The Beatitudes: Our King’s Call to All Joy
Picture the scene. On a green field in France, two armies face each other. The French troops spread out like the sand of the sea, well equipped, well fed, well assured of their all-but-sure victory. Across the pitch at Agincourt, the English forces form a motley bunch: far from home, half-starved, greatly outnumbered. If a house cat challenged a lion, the odds would be similar. They are in dire want of courage, poor in spirit.
Yet onto this famous battlefield comes a king, wielding words more effectively than any sword. He wholly reframes how his beleaguered troops see themselves as he congratulates them on their privileged position. Shakespeare allows us to overhear as Henry V, “the mirror of all Christian kings,” rouses his men:
This day is called the Feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day and comes safe home
Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named.
He’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did [this] day.
This story shall the good man teach his son
And [the feast of] Crispian shall ne’er go by
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here. (Henry V, 4.3.40–60)
In this speech, Henry V pronounces his men — his hungry, poor, reviled, persecuted men — to be the truly happy ones. In spite of every appearance to the contrary, they are living the good life because they are on the front lines with their king. If only the wealthy had eyes to see, they would envy these blessed brothers. The comfortable would call themselves accursed.
The new perspective puts fire into Henry’s troops. They gladly brave the dangers and discomfort — and, as history records, their reward is great.
Blessed Are They
A millennium and a half before Henry V stood on that field in France, another King strode onto a very different field. This King wore no crown and commanded no army. Yet he was in the midst of a battle, a conflict that would determine the future not merely of France and England but of absolutely everything. A ragtag group surrounded this King, beleaguered men and women who, like Henry’s troops, needed to see the reality of their situation. They needed to know, in spite of the world’s assessment, that they were among the happy few. And so, this King opens his mouth and delivers what has come to be called “The Sermon on the Mount.”
In this speech, King Jesus upends our expectations. He turns the world’s vision of the good life on its head. With his ninefold repetition of “Blessed are,” Christ presents his manifesto of kingdom happiness.
The Final Prophet-King
Although the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 5–7 is often called a sermon, these words are closer to Henry V on the battlefield than to a pastor in his pulpit. The biggest (and most obvious) difference is that the one who speaks is Jesus, God’s final Prophet-King.
Many have observed that Matthew intentionally presents Jesus as a better Moses, a new, authoritative prophet of the Lord. Just as Moses left Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, was tested in the wilderness, ascended a mountain, and delivered God’s word to his people, Matthew presents Jesus following the same pattern. He comes out of Egypt (Matthew 2:14–15), descends into the waters of baptism (3:13–17), and triumphs over Satan’s testing in the desert (4:1–11). Then he “went up on a mountain” (5:1). This phrase is used only three times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, all of which describe Moses ascending Sinai (Exodus 19:3; 24:18; 34:4). Matthew wants us to see that the words Jesus delivers on the mountain are God’s own words in the mouth of his definitive, better-than-Moses prophet (Matthew 7:28–29).
“Jesus turns the world’s vision of the good life on its head.”
Less obvious, but perhaps more important, Matthew presents Jesus as King. In this speech, Jesus mentions his kingdom eight times. He begins by proclaiming who may enter (5:3); he concludes by declaring who will be excluded (7:21–23). And he utters all these words with a royal authority that astonishes his hearers (7:28–29).
Perhaps most marvelous of all, Jesus does not merely reissue Old Testament law; he fulfills it. In his book on Matthew’s portrait of Jesus, Patrick Schreiner explains what this means:
Kings were to be living embodiments of the law who instruct through both teaching and example what it means to follow the law. As the king goes, the nation goes. Jesus is the Davidic king who becomes the living law. (Matthew, Disciple and Scribe, 104)
Christ is a king who holds court on the mountaintop and interprets God’s will for man. Thus, Schreiner concludes, “The Sermon on the Mount is the king’s speech” (104).
Here Jesus culminates and climaxes both the tradition of the prophets and the lineage of the kings. He speaks with all the authority of God. So, how does this prophet-king seek to rouse his embattled audience?
We Happy Few
Like Henry V, Jesus appeals to man’s innate desire for happiness. The king tells us where to find what we all want. “But,” you may ask, “where does Jesus address happiness?” In that lovely word blessed. One reason we aren’t struck by Jesus’s radical philosophy of happiness is that most of us have no idea what “blessed” means. For most moderns, this word is white noise, either meaningless Christianese or fodder for bumper stickers and hashtags. But older readers knew better.
“Blessed” translates the Greek word makarios, which most dictionaries gloss as “happy.” When the Bible was first translated into English, “blessed” and “happy” were interchangeable synonyms. (Thus, the oldest listing in the Oxford English Dictionary for “blessed” is “enjoying supreme felicity; happy, fortunate.”) That’s why this section of Jesus’s speech is often called the Beatitudes, from the Latin beatus, meaning “happy.”
By using the word makarios, Jesus culminates the long line of biblical wisdom concerning the good life. Makarios translates the Hebrew word asher, “a rich term that refers to a state of well-being and its attendant feelings of joy and satisfaction” (Mark Futato, Interpreting the Psalms, 66).
The Psalms and Proverbs repeatedly use this word to tell us who the truly happy ones are (e.g., Psalm 1; Proverbs 3:13). Bruce Waltke summarizes the import of asher in the Old Testament (and thus makarios in the New):
Sages reserve [this] laudatory exclamation for people who experience life optimally, as the Creator intended. . . . The pronouncement does not confer blessing . . . but serves instead to hold up a human being as a model before the addressee to be envied and imitated. (The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1–15, 256)
Just like the Old Testament sages and Henry V, Jesus’s words are both proclamation and invitation. He obliterates the notion that happiness is merely circumstantial. To be happy, according to our King, is to live the good life and experience the emotions that accompany it — in spite of being embattled, poor, and persecuted. It is to enjoy well-being with God and man. In essence, Jesus declares,
“O the bliss of being a Christian! . . . O the sheer happiness of knowing Jesus Christ as Master, Saviour and Lord!” The very form of the beatitudes is the statement of the joyous thrill and the radiant gladness of the Christian life. In the light of the beatitudes, a gloom-encompassed Christianity is unthinkable. (William Barclay, The New Daily Study Bible, 1:102)
Invited into Joy
Jesus invites us into this kingdom joy, this “radiant gladness,” this vision of the good life. Like Henry V, Jesus calls his kingdom citizens — a motley crew indeed — to a weighty happiness, a joy unmoved by the winds of health and sickness, wealth and poverty, prosperity and calamity. Ours is an embattled bliss, the satisfaction of standing on the front lines with our King. A joy that bears scars and carries crosses. A blessedness that braves dangers and discomfort.
In the Beatitudes, the King calls us into all joy. He deems those who follow him to be among the happy few. He bids us join a jovial band of brothers and sisters spread throughout time and space, rooted in eternity. Who would dare resist such indomitable happiness?
