Now that we have looked at the aspect of Jesus’ first blessing in seeing our own brokenness and what that brokenness ought to bring out in us, we take a step further into looking into how we respond to that. The first two blessings that Jesus gives are good and are much needed, however, they are not complete. For example, I know of people who would gladly tell you that they are not good people, and here’s the problem: they don’t care enough to actually do something. Or you get people who see the brokenness of the world, and again, they couldn’t be bothered to actually do something or allow what goes on to affect them. With the second blessing, there are also issues if you just stop at it. Now it is good to allow the brokenness of one’s self and the world to affect you but when you just sit in that mourning and sorrow, you end up being depressed and that is not good. Again I know people who have seen things that are wrong in the world and they go past the first step of recognising the problem, but here arises the next problem – they get stuck in the mourning stage and that mourning stage turns into hopelessness and depression. This is a major problem in my own generation; we see things that are wrong, we have gotten good at seeing the wrong, and we allow that to get to us. We mourn over it, but many of us stop there. Jesus gave nine blessings for a reason; they are meant to go together.

Blessed are the meek

After Jesus speaks about needing to mourn over the brokenness, he goes into the next statement of “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”. When I read this, I kind of get a bit stuck because when I look at the word meek what I usually tend to understand is someone who is quiet, not pushing what they want to happen forward. Now I need to ask myself is this what Jesus was meaning? Does Jesus want us to be people who just see the brokenness of the world, allow it to impact us, and then just take a step back? Does Jesus want us to be people who say “Ok, someone else will come and sort that” or “I am not capable of addressing that so I will be ‘meek’ and let someone else do it”. I don’t believe that this is what Jesus was saying. This does not seem to fit in line with what Jesus preached throughout his life and what he says after this. One thing that I find useful to do at times like this is two things: look at what the word actually means and look at where else it is used in the Bible, preferably the earlier the better.The word meek can mean humble or gentle. When Jesus is saying “Blessed are the meek,” he is calling for those who follow him to be humble people. One important thing to note about humble people is that they are not the same as passive people. A passive person sees the wrong that is going on and just sits back. They allow themselves to maybe get upset about it, but that’s as far as they go. Meekness and humility are something completely different.

Moses the Meek

There was one man who was called “very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth” – that man was Moses. Moses was by no means a passive man; God used Moses to go out and bring thousands of people out of slavery, through a wilderness, and to the border of a promised land. Moses was a man that God used to address many problems; he took a whole nation out of slavery and this was something that Moses saw as being wrong. Looking early on into Moses’ life, he is angered when he sees an Israelite slave being beaten, and he kills the man who was beating the Israelite. Now we see that Moses has the first two steps: he sees the brokenness in the world and he has allowed it to affect him, but what was wrong is that Moses took the issues into his own hands and he tried to fix it. This “solution” of Moses lead him to run away from Egypt and spend years out in the wilderness. During this time, God comes to him and says “Let’s do things my way”. You may be wondering why am I talking about Moses. How does he have anything to do with a blessing that Jesus is declaring long after Moses is gone? The answer is simple: Moses had to learn the issue could not be solved in his own might; we as well need to learn that the issues we see cannot be solved in our own might.

Our Call to Meekness

We see issues before us, we see the brokenness of ourselves and the world before us, and we have been wrecked by it. We mourn over it, yet the problem arises in that we seek to use our own understanding and our own strength to fix the issue. Jesus shows that those who inherit the earth, are those who take the stance that they do not have the capability of fixing the issues they see around them. These are people who understand that they can do nothing without God since he is the only one who can truly solve the issues. It takes true humility to see the issues of the world and see that yes you need to be a part of fixing the problems, but you cannot do it by yourself; you can only do it with God. This is why I believe that Jesus places humility right here – this is something we apply to both ourselves and the world. When we see our sin, it takes a step of humility to go to God and say that you were wrong, and that you need forgiveness. When we see sin in the world, it takes humility to not become self-righteous and judge every person you see. Instead, you turn to God and ask him what his solution to all this is. Once we have taken the step of humbling ourselves before God, we can begin to walk into the next blessings which I will expand on in my next blog.