Beattitudes- Introduction by David Kalas

Upside Down Boat

The Oscar-winning 1972 disaster movie, The Poseidon Adventure, told the story of a capsized cruise ship. The SS Poseidon was sailing in the Mediterranean when a sub-sea earthquake caused a great "wall of water" to dwarf and devastate the ship. The carefree passengers were happily celebrating midnight on New Year's Eve at the time, and the majority were immediately killed by the catastrophe. Once the initial chaos of being capsized was over, however, the few who had survived were left with the dilemma of how best to position themselves to be rescued.

One group insisted that staying put was the best course of action. Virtually every passenger had been in the Grand Ballroom at the time, and some thought it best to stay in that same location until help arrived.

Another group, however, reasoned differently. They reckoned that, if the ship was upside down, the best course of action was to work their way to the bottom of the ship -- which was now on top. Any rescue attempt from outside, they figured, would have to come through the bottom of the boat. The rest of the movie (spoiler alert!) tracks this handful of purposeful passengers as they make their way through the bowels of the ship, enduring many obstacles, until they reach the bottom near the propeller shaft. And, in the end, we discover that they are the only passengers to be saved.


Upside Down World

The irony of The Poseidon Adventure is the counter-intuitive nature of salvation.

Customarily, passengers traveling on a cruise ship aspire to the top of the ship. The higher the deck, the more expensive and plush the passage. Conversely, the lower the deck, the less desirable the accommodations. And, of course, no passenger chooses to book passage in the dark, dank, and deep propeller shaft room.

Yet that most undesirable place proves to be the way of salvation for the Poseidon passengers. But only because the ship was upside down.

As we read the New Testament, we discover a similar sort of paradigm at work.

The world has its own standards of desirability. Those standards are so much a part of our thinking that they go unquestioned by us. Naturally, we prefer comfort over pain, abundance over want, happiness over sadness, adulation over persecution, and such. We are wired to seek our own pleasure. And as the world relaxes our standards of morality, our pursuit of pleasure meets with fewer and fewer inhibitions. Consequently, concerns for purity, integrity, discipline, and self-sacrifice are set aside in favor of what the world considers the 'upper decks' of the experiences this world has to offer.

But the New Testament understands that this world has been capsized by sin. It is completely upside down. Most of the passengers don't recognize it, however. After all, it's always been this way, hasn't it? At least it has been like this our whole lives, and so how could we know or imagine anything different?

God so loved this world, however, that He sent His Son to it. And that Son of God taught His followers to cut across the world's grain. And so, while the rest of the world lives in hot pursuit of what it considers to be the 'top,' Christ's followers are invited to live toward the 'bottom.'


Living Toward the Bottom

When Jesus teaches that the first shall be last and the last shall be first (Matthew 19:30), or that the one who would be greatest must become the servant of all (Matthew 23:11; Mark 9:35), or that whoever wants to save his life must lose it (Luke 9:24), He is teaching an upside-down paradigm. He is pointing all who would be saved to head toward the bottom of this world's boat. It seems contrary to every instinct, yet the people who follow Him find their rescue, and their freedom there!

One of the classic illustrations of this counter-intuitive paradigm is the set of teachings we know as The Beatitudes. They appear at the beginning of the longer and well-known passage of teaching that we call The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).

The term "beatitude" itself does not appear as such in the text. Dictionary.com defines the word as "supreme blessedness; exalted happiness," and so the term is applied to this collection of teachings because they contain Jesus' keys to happiness. Indeed, each line in the teaching begins with the Greek word "makarios," which means "blessed" or "happy."

Yet see the sort of people that Jesus identifies as "happy." The poor in spirit. Those who mourn. The meek. The pure. Those who are persecuted. Those who are reviled and slandered by others.

Is He crazy? If that's the key to happiness, we think, then perhaps we don't want any part of it!

But, no, Jesus is not crazy. He is simply encouraging us to find the bottom of the boat, for in that unlikely and seemingly undesirable place are the people who will be comforted, will inherit the earth, will receive a great reward, and will see God!



Questions to Consider


1) Consider the following conditions, and identify which ones best describe you:
poor in spirit
mourning
meek
hungering and thirsting for righteousness
merciful
pure in heart
peacemaker
persecuted for righteousness' sake
reviled, persecuted, and slandered on account of Jesus


2) Consider the following promises, and identify which one seems most desirable to you:
receiving the kingdom of heaven
being comforted
inheriting the earth
being filled
receiving mercy
seeing God
being called children of God
receiving a great reward in heaven

3) In what ways have you aspired to the 'top' of the world's boat?


4) In what ways have you chosen the 'bottom'?