Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, because they will be satisfied.
Some of the most evocative words in the Old Testament come from Ecclesiastes 3:11:
God made everything beautiful in his time; he has also put eternity in the mind of man, but he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
What does this mean, that God has put eternity in the mind of man and yet has denied us the vision of what he has done from eternity to eternity?
Anxiety and longing
St. Augustine said:
You made us for yourself
and our hearts are restless,
until I rest in you.
Restlessness and longing are universal traits of the human heart. George Herbert, one of the poets I grew to love during my college days, wrote a poem called pulley That says so:
When God first made man,
Having a cup of blessings at hand—
We pour (said he) on it all that we can;
May the riches of the world that were scattered lie,
Contract in a span.
So the force first opened a path;
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honor, pleasure:
When almost everything was gone, God made a stay,
Seeing that, alone, of all His treasure,
Rest at the bottom lies
Because if I (He said)
  ; Bestow this jewel also on My creature,
She would worship My gifts instead of Me,
And it would rest in nature, not in the God of Nature: Thus both should be losers.
But let him keep the rest,
But let him be uneasy;
May he be rich and tired, so that at least
If goodness does not carry it, tiredness
He will throw it into My chest.
“God has placed eternity in our hearts and we have an inconsolable longing.”
God has placed eternity in our hearts and we have an inconsolable longing. We try to satisfy you with scenic vacations, creative achievements, impressive film productions, sexual exploits, national sports extravaganzas, hallucinogenic drugs, ascetic rigors, managerial excellence, etc., etc. But the longing remains.
Isaiah put it this way in 55:2–3:
why do you spend your money
in what is not bread,
and your work
for what does not satisfy?
Listen to me attentively, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves abundantly.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that your soul may live.
And Jeremiah, thus in 2:12–13:
My people have committed two evils:
I have been abandoned
fountain of living waters,
and they dug for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that hold no water.
Many of you here this morning are like that. Your soul is hungry and your heart is thirsty. You feel an insatiable longing for something. You are restless. Almost everywhere you look, the grass is greener than where you’re standing. And the great tragedy for some of you is that even though this is the Spirit of God calling you to Himself, you turn away again and again from the short-term, temporary, self-defeating pleasures of R-rated videocassettes or movies. , or drugs or alcohol or tanning salons or a new toy.
And everything turns to ashes in your hands. The emotion of lust leaves behind the sediment of guilt and loneliness. Drugs and alcohol can’t stop you from waking up in the real world over and over again with your relationships messed up. The tan looks so artificial and fades so fast. And the new toy is so boring in just a few weeks.
We drink from broken cisterns. And we eat bread that does not satisfy. And the words of CS Lewis ring more and more true. He said:
If I find in myself a desire that no experience in this world can satisfy, the most likely explanation is that I was created for another world.
Jesus has something to say about longing
Jesus has something to say this morning about this universal experience of inconsolable longing. He has something to say about the insatiable hunger of the human heart and about the incessant thirst of our soul.
His words are found in Matthew 5:6 where he says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
What I would like to do is simply meditate with you on two things:
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the nature of the justice that Jesus has in view, and
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the nature of our hunger and thirst for her, and how that hunger turns into the satisfaction he promises.
1. What is the justice that Jesus speaks of?
First, then, what is this justice? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for Justice.”
Last week we explained the meaning of meekness by going back to Psalm 37:11. The reason was that Jesus seemed to be quoting that psalm almost word for word in Matthew 5:5. And, furthermore, the word “meekness” does not appear again in the Sermon on the Mount.
But today’s beatitude is not a quote from the Old Testament and the word “justice” appears five times in this sermon (Matthew 5:6, 10, 20; 6:1, 33). So the best way to understand the meaning of Jesus in this sermon is to look at these other examples of the word justice. But we will only have time to look at a couple. So let’s see the ones that are closest.
persecuted for justice
The next usage is found in verse 10: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” What does justice mean here when it says “persecuted for justice’s sake”?
