Meditation Monday - Studying the Beatitudes.

A Lenten practice and study guide for the season

This year in the midst of the chaos and confusion about how followers of Jesus should act and live, I plan to study the Beatitudes throughout the season of Lent. This is Jesus’ manifesto for how life in the kingdom of God is meant to be. It needs to be interpreted as the good news of God becoming present to us in Jesus, as God does something new - a fulfillment of the prophecies of the prophet Isaiah for healing, justice, and right living. I can tell you it is far easier to adhere to the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament than to focus our lives around the beatitudes, the nine commandments of Jesus that are meant to provide a foundation for Christian living.

Glen Strassen in his helpful book Living the Sermon on the Mount - A Practical Hope for Grace and Deliverance points out that these teachings are called the beatitudes because they begin with the Greek word makaroioi (betas in Latin) meaning blessed, happy, hopeful or joyful. He translates makaroioi as “joyful” because in its fifty occurrences in the New Testament it almost always means the joy of participation in God’s action of deliverance. In the Old Testament he points out it usually promises future consolation to people in dire straits - meaning, whatever present situation is difficult will be reversed and justice, peace and joy will break in.

The beatitudes are based on Isaiah 61 which Jesus read out in the synagogue in his inaugural sermon in Luke 4:18, which I believe is one of the most challenging and important scriptures in the entire Bible. It is here that we see the characteristics of the kingdom of God, the eternal world of God spelled out. The beatitudes need to be interpreted in light of these statements. According to Glasson, The beatitudes are not about high ideals but about God’s gracious deliverance and our joyous participation in it. “Here in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says we are blessed because God is not distant and absent; we experience God’s reign and presence in our midst and will experience it even more in the future. Therefore each beatitude begins and ends with the joy, the happiness, the blessedness of the good news of participation in God’s gracious deliverance.” (Stassen 38)

The beatitudes appear in two of the gospels. In the Gospel of Matthew they are recounted at the beginning of what is called the Sermon on the Mount—probably given to a primarily Jewish audience who gathered on a hill to listen to what is the most comprehensive record of what Jesus regularly taught as he travelled throughout Galilee. There is an emphasis on the spiritual life of a person, their attitudes reflected in actions and outcomes. These sometimes seem a little vague and intangible when we come to fashioning our lives around them however, and they can be widely interpreted and misinterpreted.

On what was probably another occasion, Jesus preached what is sometimes known as the Sermon on the Plain after a night of praying on a mountainside and a morning spent choosing his 12 disciples as recounted in Luke 6. He delivered his sermon on level ground as an equal with those he spoke to. The Sermon on the Plain’s message is grounded in real-life issues and implies real life solutions. It encourages the poor and disenfranchised in society and warns those more fortunate that their lives will change for the worse if they don’t change their ways. Luke probably recorded the Sermon on the Plain for a Gentile audience who would not be as familiar with Jewish law and perhaps needed a more practical approach to the Christian life.

Over the next few weeks I will share more about my exploration of the beatitudes in my Meditation Mondays and possibly other spontaneous live sessions and hope that you will join me in this exploration. I have a number of books on my desk to read to guide my journey which I hope will provide different perspectives on the beatitudes that help me engage not just theologically but practically and actively.

Richard Rohr’s Jesus Alternative Plan - The Sermon on the Mount

Mark Scandrette’s The Ninefold Path of Jesus - Hidden Wisdom of the Beatitudes

Glen Stassen’s Living the Sermon on the Mount - A Practical Hope for Grace and Deliverance

Kenneth Bailey’s Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes.

Over the next few weeks I will make several Lent and Easter resources available for paying customers, starting with today’s 40 Days+ of Lent especially updated for 2025.

My friend John Van Der Laar is also studying the beatitudes during Lent. You might like to check out his publication Living an Abundant Life.