The fourth blessing Jesus gives in the sermon in Matthew is in verse six. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” These are very strong verbs. By definition, to hunger is to enter into the biological processes of starvation. Later usage waters it down quite a bit, but that is the original meaning of this word. This English word is used to render the Greek word πεινάω, which has a range of meanings from “I am dying of hunger, starving,” to “I crave my favorite food.” In the context of this passage, the meaning is closer to the earlier definition, starvation. The average human can go seven to ten days without eating before any lasting damage to internal organs. Jesus is saying those who need righteousness as an essential nutrient, and can’t get it, will be filled.
The next verb, thirst, is even stronger. Water is not merely a nutrient. The longest period of time a human could go without water before his body begins to die is twenty-four to seventy-two hours. The Greek word is διψάω, which the lexicon in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance maps the meaning of this word exactly to the English word thirst. Originally the English word thirst denotes the process from dying of lack of fluids. As Jesus uses the word, the meaning is clear that the thirsty one is close to death. To thirst for righteousness is to realize that your eternal life depends upon your right standing before God. The blessed one in this verse is one who recognizes his unrighteousness and seeks it from God.
Jesus reassures us that this condition will be satisfied by God. He uses the word χορτάζω, which means “to fill with abundance, satiate fully.” We are not only promised to receive righteousness, we’re promised to receive total righteousness. Only God can make us totally righteous once we have stained our own souls with sin. The condition of sin is separating us from God. God wants to make us one with Him. Therefore He has to remove the condition of sin so we can become one with Him. We are blessed by His righteousness through grace because we cannot be righteous on our own. This is truly a blessing.
The fifth blessing is in verse seven. “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” Jesus has tied our receiving forgiveness or our forgiving others in many places in the New Testament, the Lord’s Prayer in the next chapter is the most famous, and we will cover it soon. In this verse He ties receipt of mercy to being merciful. The Greek word is ελεέω, which translates quite closely with the English “be merciful, have mercy.” In the languages of the Eastern Mediterranean, the concept of mercy is tied closely with the concept of justice. It is only the Latin and other Romance languages that separate the two concepts into different realms. The Latin speaking Church has trouble reconciling the justice of God with the mercy of God. An example of this is the confusion over the mercy of Saint Joseph in 1:19 is coupled to his description as a just man. To the Latin mindset mercy is unjust. But thanks be to God, in the mind of God the two are inseparable. That is why the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is both an act of mercy and justice at the same time.
Mercy is one of the attributes of love. Love is the quality that God freely gives us as nourishment for our souls and spirits. Therefore, the people who receive God’s love are merciful. They are twice blessed. We are twice blessed. We receive God’s soul-nourishing love, a blessing in itself, and react in love with mercy toward others. God then blesses us with mercy for our own shortcomings, and that too is a blessing. We are forgiven because we are forgiving.
Does that mean it’s allowed to sin and get away with it? Oh, of course not! If I told you I would not punish you for cutting off your own foot, does that mean it’s alright to cut off your own foot? People who go around arrogantly harming others while relying on the formulaic prayer they recited once in church one night. The Pharisees worked hard to earn a degree of personal righteousness. Even Jesus recognizes their personal righteousness, saying we need to exceed their righteousness. But the modern day analog of the Pharisees, the self-righteous church people, are not even living up to the standard of righteousness upheld by the Pharisees. Beware the leaven of the Pharisees. Let your righteousness come from God and manifest in your mercy toward others.
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