“Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, two and he began to teach them, saying:” (Matthew 5:1-2 NIV)
Previously I shared Jesus preached the Kingdom of God, and as a result, people were healed and delivered and saved from trying to control their world. Matthew then tells us Jesus taught crowds about the character of the Kingdom of God.
Matthew wants his readers to see Jesus as a second Moses. Jesus preaching the Kingdom of God is like Moses going to Egypt to tell Pharaoh’ “God said, let my people go.” Moses made it clear the Hebrew people were not the possession of the Pharoah. They were to be set free to worship God. The prophet Moses proclaimed Yahweh as the only true God. The gods of Egypt were frauds. God delivered his people, and the rule of Pharoah was abolished. After being delivered through the Red Sea, God’s people went to Mt. Sinai, where God established covenant with His people. At Mt. Sinai, through the Torah (Law) given to Moses, God taught his people how to live as a people who belonged to God alone. Jesus sat down on the Mountain and taught the people following Him how to live as people of the Kingdom of God.
The teaching begins with what has become known as the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes in Matthew are like a table of contents for the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. Each beatitude usually starts by saying blessed are _. And for some reason, many people pronounce this with two syllables. Some have read these attitudes as character traits that a person should strive to display to be blessed truly. NT Wright comes from a different perspective. He starts each beatitude with “Wonderful News!” Instead of seeing the blessing as a result of the attitude on display, the beatitude reflects the wonderful news of the Kingdom of God that has come in Jesus.
Think of the beatitudes as the attitude that God has. The Kingdom attitudes of God are surprising. The Kingdom of God turns the kingdoms of this world upside down, inside out, and every which way. Starting with “Wonderful News, the poor in spirit are the ones who inherit the Kingdom of God. Good news to the poor is that you are partakers in the Kingdom of God now. Your bank account does not reflect how God feels about you.
I encourage you to think about the Wonderful News of God’s Kingdom already at work in your life. If you are a follower of Jesus, you are a part of God’s people. You are called to live and love out the attitude God has. That is what we are calling the Fiesta Life.
This week’s posts from different contributors will look at the first beatitude. “Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.”
In Christ,
Matt Larson