This is not an updated list of the 10 commandments. Moses had a list and now Jesus has his. These are not 8 badges of merit. Get these and you’re in the kingdom and you are blessed/happy.
Difficult that it is for us as we have been trained and conditioned to perform our Christianity but we must come away from a commandment relationship with Jesus and his kingdom. It’s risky and we might be afraid to do so. It may feel wrong and turning our theology upside down. But the kingdom is near, Jesus says, and we need to know who gets into it. For what we understand is it is not a course of action that brings happiness but it is the kingdom.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” (Matthew 5 v 7)
At the cross we see justice and mercy collide. Justice poured out on Jesus and mercy poured out on the world. Mercy is not giving us what we deserve, judgment. It looks like the world has taken advantage of God. God loses and the world is free. God waits and as He waits He continues to show mercy. We understand that.
A reminder of the context of that mountainside. Jesus is teaching the disciples in ear-shot of the crowds. Who were these people? “… people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed …” (Matthew 4:24)
Would you have these people on your team?
Within those crowds were also the Religious leaders and the Roman sympathisers, ruling with oppression, judgment and condemnation.
Blessed are the strong, those with back-bone and those who uphold the standards of God.
Would you have these people on your team?
Who is right amongst the crowd?
Those who don’t break any rules?
Those who don’t make the standard?
Jesus says those who are right are those who look like God. They are merciful. They look like the world has taken advantage of them. It looks like they have lost and their world has won. The world has hung a sign up saying, ‘You are not welcome here’. Happy are these people in the kingdom. Happy not because they have achieved mercy but mercy in disqualifying them from their world has opened for them the door to the blessed kingdom. This is not a list it is about being last.
Have you been taken advantage of? Walked right over? Ignored by your world? Forgotten in your brokenness? It is a mirror of God at the cross. Mercy is yours. Welcome the kingdom of happiness is within you.
Missions Paul 