Before we've looked at the Beatitudes and Jesus' message of the God who blesses. The Beatitudes are also Jesus' message of the God who sees our need. The beatitudes show God's focus on the downtrodden and burdened, on those who mourn, on those who hunger and thirst for righteousness -- on those distressed by the injustice of the world, on the persecuted. Luke's edition shows God's focus on the poor and hungry. Jesus does not begin his preaching with a message of God's commands. He does not begin with a message of our guilt or our need for reform. He begins with a message that God knows our sorrows, that he sees our affliction. He proclaims God's concern and God's love. More than that, he proclaims God's promise of restoration.
The basis underlying so much of Jesus' teaching is the coming kingdom of heaven. One parable after another seeks to capture the image for us, to explain some aspect of what the kingdom of heaven is like. But here in Matthew's gospel, Jesus is shown beginning his teaching ministry by explaining the kingdom of heaven in plainer words. He proclaims a new creation, and a world filled with the blessings of God, where injustice and hunger and mourning are a thing of the past. For here and now, we have Jesus' word that God knows what it is we endure.
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"He does not begin with a message of our guilt or our need for reform. He begins with a message that God knows our sorrows, that he sees our affliction."
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