THE GREAT REVOLUTIONARY

No, I’m not referring to Marx or Lenin or their ilk.
Referring to next Sunday’s Gospel: was it important, rather was it not natural for Jesus to sit down. Why has Matthew stressed this fact? Is it not natural for a person before speaking to open his mouth? Jesus actually went on top of a hill, why has Matthew written down ‘mountain’? One other curious point; if Jesus was teaching the crowd, it’s useless to say ‘said’.

Very true, but Matthew had very good reasons to write the way he wrote. Jesus was launching His Mission, his programme. He wanted to present His ‘manifesto’ so that His hearers would know what to expect from this Rabbi, still, as yet, unknown.

Here we have this Rabbi, called Jesus, a Law-giver, and Matthew wanted the Jewish converts to whom he was writing, to remember what was written in the Holy Books about another Law-giver: Moses. So as Moses went on a mountain, Sinai, to receive, proclaim, the announce the laws which were to guide the chosen people, NOW, the new law-giver, Jesus, is the new Moses.

For this reason Matthew wanted to create a solemn atmosphere, similar, up to an extent, to that of Moses when he received the Law, though without thunder and lightning.

Jesus did sit down, as was the custom when the Rabbis wanted to proclaim something very important, it was the normal posture. The chapter previous to this tells us what the crowd was composed of: the sick, the widows, the orphans, those who felt offended and misjudged, the hungry, those who craved for justice, the emarginated  etc. So we expect that there were tears in Christ’s eyes. HE was a great  techer and a great psychologists.

Seeing the crowd all hungry for justice, compassion, love and understanding, His first word was “Blessed” , which in the original text is “Rejoice”. This word was repeated over and over again for eight times. Imagine attending a political meeting, a seminar, a lecture and the person starts his talk by saying always: Rejoice, Rejoice, Rejoice, Rejoice ... ad nauseam for eight times.

But Jesus knew what he was doing and saying. He had in front of Him a crowd who did not know what what the word ‘Rejoice’ or ‘Blessed’ meant. According to their culture, only the wealthy, the rich, the priests, the leaders and the rest could ‘rejoice’ could be considered ‘blessed’. Christ’s words were like a warm ray of sun coming up the horizon after years of black, stormy skies.

He made it clear that rejoicing does not depend on material wealth, on the social position, on how important a person is in society, on being healthy. What a revolution by a great revolutionary. No wonder in the Red Square, Moscow, they do have a statue of Jesus as the Great Revolutionary. Rejoicing comes from the inside, from the state of grace and from the total dependence on Jesus ...certainly not from the amount of Stocks and Shares, not from wealth, not from property owning and in being socially important.

This is the manifesto of the Great Revolutionary, Jesus Christ.