Matthew 4:17
From that time on, Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!”

Mark 1:14
After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.
15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near! Repent, and believe the good news!”

“God in charge: I’d like to see that!”

The evil in the world seems overwhelming. Terrorism, war, cruelty, inequality, injustice, and corruption cause us fear and uncertainty. Bushfires, floods, earthquakes and tsunamis confront us with the uncertainty of life, and raise hard questions about God and the natural world. We are tempted to ask: “Is God in charge in the world?” (This question might boomerang! After all, “Is God in charge in my life?”)

Jesus began his preaching career with the bold announcement, “God’s kingdom is arriving!” The Jews were looking for the promised Messiah to liberate them from the Roman occupation, and bring in an era of peace and prosperity. But the Kingdom Jesus talked about was not a political or military solution to overthrowing Roman rule.

He taught about individuals living changed lives with God in charge; men and women experiencing the reign of God in their own hearts, free from fear and guilt, and the control of evil. His teaching and his own example spelled out the detail of what such lives would be like.

Geoff Francis

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Matthew 4:17
From that time on, Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!”

Mark 1:14
After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.
15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near! Repent, and believe the good news!”

“U – turn required.”

Jesus announced God’s good news! (“Gospel” means good news.) A message of acceptance, forgiveness, renewal, and reconciliation; a message of hope that even in the worst situation, God offers us something better. The chance of a new start, and the power to change.

The starting point for this good news is a U-turn! Repentance is a turning from what is wrong, and turning back to God. – “turn away from your sins.” Walk into the light!

Jesus told the story of “the prodigal son”. This son claimed his inheritance while his father was still alive. He took all the money, turned his back on his father, traveled to a place a long way from home, and spent the lot! Eventually, in desperation, he came to his senses. He said, ‘I will go back to my Father, and say to him, “Father I have sinned…” The good news is that the father never gave up on his rebellious son, and welcomed him home.  (Luke 15:11-32)

“A dead end street is a good place to turn around.” — Naomi Judd.

Geoff Francis

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Matthew 5:1
Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside, and sat down. His disciples came to him,
2 and he began to teach them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.”

“Upside-down value system!”

Jesus began his “sermon on the mount” with The Beatitudes; Jesus’ own statement of the values that lead to true happiness. This list of attributes is bold, confronting, and at first glance absurd, by our value system. But perhaps that’s just the point. It is a radically different value system that Jesus is promoting.
The greatest rewards in our system seem to go to those who possess lots of things, who know how to celebrate, who get ahead of everyone else. Our system promotes competition, and rewards those who win.

Jesus’ statement suggests that true and lasting happiness begins with poverty of Spirit.
“Poverty of spirit is my awareness that I need God’s help and mercy more than I need anything else.” (Jim Forest, “The Ladder of the Beatitudes”, Orbis Books 1999)

Jesus described two men praying in the temple. The religious man stood tall and proud. He explained to God what a good person he was compared to other men. The other man knew he was a sinner. He humbled himself and asked God for mercy. Jesus said the humble sinner was the one who found forgiveness.  (Luke 18:9-14)

The “Jesus Prayer” brings us into His kingdom;- ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

Geoff Francis

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Matthew 5:4
“Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.”
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.”

How can they be comforted?

The values of the Kingdom of God are upside down compared to the values of the world. The poor are really rich, the sorrowful really happy, the meek will inherit the earth.

That is the strange message of the itinerant preacher from Galilee named Jesus, the most unusual of the travelling Jewish prophets of his time.

He gives an assurance, for example, to those who mourn that ‘they will be comforted’. What are people mourning about? The obvious thing is they have lost an elderly mother, or a sister through breast cancer, or a lifelong friend in a car accident.

But the preacher hints at something deeper. There are those who mourn over the state of the world – government inducing a state of terror into their citizens, people locking their children away for fear of a predator waiting for them, body-frisking at airports and even going into public buildings, a sense of danger everywhere. Freedom of movement is gone – that’s something to mourn over.

The state of the world – violence seems to be endemic – or is that the world’s fastest communications era brings it right into our homes by television, when previously we heard about it long afterwards, or never heard at all? We mourn over lost peace.

