As Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount, he has not yet done a great deal of public preaching, so the crowds that are attracted to him cannot yet have accepted him as Lord and Savior. Jesus wants to connect with them where they are: poor in spirit, mourning, meek (the first three beatitudes), and now a fourth characteristic:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Mt 5:6).
Taken together these four represent the deepest cravings of the human heart, even if these listeners cannot yet express it. Again, the Old Testament captures the depth of the emotion:
“For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face” (Psalm 11:7).
“He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” (Psalm 23:3)
“You meet him who joyfully works righteousness … Behold, you were angry, and we sinned; in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved” (Isaiah 64:5).
There is a resonance in their hearts as they are drawn near to Jesus by an unseen force. They experience an intense hunger and thirst for the kingdom of heaven, comfort, inheritance, and satisfaction.
It is this fourth beatitude that summarizes the first four with the word “satisfied.” We might take being satisfied to be like passing a test with a D-minus: pretty much desperate but somehow we got by.
But that is not how Jesus uses the word. The same word in Hebrew and Greek also means “sated.” Sated is not just getting enough food to barely survive. Sated means to be gorged to the point of being overwhelmed in a very good way!
Jesus is teaching these potential early believers that the cravings for the kingdom of heaven, comfort, and inheritance, are the result of honestly recognizing poverty of spirit, mourning, and meekness before God. But from these three, hunger and thirst are produced for true righteousness.
Jesus is saying that God can completely fill their spiritual cravings if they pursue the things blessed by God.
But not here in this life, which will always be difficult:
“Arise, O Lord! … Deliver my soul from the wicked … from men of the world whose portion is in this life… As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness” (Psalm 17:13-15).
The overwhelming quenching of this desire of the human spirit will be satisfied deeply for those who awake from death to find themselves in the presence of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
The ministry of Jesus has three years to go in presenting what this means, and it is the early church fathers who later will define it for us as believers in Jesus.
How then do those listening to Jesus on the mountain get from here to there? That is the subject of the final three beatitudes, as we will see next time.
And what does this have to do with perfect unity?
Everything.
Surely the priceless garment of the perfect unity that Jesus prays for at the end of his time on earth begins with weaving the threads of human cravings into a spectacular shawl that everyone who believes in Jesus as Lord and Savior will gladly wear.
Even more important, as our perfect unity comes together, the cravings expressed by the beatitudes offer a priceless opportunity for reaching out to non-believers in our modern lost culture, who know they are missing something, but cannot imagine what it is.
My friend, are you feeling sad and depressed? Mourning over lost opportunities? Oppressed by absence of justice?
Gotcha covered!