The Sermon on the Mount--good news for today

In his book The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard spends time discussing the Sermon on the Mount given by Jesus. He sees this as a concise statement of Jesus's teachings on how to actually live in the reality of God's kingdom, which is available to all Christians right here and now. He had a new take on the sermon which made me rethink how I had to interpreted it.

For example, there are the famous words of Jesus: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." I had always thought and heard that this was a reference to people who realize their spiritual needs. They would be blessed because they would be driven to the arms of Jesus due to their spiritual poverty.

However, the author points out something interesting. Jesus did not say, "Blessed are the poor in spirit because they are poor in spirit." According to Willard, Jesus was not saying it was a good thing to be destitute of every spiritual attainment.

Instead, he says people who are poor in spirit are called blessed for another reason. It's not because they are in a meritorious condition, but because the rule of God has moved upon and through them by the grace of Christ. We who are spiritually impoverished are blessed because of the gracious touch of God in heaven which has fallen upon us. So we all can benefit from the reality of God in our lives, even the poorest among us.

This goes back to the bigger picture that Willard has developed in the book. His overall point is that our lives should be better right now as Christians rather than struggling along just waiting for a blessed afterlife. Willard says God can make a huge difference in the life we have here on earth. So, the Sermon on the Mount tells all of us that we are blessed right now because of God's intervention in our lives.

In summary, he says the Sermon on the Mount does not involve teachings on how to be blessed. No one is actually being told that they are better off for being poor, for mourning, for being persecuted, and so on. Nor are people told the negative conditions are recommended ways to well-being before God or man. They are, in Willard's words, "explanations and illustrations, drawn from the immediate setting, of the present availability of the kingdom through personal relationship to Jesus. "

So the author focuses on something hugely important to all Christians. We can live a life far more abundant than we have now. I know in my life it's easy to get caught up in all the things I have to do, with the result that my Christianity seems dry and distant. Sure, it's good to know I have a future with God based on Christ's ultimate sacrifice for me two thousand years ago. But Willard wants me to realize I can have so much more now than I can imagine. I've heard this before, of course, but Willard drives it home so that it becomes fresh and real. I hope that in this Christmas season, where we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we think about the coming of the kingdom to our own lives right now in December 2010.