Some people, working with refugees, mourn for their lost opportunities. Children growing up in the confines of a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border; orphans from the genocide in Rwanda with no mother or father; children forced into war in Uganda or forced into making carpets in Nepal. Lost opportunities.

How, I ask the preacher, can these people be comforted?

First, by the divine promise that in God’s final kingdom all these evils will be reversed, and peace and goodwill will reign. Second, with that thought in mind we work even harder ourselves to bring a little peace and goodwill into our part of the world. ‘Bringing in the kingdom’ is not something we wait for; it’s something we work for.

For when the preacher Jesus left the earth, he said to his followers he would not leave them ‘comfortless’ but give them his spirit. With that spirit within, what comfort can we not bring to others who mourn? So, the circle is complete: it begins and ends with us.

Alan Nichols

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Matthew 5:7
“Blessed are the merciful,
for they will receive mercy.”
8″Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.”

“Will you rescue me? Can I trust you?”
Mercy and purity are not qualities that people especially value – until they are in trouble or are in terrible suffering. When life is painful, what more could we want than a friend whose heart is filled with merciful compassion and whose motives are pure? Merciful compassion and purity are the qualities of God. In God’s great mercy, he stretches out his hand to us in our pain, sin and suffering. Through the Lord Jesus, he offers us rescue and restoration. As we experience God’s merciful compassion and understand his purity, we are called to be like him – to be merciful and pure as he is. Life that is lived like this is life in all its fullness. Knowing and following the Lord Jesus is to live life the best possible way, to be truly satisfied, to be richly blessed. And Jesus tells us that if we live like this, merciful and pure, not only are we living the blessed life, but we will change the world – being its salt and light!

Heavenly Father, make us the people you want us to be, merciful and pure, that know your blessing and be salt and light in our world. In Jesus’ name. Amen

David Williams

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Matthew 5:9
“Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
10″Blessed are those who are persecuted
because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

“Blessed are the Peace Makers”

These words often remind me of an overnight tent protest I got involved with at the height of the Cold War in 1983. A few local friends, from our Mornington People for Nuclear Disarmament, had gathered to non-violently resist the small but definite Australian support for the American Star Wars Supersonic Ray-gun technology, being partly developed at the Maribyrnong Weapons Facility near number 57 tram stop in West Melbourne. After a freezing night around an oil-drum fire drinking soup from passers-by, we woke at 5am to greet the munitions workers with a smile and a brochure. There were two banners near our tents on the cyclone fence; one a gorgeous rainbow banner declaring “Blessed are the Peacemakers”, – the other was a large banner stating Albert Einstein’s reaction to the Hiroshima bombing, and his part in providing the theory; “If I’d known, I’d have been a locksmith!”

I still enjoy walking the streets for world peace today.

David Price

“Whistle blowers”

The whistle blower of our day is one of the people Jesus commends in the last of the eight beatitudes. The person who exposes dishonest practices from within any organization will encounter the opposition of those whose power and corrupt advantage is being challenged. The whistle-blower must expect to meet not praise and credit, but isolation, intimidation, abuse, ridicule, slander, blackmail, official sanction, and even violence and death. Jesus encourages those whose stand against injustice leads to persecution. They will be vindicated. They will have a place in God’s kingdom.

Geoff Francis

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Matthew 5:11
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Suffering for Me?

Jesus warns his followers that they will be persecuted because they are not of the world, but have been chosen out of the world, and therefore the world hates them just as it has hated Christ (John 15:18-21). This is precisely why Jesus exhorts his would-be followers to first count the cost. For anyone who is unprepared or unwilling to bear a cross and follow Christ (whose path to glory went via Calvary) simply cannot be his disciple (Luke 14:25-33).

But just because persecution is inevitable doesn’t mean it is acceptable. Persecution is wicked. It involves harassment, oppression, cruelty, betrayal, dictatorship, violence, injustice — all that is contrary to God’s law of love (Matt 22:36-40). Through persecution, Christ’s enemies make costly that which Christ offers freely (Isaiah 55:1-2; Matt 10:7-8; Romans 3:24). This is a vile sin of profound spiritual rebellion for which persecutors will give an account.

