“Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.” (Matthew 5:6)
There are two principles here. We’ll discuss the
first one here today where Jesus commends appetite, hunger. Affirmation is offered
not to those who have already arrived, not to those who think they have it all together,
not to those who are satisfied and content, but rather to those who have a
longing, a desire, a passion, a hunger, a thirst. Jesus is describing the
significance of possessing a divine discontent, a divine dissatisfaction. In other
words, this hunger comes from God.
You and I were created with the inner need to
live beyond the status quo, beyond mere maintenance existence. We were designed
for the best that there is. Scripture refers to human beings as being created
in the image of God. The fact that there is this deep, inner hunger for
something better, a drive to reach our highest potential, a passion for the
best reveals our divinity, the image of God in us. We have an inherent longing
to experience more than there is. Jesus commends appetite and hunger because
that acknowledges the image of God in us.
Imagine how this must have shocked Jesus’
listeners. In their view (the typical religious paradigm of that day), the
powerful and religious leaders, who obviously appeared and claimed to have it
all together and who ruthlessly admonished everyone else to get it together by
following hundreds of rules and regulations; those were the ones who were blessed.
They were on the pinnacle of the religious pyramid and enjoyed special favor from
God.
But Jesus said God’s blessing and favor went
instead to those who were hungering and thirsting, those who were dissatisfied
with the status quo in ways the leaders of society were not manifesting, those
who were willing to go against the traditional flow and push through both
religious and cultural obstacles to satisfy their hunger. This included people
like the Roman centurion who pressed through the Jewish crowd to beg Jesus to come
heal his dying servant. Jesus commended his passionate faith. And people like
the Samaritan woman (a heathen to the Jews) who persisted in spite of ethnic
and religious prejudice to seek healing for her daughter. Jesus commended her
desire. And people like the hemorrhaging woman (considered to be a sinner under
God’s judgment because of her health problems) who followed Jesus in the
teeming crowd, persisting until she succeeded in reaching out and touching his
garment. Jesus commended her persistent faith.
Over and over again, Jesus commended people not
only for their deep, passionate hunger, but also for their tenacity in doing
something about it. Hunger reveals something about a person. It shows the depth
of a person’s heart and soul. It shows what a person values. Hunger uncovers
priorities. A person is willing to go after what they truly value deep down
inside and believe to be of utmost importance.
Bart Starr, former quarterback of the world
champion Green Bay Packers football team, says of one of the most passionate
men ever associated with professional football, the legendary coach Vince
Lombardi, “I wasn’t mentally tough before I met Coach Lombardi. I hadn’t
reached the point where I refused to accept second best. To win, you have to have
a certain amount of mental toughness. Coach Lombardi gave me that. He taught me
that you must have a flaming desire to win. It’s got to dominate all your
waking hours. It can’t ever wane. It’s got to glow in you all the time.”
He’s talking about passion, hunger, appetite,
thirst. Not just for a part of something, but for the whole thing. In fact, the
wording Jesus used in the text above to describe this passion literally means “being
hungry for the whole loaf, being thirsty for the whole pitcher.” In other
words, it means refusing to be satisfied with only a cupcake or a cupful. It’s
a consuming passion for wholeness. And the paradigm of wholeness is given a
very specific word.
Notice that Jesus isn’t simply commending
appetite in general. “Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
(Matthew
5:6) This is the pivotal point around which the whole saying revolves. As
inspiring as it is to see people’s consuming passion for a gold medal or a
winning game or academic achievements, these are not the objects of passion and
hunger that produce a sense of blessing, durable meaning and lasting fulfillment.
It’s hard to forget the image of the Canadian
snowboarder a decade ago who won a gold medal. Standing in front of the media,
when they asked to see his gold medal, he reached back and pulled it out of the
back pocket of his pants, all crumpled up. He was no longer proudly displaying it
around his neck. It was stuffed into his back pocket. The thrill was over. Even
gold medals fade. That’s a profound human reality.
So Jesus commends a hunger for something different,
something that has significance in the whole scheme of life a hunger that when
filled with the right thing has lasting quality.
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