Blessed are the broken. That’s the beatitudes in a nutshell but, of course, none of the blessings stop there. Blessed are the broken because things are going to change. Because God sees and will act. These broken crowds are the ones that God is going to fill and comfort and welcome and name.
The beatitudes are the first words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew so I suppose you could read them as a mission statement of sorts. First words are important. These serve as a declaration that Jesus has come to the broken – for the broken – so that God can act directly in their lives. Goodness and change abounds in this passage.
Hallelujah.
Because we’re all broken. There are moments for all of us – likely every day to one extent or another – when we need to hear these declarations. Blessed are the broken. Blessed are the worn out. Blessed are the run-down. Blessed are the sick and worried and sad and regretful.
You could argue that, in this passage from Matthew, Jesus was talking to the really worn-out, left-out, wrung-out blessed in this passage. The truly oppressed and the suffering. He has seen the crowds come out from the towns and villages seeking healing and consolation. You could argue that the first listeners to these blessings were those with no privilege at all in a time of occupation and empire. Those who have to push uphill all day everyday. Ill and outcast, crippled by social norms that weaken the already weak and oppress those who are only just scraping by. The really broken. Most of us are so far from that kind of brokenness that we would seem like fairytale fantasies to those first listeners with our clean lives and full kitchens. With our safe countries, stable homes and healthy children. But we’re all making this up as we go along. Maybe we have lots of clean water, but we’re just as thirsty. Just as finite and vulnerable and, like everyone else, we’re still just beginning to learn how to get by on the grace of God. I trust that the Spirit gave these words of blessing in the Gospel of Matthew not just to those first crowded listeners on a hillside long ago, but to all times and places where the Bible has been read. In our own struggles and weariness, these are words of blessing for us.
I think it is in Marilyn Robinson’s book Gilead that the act of blessing is spoken of as honouring the precious things that have been placed in our hands. (My copy seems to have wandered, but if you have the reference, I’d love to include it properly.) My own hands can feel overly full of precious things. My daughter. My sons. All their pushing strengths and eggshell instabilities. All their late-night questions and early morning energy. My own mothering love which surprises me past my own tiredness as I find myself walking down the hallway yet again to climb into bed with these little people who need me there.
It is in the surprises that I find blessing. The moments when I can see what is blessedly in front on my eyes all day. The creases on my child’s palm. The work-in-progress of love among siblings. The sudden growth from one size to the next, from one moment to the next year. I look up from whatever it is my hands have been doing and suddenly see. And there it is – blessing. But maybe it isn’t. Maybe what I have in that moment is a glimpse of our blessed reality. Maybe blessing is honouring this glimpse. That’s a truth we find in these blessings of Jesus, too. Blessings are spoken.
May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. May the hands of Jesus hold all our weariness, all our worn-out precious brokenness. May we hear his blessing in our lives and know that God is present to work all things to the good. May we speak God’s blessing whenever and wherever we catch a glimpse. Blessed are those who bless. In the midst of brokenness, we are called to see and to speak. Because when we speak, other may hear and know that God is active and present in the world. And when we speak, we might also hear and be surprised by blessing.
