If Jesus were just a good teacher you might expect his very first words of public teaching to be about morality, sin or judgment. That is not where Jesus goes. Being God in the flesh, Jesus’ words are focused on what God is always focused on: reconciliation—between humans, ourselves, the environment and at the center of it all, with God.

The Beatitudes reveal that? When taken as a whole and seeing how one leads into the other and back again they do. Jesus is not teaching action but character infused with God’s Spirit to be like Jesus’ character that leads to receiving grace and then the action of living life single-heartedly trusting Jesus and partnering with Christ’s Spirit so that every relationship, familial, social, economic can thrive.

Jesus’ first words are words not of condemnation but blessing. They are words that bring ongoing blessing to us like the sense one gets when you know you are on the right road. No matter what turns, obstacles or weather, there is the peace and joy of anticipation that good things, very good things, are ahead. And there are.

James B Notkin