Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. – Matthew 5:5
Because the beatitudes are so elegantly succinct, we must guard against devaluing them as mere pithy wisdom. Our Lord Jesus was speaking out of the fullness of His Godhead, thus we know that His words are very Truth itself. Christ alone has complete authority to speak of “blessedness,” for He is the Blessed One who descended from Heaven to confer blessedness upon mankind.
In our culture of action and strength, Jesus’ statement on meekness is likely to create confusion, or even anxiety. In a later chapter of Matthew, Jesus elaborates on the concept when he says: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).
Note the contrast between burden and rest. But what is the burden Jesus speaks of? Some would interpret it as oppression, or poverty, or hard work. In The Pursuit of God (available in our church library) A.W. Tozer defines our burden more broadly and deeply, as something that is borne by all of us – something “from which wealth and idleness can never deliver us.”
Tozer maintains that our burden is pride and observes that “the labor of self-love is a heavy one indeed.” We are invited to ponder how much of our sorrow arises from our perceived injustices at the hands of others: “as long as you set yourself up as a little god to which you must be loyal there will be those who will delight to offer affront to your idol.”
We can only have true peace through rest in Jesus, and meekness is His method. The meek person no longer seeks to be great in the eyes of the world, for he knows that it is not worth the effort. He understands that the constant struggle to protect one’s heart from every slight and defend it against every criticism will never allow for rest, and over time the burden will become intolerable.
The meek man has reckoned himself against God’s goodness, and he fully knows that by this divine standard he is nothing – “a mere worm in the dust.” He has humbled himself to the Creator of the universe, and by doing so he has ceased to care what men think.
The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything . . . as he walks in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him. (Tozer)
Once liberated from the burden of pride we can enjoy the same un-self-conscious honesty that enables a three-year-old to splash joyfully in a rain puddle, or tumble laughing in the grass with a puppy. It is the opposite of ignorance – it is intellectual honesty. It is the “blessed relief which comes when we accept ourselves for what we are and cease to pretend.”
Lord, make me childlike. Deliver me from the urge to compete with others for prestige or position. Deliver me from pose and pretense. Forgive me for thinking of myself. Help me to forget myself and find my true peace in beholding Thee. I humble myself before Thee that Thou may answer my prayer. Lay upon me Thy easy yoke of self-forgetfulness that through it I may find rest. Amen.
