NOTES for Mat 4:25

The Beatitudes form an utterly unique text, one of the most important in the whole New Testament. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke present these words of Christ differently, which allows us to suppose that the Lord spoke about this more than once and that the ancient Church preserved several accounts of these words that do not entirely coincide. This means that we are dealing with something truly important. Commentators on the Gospel usually say that the Beatitudes describe a path of spiritual growth given to every person, or indicate where we find Christ. Yet before all this, it is important for us to hear what Christ is speaking about. What is blessedness? The word carries at once the meanings of happiness, abundance, and fullness. Thus, from the very beginning of His ministry, Christ tells people what happiness is: the highest, overflowing happiness, happiness given in good measure, pressed down and running over.

Instinctively, because of some inherited stereotype, we expect something else from God: conviction of sins and cleansing from them, deliverance from pain, sorrow, and death, and moral guidance. Yet the Lord speaks first of all about superabundant happiness, which even makes us somewhat uncomfortable. We are embarrassed to think that we need this, lest we appear somehow too primitive. It is therefore important for us to understand that Christ calls us to the fullness of life, to the fullness of happiness. The path He points out to us is the way of the Cross. To live a full life, Christ says, we must accept as a gift the suffering that is inevitable in a fallen and distorted world. The happiness He offers us is not a miraculous and terrifying elixir of oblivion. On the contrary, it is the victory accomplished in His Crucifixion and Resurrection. Yet all the fuller and more real is that fullness of life to which we are called.