Beatitudes of Christ

In the days of the Russian revolution, the Soviet state tried to stamp out Christianity and convert everyone to atheism. A popular Russian comedian developed a stage act in which he played a drunken Orthodox priest. Dressed in wine-stained robes, he did a comic imitation of the ancient but beautiful liturgy.

Part of his performance was to chant the Beatitudes. But he used distorted words—such as “blessed are they who hunger and thirst for vodka” and “blessed are the cheese makers”—while struggling to remain more or less upright. He had done his act time and again and been rewarded by the authorities for his work in promoting atheism and in making worship seem ridiculous.

But on one occasion things didn’t go as planned. Instead of saying his garbled version of the Beatitudes in his well-rehearsed comic manner, he chanted the sentences as they are actually sung in a real Liturgy. His attention was focused not on the audience but on the life-giving words that were coming from the Bible, words he had learned and sung as a child. He listened to the memorized words and something happened in the depths of his soul.

After singing the final Beatitude, he fell to his knees weeping. He had to be led from the stage and never again parodied worship. Probably he was sent to a labor camp, but even so it’s a story of a happy moment in his life. He had begun a new life in a condition of spiritual freedom that no prison can take away. Whatever his fate, he brought the Beatitudes and his recovered faith with him. Truly, the Bible can change one’s life.

Dr. Emily McGowin, assistant professor of theology, at Wheaton College writes:

When I taught high school, one of my favorite assignments was having my ninth-graders write their own Beatitudes. I asked them to speak to people the world might consider "unblessable." Here are a few:

-Blessed are drug addicts and felons, people who try everything but still buckle under the pressure of their past lives and can never get back on their feet, for even they belong in the Kingdom of God.

-Blessed are the orphans and foster children of the world because they are exactly who God wants in his Kingdom.

-Blessed are the homeless because the Kingdom of God belongs to them too.

-Blessed are the abusers who take out their anger on the weak, for even they can repent and receive the Kingdom of God." (This particular student was abused by a parent and removed from the home because of it.)

What the happiest time of our day? A study of Twitter users found an interesting pattern: humans tend to be happy at breakfast time, not so happy at midday, and then happy again near bedtime. The study, which analyzed 509 million tweets from 2.4 million users in 84 countries, found that moods fluctuate in a predictable pattern. On weekdays, positive tweets peak between 6 A.M. and 9 A.M., then decline steadily to a trough between 3 P.M. and 4 P.M. In the late afternoon, positivity begins to rise again, peaking after dinner. On weekends, the pattern is similar but morning happiness shifts later, starting at around 9 A.M., when most people are beginning their day. The study's authors used a text-analysis program that scanned the tweets for words that had positive and negative affects.

Possible Preaching Angles: Happiness; Joy—True joy depends on our connection to Christ, not to the time of the day.

In an interview in AARP magazine, singer and poet Bob Dylan talked about his new music, life on the road, and true happiness. Towards the end of the interview Dylan said, "OK, a lot of people say there is no happiness in this life and certainly there's no permanent happiness … I'm not exactly sure what happiness even means, to tell you the truth. I don't know if I personally could define it."

When the interview asked if Dylan has touched and held happiness, Dylan replied, "We all do at certain points, but it's like water—it slips through your hands. As long as there's suffering, you can only be so happy. How can a person be happy if he has misfortune?"

Most athletes believe that god/fate is on their side …. Indeed, when they win a championship, talk of "destiny" fills the postgame locker room. What must be confusing to these highly trained, well-paid professionals is when they lose the game. Does it mean that God doesn't like them, that he wasn't for them, that they weren't as special as they thought? Indeed, would any of them have the guts to admit they were destined to lose?

I'm sure many have noticed that we never hear athletes during the postgame interviews thank God for their loss. It seems the god of athletics only shows up when players win. But … [the apostle] Paul believed that the God of Israel delights in showing up in the midst of loss—the resurrection of Christ proves it. God turns losing into gain, death into life, sorrow into joy, weakness into strength, futility into glory ….

