only here in Matthew that He speaks this way.

Mercy

What is mercy? In very simple terms, I've heard mercy described as ‘not getting something that you deserve.’ This is kind of accurate, but it doesn't fully express what mercy is. More appropriately, mercy is withholding a punishment or consequence. It is preventing pain and hardship from coming to someone. Sometimes that is deserved pain or punishment or hardship, and sometimes mercy is simply the act of making a hard choice or sacrificing to withhold that pain from the person. 

Mercy is defined as: “compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.”

Matthew 5:7

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

Hunger & Thirst

When was the last time you were hungry or thirsty? It was probably today, probably no more than a few hours ago. Hunger and thirst are common occurrences for all living things. We need food and water to keep us alive, and within just a few hours of eating or drinking something we start to feel hungry or thirsty. Our body is reminding us that there is something that is essential to life and it’s been a bit since we had it. Now, that original feeling of hunger or thirst may not be terribly strong. It may be just a small annoyance or reminder that we should start thinking about where our next meal is going to come from and start planning on when we are going to eat, but the longer we go the stronger the feeling gets. It becomes painful and unignorable until we finally eat and drink and are satisfied again. 

Be Humble

The first two Beatitudes were more about inward attitudes, having a right outlook on your own spiritual state and being rightly upset and grieved over sin and evil in the world and within yourself. The third Beatitude is a bit more outwardly focused, as it has to do with how we interact with the world and people around us. 

Matthew 5:5

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

The word meek, in today’s society, means “quiet, gentle, and easily imposed on; submissive.”

This is somewhat the same meaning that Jesus is getting at here, but with a few important distinctions. We typically think of a meek person as someone who is shy and quiet, like a mouse, someone who is weak, who doesn’t, and can’t, stand up or speak up for themselves or others and who is easily taken advantage of. However, that isn’t really the idea that Jesus was trying to convey. Jesus is quoting an Old Testament verse here:

Mourning

Today we are looking at the second Beatitude, or Blessing, in The Sermon on the Mount. This week was also Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday, and, while I didn’t intentionally plan this, these things actually go together quite well. 

Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, is a day of decadence and debauchery. It is the day before the start of the Lent Season, which is the 40 days leading up to Easter, and it is meant to be a time of fasting and righteousness. It is a time when you intentionally remove something from your life and replace it with time spent with God. You are supposed to identify and remove something from your life that is or could be a distraction, or something that occupies a good deal of your time/attention. It is meant to be a sacrifice. Mardi Gras, being the last day before Lent, is a celebration of gorging yourself on everything that you will be removing from your life. It is an overindulgence of that which you have deemed needs to be removed. It is said, by some, to be a celebration of life, but it is a distorted celebration of life as true life comes from Christ “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” not from the perverted sweets of the world. 

This is where the next Beatitude comes in.

Poor in Spirit

This week we are getting into the first of Jesus’ teachings during The Sermon on the Mount.

We often have a skewed view of spiritual justice and morality. It is very common to think of your life in terms of a scale; as long as the good things in your life outweigh the bad things then you're going to be ok. However, this isn't at all what we see Jesus teach, and there are actually a lot of problems with this idea. To start with, who defines good and bad? Does each person get to choose for themselves what is good vs. what is bad? What if something I think is good, you think is bad? Does that thing count as whatever we think it is or does it have a universal designation? Even if salvation and spiritual justice worked on a sliding scale of good vs. bad, we would need some definitive measure and designation that is set in place by someone outside of the system. 

Listening to God

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ famous sermon, from which we get many of the principles, guidelines and examples of what it means to live a Christian life. This is where the Beatitudes come from as well as The Lord’s Prayer. It is an extremely important section of scripture, and we are going to take the next few months to go over it and see how we can apply it to our lives today. 

So, before we jump in, let’s set the stage. Jesus had just begun His public ministry. He was traveling all around the area, teaching, healing, performing miracles and displaying wisdom. He had just called His apostles, those twelve who were closest to Him, who traveled with Him and ministered with Him and learned from Him. He was gaining notoriety and fame, and as such, a huge crowd of people were beginning to follow Him, to see what He was going to do and hear what He was going to say. They didn’t have Instagram or TikTok during that time, but if they did, Jesus’ follower count would have been skyrocketing, and every one of His videos would be going viral.