Beginning with Blessing – Today is Epiphany Sunday, the day we traditionally celebrate the story of the birth of the messiah being revealed to the magi. But, as we’ve begun our trip through the New Testament, our scripture for today is from Matthew and is the first part of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus delivered to the crowds. This first part is the very familiar “Beatitudes,” such as “Blessed are the meek, . . .” and Carol explains that some English translations have “happy” instead of “blessed,” because the Greek of the text is a translation from the original Aramaic or Hebrew Jesus would have spoken. Our context is that in the past few days we have all used the expression, “Happy New Year!” and Carol asks us to consider what happiness means to us: comfort, prosperity, health, etc. But in these Beatitudes, Jesus challenges that idea by giving happiness/blessedness to the poor, meek, lowly, and in this sense the perspective of God is revealed. Jesus not only gives that comfort and possibility, he recruits those who listen and believe to support such happiness.

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