The Structure of the Beatitudes
To answer this, it helps to look again at the structure of the Beatitudes. Remember that there are eight beatitudes with verse 10 as the last and verse 11 as an expansion of it. The first beatitude (verse 3) and the last beatitude (verse 10) give the same words of assurance: “For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” It looks like a kind of sandwich: the piece of bread on top and the piece of bread on the bottom say: “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
What we don’t notice yet is that there are two groups of four, and the first four and the second four end with a reference to “justice.” The first set of four ends with verse 6: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” And the second set of four ends with verse 10: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for justice’s sake.”
Emptiness and longing for fullness
The more you reflect on it, the more significant it becomes. Notice that the three beatitudes that lead to hunger for justice in verse 6 are descriptions of emptiness or passivity: poverty of spirit (verse 3), mourning our sin and misery (verse 4), meek acceptance of criticism without retaliation or defensive attitude. (verse 5). These are not characteristics of overflowing fullness. They are beautiful and good in their rightful place, but they are not yet the richness, fullness, and overflowing activity of goodness that we yearn for. And then, is it not natural that following these first three beatitudes the Lord says: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice”, those who long to be filled with justice?
In other words, after pronouncing a blessing on those who recognize and grieve for their emptiness and do not try to justify or defend themselves, Jesus now transitions from emptiness to fullness by saying that hunger and thirst for justice are also blessed.
Fullness and pursuit
Then look at the next three beatitudes. This is just what we found. After the hunger and satisfaction in verse 6 comes: “Blessed are the merciful” (in verse 7). Now the blessed person is full and overflowing with mercy. He is not merely broken, sad and meek. He now he is active and overflowing with works of mercy. Verse 8 says that he is pure in heart and verse 9 says that he is not only peaceable, but also a peacemaker.
Then this second group of four beatitudes ends with another reference to justice. Only this time it is not a hunger for justice that we lack, but a persecution for justice that we are overwhelmed with.
A definition of righteousness
Do you see the structure? The first four Beatitudes describe the broken, afflicted, tranquil person who hungers and thirsts for justice. And the next four beatitudes describe the merciful and pure peacemaker who is persecuted for his justice. So doesn’t this structure give us the definition of justice? If we were hungry for righteousness in verse 6 because we were empty, and then we are persecuted for righteousness in verse 10 because we have been filled, is it not correct to define justice as that with which we have been filled, i.e. mercy, purity and peace?
Justice superior to that of the Pharisees
Well, let’s look at another use of “justice” in the sermon to see if it confirms this understanding.
In 5:20 Jesus says, “I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Then what follows in the rest of chapter 5 are six illustrations of how our justice must surpass the justice of the scrupulous law-abiders of the day.
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In verses 21–26, we are not only not to kill, but even more so, we are not to be angry with a brother, but seek peace.
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In verses 27–30, not only are we not to commit adultery, but even more so, we are not to look at a person lustfully.
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In verses 31–32, we are not to condone divorce just because there is a legal provision for it in the Old Testament. We must overcome justice that makes peace with hardness of heart, and keep our covenant commitments and not marry those who do not.
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In verses 33–37, we are not only to keep our oaths, but more so, we are to be the kind of people who do not need to take oaths to be believed.
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In verses 38–42, we must not only not gouge out an eye because one of our own was gouged out, but more so, we must turn the other cheek and return good for evil.
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And in verses 43–48, we are not only to love our neighbor, but more so, we are to love our enemy and pray for those who persecute us.
“Justice is being pure in heart before God, the only one who can see the heart.”
So it’s pretty clear what Jesus meant in Matthew 5:20 when he said that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. It has to do with showing mercy, and being radically pure in your heart, and making amends instead of retaliating. So our understanding of justice from the structure of the Beatitudes is certainly confirmed. Justice is showing mercy to other people; and justice is to be pure of heart before God, who is the only one who can see the heart; and justice is the effort to make peace.
Now there may be much more to it. But that seems to be the focus of these verses and this chapter, so we’ll leave…