So I can imagine Paul throwing his arm around the athlete who's just lost the World Series [or the Super Bowl] and saying … "Son of Adam, life is a game and we're all destined to lose. Let's go celebrate the good news."

In his book What Good Is God?, author Philip Yancey illustrates what it is like to build upon the rock by hearing and keeping the words of Jesus.

Yancey wrote about the 2004 Ukraine election in which the reformer Victor Yushchenko challenged the entrenched party and nearly died for it. On election-day the exit polls showed Yushchenko with a comfortable lead, but through outright fraud, the government had reversed those results.

Yancey writes:

That evening the state-run television reported, "Ladies and gentlemen, we announce that the challenger Victor Yushchenko has been decisively defeated." However, government authorities had not taken into account one feature of Ukrainian television, the translation it provides for the hearing-impaired. On the small screen insert in the lower right-hand corner of the television screen a brave woman raised by deaf-mute parents gave a different message in sign language. "I am addressing all the deaf citizens of Ukraine. Don't believe what they say. They are lying, and I am ashamed to translate these lies. Yushchnko is our President!" No one in the studio understood her radical sign-language message.

Inspired by that courageous translator, deaf people led what became known as the Orange Revolution.

Yancey continues:

They text-messaged their friends on mobile phones about the fraudulent elections, and soon other journalists took courage … and likewise refused to broadcast the party line. Over the next few weeks as many as a million people wearing orange flooded the capital city of Kiev to demand new elections. The government finally buckled under the pressure, consenting to new elections, and this time Yushchenko emerged as the undisputed winner.

Yancey makes the following point:

Our society is hardly unique … like the sign language translator in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, along comes a person named Jesus who says in effect, "Don't believe the big screen—they're lying. It's the poor who are blessed, not the rich. Mourners are blessed too, as well as those who hunger and thirst, and the persecuted. Those who go through life thinking they're on top will end up on the bottom. And those who go through life feeling they're at the very bottom will end up on top. After all, what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and lose his soul?"

Helen Roseveare, a medical missionary in Africa, was the only doctor in a large hospital. There were constant interruptions and shortages, and she was becoming increasingly impatient and irritable with everyone around her. Finally, one of the African pastors insisted, "Helen, please come with me." He drove Helen to his humble house and told her that she was going to have a retreat—two days of silence and solitude. She was to pray until her attitude adjusted.

All night and the next day she struggled; she prayed, but her prayers seemed to bounce off the ceiling. Late on Sunday night, she sat beside the pastor around a little campfire. Humbly, almost desperately, she confessed that she was stuck. With his bare toe, the pastor drew a long straight line on the dusty ground. "That is the problem, Helen: there is too much 'I' in your service." He gave her a suggestion: "I have noticed that quite often, you take a coffee break and hold the hot coffee in your hands waiting for it to cool." Then he drew another line across the first one. "Helen, from now on, as the coffee cools, ask God, 'Lord, cross out the "I" and make me more like you.'" In the dust of that African ground, where a cross had formed, Helen Roseveare learned the master principle of Jesus: freedom comes through service, and service comes by releasing our ego.

Taylor University is a Christian college in Indiana. Years ago, they were pleased to learn that an African student, Sam, was going to be enrolling in their school. This was before it was commonplace for international students to come to the U.S. to study. He was a bright young man with great promise, and the school felt honored to have him. When he arrived on campus, the President of the University took him on a tour, showing him all the dorms. When the tour was over, the President asked Sam where he would like to live. The young man replied, "If there is a room that no one wants, give that room to me." The President turned away in tears. Over the years he had welcomed thousands of Christian men and women to the campus, and none had ever made such a request.

"If there is a room that no one wants, give that room to me." That's the kind of meekness Jesus talks about in the Beatitudes.

If there is a job that no one wants to do, I'll do that job.

If there's a kid that no one wants to eat lunch with, I'll eat with that kid.

If there's a piece of toast that's burnt, I'll take that piece.

If there's a parking space that's far away from the church, I'll park in that space.

If there's a service time that's less convenient for people, I'll worship at that service.

If there's a hardship someone has to endure, I'll take that hardship.

If there's a sacrifice someone needs to make, I'll make that sacrifice.