Baseball season has started, and I like baseball, which means I should be happy. But I’m not. Why? Because beginning now in the spring, through summer, and into early fall, my devotion to my favorite team unfortunately makes me vulnerable to wide and, some would say, silly mood swings based on something completely out of my control.
When my team is winning, I’m exultant, satisfied not only with the current situation but my outlook on things grows more positive, my self-esteem oddly buoyed. But then, of course, when my team is losing, it’s just the opposite. I’m irritable. Out of joint. I’m irrationally dispirited and feel bad about myself. And what’s worse, the effect is all too durable. The next morning, I’ll awake in good spirits if a “W” was recorded or glum if our opponent hung an “L” on us the night before. This, I acknowledge, is not healthy. My wife is quick to point this out. It’s what happens when you’re too into sports, she says. And she’s right. Relying on things like this for our sense of well-being is ill-advised. You can’t rely on happiness to remain happy. I’m sorry to report, it’s not what it’s cracked up to be. There’s got to be something more. Something less fleeting. Something less ephemeral. Something else.
Joy? Yes, joy. But a certain kind of joy.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
As the Sermon on the Mount begins to unfold with the above words in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus repeatedly uses the word blessed. And though exclamation points don’t appear in most translations, according to how the word is used, it would be more accurate to place one after the word blessed! each time Jesus uses it. Further, the word blessed doesn’t really convey what Jesus actually said anyway. According to Scottish theologian, William Barclay, the word Jesus actually uses here is a derivation of the Greek word, makarios, which translates as joy—a very specific kind of joy, one infused with notions of self-containment. Of completeness. Of serenity. Of untouchability. A brand of joy that exists independent of the whims, the winds, the weather, and the roller coaster nature of life.
Barclay writes that to fully understand what’s meant by this word makarios, one should take into account that the name the Greeks gave to the beautiful Mediterranean island of Cyprus was Makaria. The island, they said, was so lovely and fertile that anyone inhabiting the place would be filled with a blissful joy regardless of their circumstances. With this understanding, Barclay then suggests what Jesus’ listeners would have heard when He taught this lesson would actually have sounded something like this:
Blissful joy! The poor in spirit. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blissful joy! Those who mourn. They will be comforted.
Now for a moment, consider the Beatitudes as a list—a list of things that Jesus is saying will deliver this brand of joy to us. A poor spirit? Mourning? Persecution? Being lied about? Being insulted for your faith? The list doesn’t seem apt to provide blissful joy to our souls, yet there it is in a section of Scripture where the Gospel writer tells us, hey—this part you’re reading right now is exactly the kind of thing Jesus said all the time.
This joy, this contentedness Jesus is talking about seems to have little or no connection with how the world around us keeps score. He’s urging us to see things in a new light, with a spiritual sort of vision informed by a different reality than the physical world we live in. We flourish as human beings, Jesus seems to be saying, not so much when we’re in the state we call happiness, our personal self-esteem buoyed and elevated by our own good fortune, but rather when we abide in a more uncomfortable state in which we’re dependent on God, embedded in God’s economy, less focused on our own physical well-being and earthly happiness.
I admit I am troubled by this, but I just don’t see any way around it. God is telling us we’re liable to experience this certain kind of joy, not when everything is going our way but—at least in terms of our normal way of thinking—when it’s not. Put another way: Isn’t it striking that so many of us are happy only when we win, while one of Jesus’ most critical teachings tells us we’re only truly joyful when we seem to be, at least in the world’s way of seeing things…losing?
God—May I see things Your way, not mine. Amen.
