Isaiah 55:1-2 (NIV) “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.
Matthew 5:6 (NIV) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. The point is: Jesus blessed a need, not those who are righteous, but those who know their need and hunger for it. The blessing does not come to the self-satisfied achiever who is happy and content in all that they have accomplished.
Jesus confronts a prevailing heresy of our day. The heresy says that happiness depends on having. It is the belief that we will be happy when our wishes and desires have been met. Even finding our wishes and desires met, and then finding they do not make us happy does not seem to deter this persistent belief. I hear Jesus saying blessed are you when you have the right kind of hunger. Blessed are you when you recognize your inner emptiness. Blessed are you when you feel that hole in the soul that nothing has been able to satisfy. Blessed are you when you are successful and still feel your hunger. Blessed are you when you have failed and your failure has brought your real need to the surface, the kind of need God can work with. Jesus claims He can meet that need.
Perhaps the Good News for many of us today is not simply that Jesus satisfies our need, but that He makes us aware of our need to begin with. He awakens us from that slumber of soul that is slowly and most assuredly robbing us of life. The early church said that pride is the most deadly sin and sloth the most dangerous. This stupor of spirit is a necessary pre-condition for all other evils and undoings to creep into our life.
If Jesus blesses those who hunger and thirst, it must be because this is His work in our life as well, to stir up the right kind of desire in us, to awaken us from the slumber that kills, to kindle in us a hunger that He alone can and will satisfy.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope May 31, 1992
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles
No comments:
Post a Comment