The question remains though: how can victims of persecution be “blessed”? Well firstly, those who are persecuted for Christ’s sake are NOT victims. Avoiding persecution is the easiest thing in the world — just deny Christ! Nothing sorts out true disciples from false like persecution. Through persecution the church is sifted (Isaiah 30:28), refined (Isaiah 48:10), winnowed (Matt 3:12). Those who consent to suffer persecution rather than avoid it are those who, in love and trust, choose faithfulness over temporal self-preservation — thus proving their faith.

Those who are persecuted for Christ’s sake are blessed on account of their spiritual reality: that regardless of circumstances we have a king who loves us with an everlasting love (Romans 8:31-39); a king who hears our prayers (Psalm 116:1-2); who never leaves us (Matt 28:20b), who can be trusted (Psalm 117:1-2), and who has already brought us into a kingdom that cannot be shaken (Isaiah 26:1-3) — unlike the world which is, even now, passing away under judgement (Hebrews 12:27-29).

Blessed indeed! (Rev 21:1-4)

Elizabeth Kendal

See also “Do Christians in the West suffer persecution?” (Persecution – whatever that is.)

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Matthew 5:13
“You are the salt of the world. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
14 You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.
15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

Light of the World

If we take the words of Jesus literally or metaphorically, this directive is still black and white, crystal clear.
He means that his followers are to be obvious, as obvious as an Essendon jersey in a Collingwood club house! But more than that. They are the light of the world that has no other light. None at all! They are the hope of the world, which is in darkness or at best has fake or fading lights. Impossible or a call to lift their game? Jesus didn’t play tricks. He said both he and his followers are the light of the world.Maybe we can accept him as the light in the darkness; – given how he stacks up with his life and resurrection.

But his followers? Ask any young adult suffering depression at the hands of an abusing priest or Sunday School teacher how enlightening Jesus followers are! So what did he have in mind? Just what he said. It is not impossible to be the world’s light if a person follows him. It’s just that he was prepared to let his perfection be distorted while he risked his plan actually working through his less than perfect followers. And over and over we see that where good souls have followed him with honesty, faith and perseverance they have lighted the darkness.

Peter Breen

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Matthew 5:17
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
19 Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

God’s rules don’t change!

At first sight, this is a puzzling thing for Jesus to say. Didn’t he come to introduce a new way of being friends with God- a way that has to do with faith, and not with obeying rules? Yes, he did. But the rules were never meaningless. They were based on the character and purposes of God, which do not change.

Jesus fulfils “the Law and the Prophets” (the Old Testament, or Jewish Bible) by giving full meaning to them. Some of the rules had to do with animal sacrifices for sin- Jesus fulfilled those by his own sacrificial death on the cross, which meant  all further sacrifices are unnecessary. Rules about which foods could be eaten had to do with Israel being distinct from other nations, but it was always God’s plan to bring those nations back into His people.  Jesus achieves that, too, so those rules are no longer necessary.

But there were other rules about how we live which are based on God’s character, which is faithful, just and loving. God wants us to be like this, too. And we do best as individuals and as a community when we live like this. That has not changed.

Denise Cooper-Clarke

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Matthew 5:21
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder,’ and ‘Anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’
22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
23 “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you,
24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.

SHOCK NEW ANGER STANDARD:

- THE RECONCILIATION  REQUIREMENT!

Breaking News; “Speaking today from the mount near his home, Jesus Christ announced a shock new and higher replacement to the penalty for homicide. From today, mere anger felt about a brother or a sister or a neighbor, in the absence of a personal approach to discuss the cause of the anger, will earn his followers Christ’s condemnation. Such hate and anger will place a requirement on his followers that, attending a place of worship and remembering a dispute that might otherwise fester and destroy brotherly love, they should go and speak with their brother frankly and, clearing the air, be reconciled to him.

In a further surprising pronouncement, words of abuse to a brother like “raca!” (the Aramaic word, meaning “worthless”) and “fool”, which give evidence of hate and anger, earn special penalty.

(It is not immediately clear to your correspondent why the apparently lesser penalty of being “in danger of the council” should apply to one term of abuse, while hell-fire may be exacted for the second. It is however quite clear that this new standard is in line with the requirements for Christ’s kingdom which turns on its head the  old law’s tolerance of retaliation, famously expressed as “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”.)

Christ’s law is therefore a deeper and more inward requirement than the previous standard.”

Neil Bell

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