Sometimes God gives an unbeliever more insight into the lives of Christians than most Christians have. For instance, someone once said to Hannah Whitall Smith, the author of the book, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, “You Christians seem to have a religion that makes you miserable. You are like a man with a headache. He does not want to get rid of his head, but it hurts him to keep it. You cannot expect outsiders to seek very earnestly for anything so uncomfortable.” I do not know what you may think of this statement, but I believe that in some instances this unbeliever was right in his assumption. Christians often are quite miserable, even though through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit they may sense that true happiness is their birthright as members of the family of God. And because they are miserable they have little to offer a world that is desperately and often hopelessly searching for happiness.
To such a world and to all unhappy Christians the opening words of the Sermon on the Mount give hope (Matthew 5.3-12). Jesus Christ began His first great sermon with the promise of the happiness of heaven. He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.… Blessed are they that mourn.… Blessed are the meek.… Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness.… Blessed are the merciful.… Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
In this sermon the word “blessed” means “happy,” not in the world’s sense, of course, for the happiness of the world is a superficial happiness that depends upon circumstances. Moreover it carries the idea of “flourishing.” Therefore, I believe “flourishing” more accurately captures what Jesus is here saying. The flourishing spoken of here does not depend upon circumstances and fills the soul with joy even in the midst of the most depressing events.
One New Testament scholar writes, “The Beatitudes of Jesus describe the character of the men who, living under God’s Fatherly Rule made manifest in Jesus, enjoy … happiness even here and now, though its perfection belongs to the heavenly world.” And he would agree that in this verse and in the other seven beatitudes Jesus Christ gives men the secret of flourishing.
The word “blessed” has an interesting background in the English language. In the days of the origin of the English language, when Anglo-Saxon was in use and a number of related dialects were competing for prominence as the common speech, there were more than thirty forms of the Old English word for blessed. These words were based on an Old English noun meaning “blood”, and they were altered in time to become our words “blest” or “blessed.” At this period of the history of the English language a thing was considered blessed when it was set apart to God by a blood ritual, and the word then referred to consecration. In this sense the elements of the communion service were called “the blessed sacrament.” We use the word in this way when we speak of the prayer used before meals as a “blessing,” for in our prayer we consecrate the food and ourselves to God’s service.
In time, the word “blessed” in its earlier forms came to be used as a translation for the Latin word and thus a new meaning was added to the word – which, in its turn, had been used to translate the Greek word “eulogein” meant “to speak well of” something or someone, or “to eulogize.” It was always used in the Latin Bible for the eulogizing or praising of God. When men sing God’s praises they bless Him. So the word is used in this second sense in verses like Lk.1.68: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he has visited and redeemed his people.” The same sense occurs in the Sermon on the Mount in the verse in which Jesus tells us to love our enemies and “bless them that curse you.” By this He meant that we are to speak well of those who do not speak well of us.
A third meaning of blessed arose from the fact that the words “bless” and “blessed” were similar in spelling and pronunciation to another ancient English word, the word “bliss,” and therefore came in time to assimilate its meaning also. We know this because eventually writers began to spell the word “blessed” with an i or with a y instead of with an e. And the word “blessed” or “blyssed” was the result. “Bliss” meant happy or joyful. At this final stage of its development “blessed” meant either consecration, praise, or happiness; and “bliss” became a term for spiritual joy. When this happened a new word was called in to express nonreligious joy, the word “blithe.” And so, in 1746, we find a poet writing to a former friend, “I trust that we shall meet on blither terms.”
It is the third use of the word “blessed” that occurs in the Sermon on the Mount. When Jesus spoke these words He was telling His listeners how they could be deeply, spiritually, and profoundly happy and how they could maintain this happiness even in the midst of life’s disappointments and hard times.
Maranatha!
(mar-uh-nath-uh – “Our Lord Comes”)
Pastor Steve can be reached at PastorSteve@MaranathaBibleChurch.org