Blessed...

²⁰Looking at his disciples, he said:
"Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
²¹Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
²²Blessed are you when men hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.

²³"Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.
²⁴"But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
²⁵Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
²⁶Woe to you when all men speak well of you,
for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.

Luke 6:20-26

Blessed... what does Jesus mean when he says that the poor, hungry, weeping, and hated are blessed? Obviously, these people are not being financially blessed. They are not receiving plenty, nor do they have the favor of men and God.

What Jesus is trying to say is that these people shall be blessed. They shall receive. They shall laugh. Those who are poor, hungry, and weeping now are often tied up in their current circumstances. They will be fed, they will laugh again, because life moves on. Your current circumstances might be horrid, you might be in the valley right now, but you will get through it and move out to the peaks again.

Jesus says that people who are hated for his name's sake are blessed. This beattitude intrigues me. It is the only one of the four that doesn't also carry a future blessing. The poor will possess the kingdom of God, the hungry shall be satisfied, and those who weep shall laugh... but those who are hated for the sake of the Son of Man are simply blessed. I think that this blessing is less immediate, when compared to the others. Hunger, weeping, and poverty are things that you deal with now. They are the stuff of day to day life. Being hated for Christ's sake is less so.

Sure, you might have to deal with someone who hates you for being a Christian every day, but it is not a constant worry. I think that people who are hated for Christ's sake, people hated for their faith, learn to treasure their faith and let it grow and strengthen. Christ promised his followers trials and tribulations that would make them stronger. Being hated as a Christian is one such trial.

The second half of the verse I quoted lists four woes that men can experience. Woe to the rich, the well fed, those who laugh now, and those who are well spoken of by their peers here in the world.

You might think that Christ is listing woes off that contradict the blessings he just pronounced in the first half, but he is not.

Christ is saying that people who are rich now will lose that wealth at some point, either in this life or when they go to meet their Heavenly Father. Christ addresses wealth many times. He frequently told men to sell all they owned, give it to the poor, and follow him. He told his followers that it is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.

A quick aside here... Christ did not mean a literal eye of a needle and a camel. At that time, there were two gates on most cities in the region, one that was open during the day, but closed at night, and one that was much smaller but could be opened at any time as needed. This smaller door was about the size of a regular house door, and if a merchant arrived into town late, he had to make his camels kneel and crawl through the doorway, often times having to entirely unload the camel to make it fit through the door. Common slang for that smaller door was "the eye of the needle." Christ was saying that a rich man must get on his knees and crawl to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, maybe even shedding all of his wealth before he can make it into the Kingdom.

Plainly, the wealthy have had their comfort now, and will lose it at some point in the future, and that is why Christ proclaimed woe unto them. I feel that this ties in with the second woe, about those who are well fed now going hungry later. Basically, those who have now will lose it in the future, so woe unto them.

Woe unto those who laugh now, for they shall weep. As I mentioned above, Christ promised trials and tribulations for his followers. People who laugh now, people who are happy and celebrating, will not be doing so when those trials hit. They will hit hard times, and they will weep. It is inevitable that hard times will come along for each of us, and we shall all hit that moment when only weeping fits the situation.

The last woe reflects the last beattitude. Woe unto those who are spoken well of, because that is how your fathers treated the false prophets of the past. Paul speaks about false prophets later in the New Testament, praying that the churches he planted could resist their teachings. There were many false prophets in the Old Testament who tried to lead the Israelites away from God and the path he laid out with the true Prophets.

What is the problem with false prophets? Simply put, they tell people what they want to hear and that makes them very hard to say "no" to, so many people choose to follow them. Many false prophets gather followings of wealthy people and poor, who all do their best to spread the feel good message of their prophet.

Christ was telling his audience that if the people were speaking only praises of them as Christian missionaries, then they were not doing their job properly, they were instead giving a false message, becoming false prophets. The message of Christ is a hard one for many people who haven't heard it before. Christ tells people things they do not want to hear, and tells them that they have to give up their current life to follow after him.

People do not want to hear messages like that.