The Gospel of the Feast of All Saints leads us to a mountain where Jesus, beginning his sermon, delivers eight beatitudes. This text is certainly one of the most famous parts of his teaching. Here Jesus lists eight groups, whose members are called blessed, happy - these are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for justice, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who suffer for justice's sake. Additionally, in the ninth and most extensive beatitude, Jesus addresses his disciples directly, calling them blessed when they are reviled, persecuted, and all kinds of evil are falsely said against them because of him. The disciples are to rejoice and be glad, because their reward in heaven is great.
Blessings, also called macarisms (from the Greek Μακάριοι), are not the idea of the Evangelist Matthew, but appear already in the Old Testament. The expression אַשְׁרֵ֣י (blessed), followed by the indication of the addressee, appears many times in its pages. Let us quote here, for example, Ps 33:12, where we read: "Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord". David Stern, in his commentary on the text under discussion today, quotes the words of his Messianic Jew friend, who stated that the blessings are de facto formulations from the Tanakh – the Hebrew Bible – presented as blessings referring to the Messianic era.
It is impossible to discuss all the blessings in this short commentary, so let us focus on one – blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the land. This promise is deeply rooted in the Old Testament. When Jesus uttered this blessing, he quotes verse 11 of Psalm 37. This theme returns in the psalm once again – in verse 22, where we read that those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land. From the context of the psalm, it follows that this refers to the land of Israel. In fact, this thread appeared in the Gospel of Matthew in the second chapter, when the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to take the child and his mother and return to the land of Israel – this expression appears there twice (vv. 20-21). In turn, the verb "inherit" in the Hebrew Bible refers to the Jewish nation’s inheritance from God which does not include the whole world, but those areas that we call the Promised Land. In the Old Testament texts, God swears to give it to Israel 47 times. Moreover, from the content of Psalm 37 we can conclude that these meek are the opposite of the wicked, they are those who trust the Lord and are humble before him, and do not get indignant because of the prosperity of others. They are characterized by patience and trust in God.
As Christians, we read the promise of inheriting the land in a spiritual sense, seeing in it participation in the kingdom of God, which is already present to some extent, but will only be fully revealed in the future. In the baptism scene, when entering the Jordan, Jesus takes the last step that Moses lacked to enter the Promised Land. The Mosaic Law can lead to it, but not into it; it is Christ. Christ is given to us now in the experience of faith, and we will experience him face to face in the life to come.
About the Author:
Rev. Dr. Piotr Herok, a priest of the Diocese of Opole, is a graduate of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome (Ph.D. in Biblical Sciences) and Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw (M.A. lic. in Canon Law). He works as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Theology in Opole and as a judge in the Opole Diocese Court.