The Happy List Nobody Expected

After Levi's dinner, the news about Jesus ran ahead of him from town to town. Here was a teacher who ate with tax collectors and made sick people well with a touch. Soon crowds were coming from everywhere: from the fishing villages around the Sea of Galilee, from the Ten Towns across the water, even from Jerusalem, several days' walk away. They brought everyone who was sick or in pain, and Jesus healed them.

When Jesus saw how many had come, he climbed partway up a hill and sat down. His disciples gathered close around him, and Levi was one of them now. (Nobody had brought chairs, so the crowd sat wherever the hill offered a flat rock or a soft patch of grass.)

Then Jesus began. Over and over he used one old word: blessed. It means happy all the way down, the kind of happy that comes from having God on your side.

"Blessed are the ones who know they need God," he said. "The kingdom of heaven belongs to them."

"Blessed are the ones who are sad and crying. God will comfort them."

Near the back, a woman with red eyes stopped wiping them and looked up.

"Blessed are the gentle. The whole earth will be theirs."

"Blessed are the ones who are hungry and thirsty for things to be made right. They will be filled up."

(Some of them had walked so far that they were hungry for lunch too.)

"Blessed are the ones who show mercy. They will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, the ones with nothing hidden inside. They will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers. They will be called God's children."

"Blessed are the ones who are hurt for doing what is right. The kingdom of heaven belongs to them."

Then Jesus looked straight at his friends. "Blessed are you when people insult you and lie about you and treat you cruelly because you belong to me. Be happy! Be glad! A great reward is waiting for you in heaven. That is how they treated the prophets who came before you."

The people on the hill looked at each other. Everybody knew who the happy ones were supposed to be: the rich, the strong, the Roman soldiers, and Caesar, whose face was stamped on the Roman silver coins. (Levi had counted more of those coins than anyone else on that hill.) Jesus had just blessed everyone else.

But anyone can make a list. These people had heard big promises before, from kings who never kept them.

God's people had been waiting a long time for a king who would keep his word. Kings had come and gone, and the poor were still poor, and the crying were still crying.

Now some of the people listening had been sick until this teacher touched them. He did not say "maybe." He said "they will," like a king giving away what is his to give. And his list described him first. No one would ever be gentler or more merciful than Jesus. And one day, for doing nothing but right, he would be nailed to a cross.

The crowd had climbed that hill hoping for a kingdom someday. Its King was already sitting in the grass in front of them, handing it out.