Blessed are those that ache.

Matthew Chapter  5

 ⁶Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
      for they will be filled.

Blessed?

This is much more than just the idea of happiness or fortune.  Another way of describing the word Makarios is, ‘God is with you’.  God is with the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst.

Righteousness?

But what is righteousness?

If like me you’ve kind of hung around church circles for a while, you’ll have picked up the phrase that righteousness means ‘right standing’ with God, which is true, it does, but it also carries within it a much broader picture.  Jesus follows in the footsteps of the prophets, who revealed that God’s number one desire is for everything that's been warped and twisted to be in its right place.   

Hunger & thirst?

Jesus says, God is with you who hunger and thirst for that kind of world.  But what does he mean by that?  It's an ache or a longing expressed with deep sighs and groans about what is warped and twisted in our world.  Maybe, like me, you’ve witnessed the unravelling of a marriage right in front of your eyes and you’ve seen how messy it’s gotten and you’ve just ached inside.  

Sometimes the hunger an thirst is about those habits, choices and addictions that you keep coming back to and you end up in frustration and despair about yourself, ‘Am I always going to struggle with this?' 

Sometimes the ache is for the world to be untwisted back into its rightful place.  That's certainly the longing in so many hearts and lives right now.  In Jesus’ day, among his audience to be hungry and to be thirsty was an all too frequent experience.  These were poor, oppressed people they could identify with the words Jesus was using.

It wasn't till I had my encounter with the Father's love, when my theology was reshaped, that I realised I had gotten caught up in a vicious circle of performance related blessing.  I thought the beatitudes were a check list of 9 things he looks for in a radical disciple, and somehow by hook or by crook I have to try and achieve them.   Even the most respected of theologians, John Stott announced, ‘This is the most demanding beatitude to achieve.’

Here's the crux of what I'm trying to outline today.  God isn't blessing us because we've reached that level.  Jesus is announcing that God blesses the ache for and the absence of and not the achievement of them.

Shall be filled/satisfied?

When will the filling come?  Was Jesus talking about heaven was that when we will be satisfied?  I don’t think so!  Can you imagine what his disciples would have thought if Jesus was announcing that they’re actually going to have to wait a few more millennia before God shows up and establishes anything in this world?

Was the best that Jesus could offer, in the middle of such poverty, upheaval and pain, was the message, 'Just hang in there for a few more centuries and all your questions and longings will be sorted.'

How would you feel if in response to your ache for God to intervene in this global pandemic we're told to be patient for a few more decades?

The blessing comes there and then through his immediate presence and reassurance that He does not abandon...he is with us, right here, right now.  Blessing the ache, the absence and the longing.

Blessed are the isolated!

Finding our way through these times of of uncertainty is difficult and we can be torn and twisted in all sorts of ways BUT Jesus says for those who are feeling the tension of trying to be a citizen of heaven and yet an inhabitant of earth…I’m with you.

For so long we’ve been told God’s blessing only comes when we make the right decisions, but Jesus acknowledges  that life can be a little more complex than that He is with us in the middle of the complexity, uncertainty and confusion of navigating the way ahead.

Religion says, blessed are those who always figure out the right thing to do at the right time.

Jesus says, I’m with those who're struggle to figure out life amidst a global pandemic, who struggle to know which is the best course of action while on furlough; who lack the answers; who have this ache about the lack of shalom in their life or their world.

For some people, the world works as it is.  They get what they can and what they need by any means and it just works.  For those who are doing just fine, without God, Jesus is announcing nothing because they don’t need God.

I've struggled this week and suffered moments of panic as I've tried to navigate the uncertainty of returning to school knowing that I don't feel safe but rather vulnerable and exposed to what is a vicious virus.  The public wrangling has only increased the level of panic.  But even here I've just had to bring the ache to my heavenly dad and draw comfort from his presence.

The world isn’t straight forward, for most it doesn’t work and for these who are at an end of themselves, to those who hunger and thirst for something that is absent, something lacking…God is with you.

A blessing.

May you know that God is with you when you ache because the world isn’t what it should be.

May you discover his abiding presence when you soul cries out in desperation, ‘I can’t do this.’

May the compassionate Father lift your head when you don't have the energy to face another day in isolation.

May those who smoulder feel the warmth of his love and those who are bruised be strengthened.

May God's presence still the storm of self-doubt, anxiety and powerlessness and speak with that still small voice that you are never on your own.

My you realise that you are relentlessly and tenderly loved.