The Golden Ass

When Jesus[a] saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
- Matthew 5: 1-11

Jacob Blessing His Sons, by François Maitre.

Back in mid-September, I went to NYC for a prayer school with Brian Zahnd. Soon thereafter, a bunch of cool stuff started happening. One of the first was that I was given to see Jesus as a patriarchal figure in the history and tradition of the Jewish people in a way that I had not seen or noticed before. This association would have likely been easily made by Jesus' original audience, but not for me. In prayer, I was given to see that....

With the Beatitudes, Jesus is naming and characterizing his people and blessing them, like a patriarch his children - like Abraham blessing Isaac, Isaac blessing Jacob (and Esau), and Jacob blessing his 12 sons.

For some reason, though, the blessings don't sound quite the same:

"Destitute...abject in spirit....those who mourn...gentle...hunger and thirst for what is right...merciful....pure in heart...peacemakers...persecuted and falsely accused of every evil..."

Well, isn't that quite the blessing? Haha. I doubt they expected that! Compare that to Isaac's blessing of Jacob:

“Ah, the smell of my son
is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed.
28 May God give you of the dew of heaven,
and of the fatness of the earth,
and plenty of grain and wine.
29 Let peoples serve you,
and nations bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you,
and blessed be everyone who blesses you!”

It sounds like the exact opposite, in fact. So what moves me to imagine Jesus giving the same blessing to his heirs?

All three of those patriarchal blessings were just before the fathers died. "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father..." So, this blessing of Jesus was also prophetic. Not (only) in the sense of "predicting" the future, but in the sense of revealing and making apparent the work, presence, and heart of God.

That revealing is why his people - his children - are given the names and blessings they are given, which are all summed up in his own person. "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies..."

Jesus reveals that being an heir of Israel, who was tasked with making known the way of life, is also to inherit the cross. The curses of Deuteronomy are reconciled with the blessings. "All things." Death, oppression, slavery, and economic hardship are absorbed into the flesh of both Jesus and his people, his children who also share in the glory of life, abundance, authority, and freedom of the resurrection. This is the story being told with the Beatitudes. The story of Jesus is the story of Israel.