Matthew 5:5

Matthew 5:5

The first three Beatitudes form the trilogy of Gospel humiliation, the descending steps low, lower, lowest by which the soul is converted, becomes as a little child.

I. In our endeavours to understand more exactly the quality of meekness, it will be suitable to start from the two Beatitudes already considered. When God brings a man to see that he is without resource, and must be lost in his own evil unless he will cry for help, it is commonly a considerable surprise and discomfiture to the man. The step down from an average state of content with himself to abject poverty of spirit is a deep step and must be taken with a shock. The pride of independence is broken for good. But whom God first breaks He afterwards melts. Sorrow softens, and the state which results from this twofold process of breaking and of softening the attitude to God in which the "hammer" and the "fire" leave a man is meekness. For I think this meekness is first of all a state towards God, not man. It is that tameness of spirit which ensues on the death of self-righteousness or self-assertion before our heavenly Father.

II. Let us next approach the text from its other side, the side of the promise. This promise has a history in Scripture. It dates back as far as the call of Abraham. Its form then was a promise to inherit, not the earth, but the land, though one term is used for both with such studied duality of reference as to baffle translation. Just as the "seed of Abraham" was an ambiguous expression, enclosing within its obvious national reference, as in a shell, a hidden kernel of spiritual significance, one day to burst and outgrow the national, so the promise of the land foreshadowed and enwrapt the much more magnificent promise of "the earth." From the worldly God wrests even this their chosen beatitude, and gathers up at last this crumb also for children's bread, that not even earth's old loveliness of material worth, and the primal blessing which it wore, may be lost or wasted. He will not let the saints lose what the saints count loss for Him.

J. Oswald Dykes, The Beatitudes of the Kingdom, p. 61.

The Meek and their Inheritance.

I. Who are the meek? whom, at least, would Christ be intending by the term? You know how it is generally applied. He is meek, we say, who submits uncomplainingly and with gracious resignation to inevitable ills; or who bears patiently, without passionate resentment, without seeking to retaliate, insult or injury. But if we would understand what it was that Christ meant by this term, we ought perhaps to look back to the Scriptures from which He is quoting, and see how it is employed there. The meek, on the page of the Psalmist, are those who, in spite of what is calculated to irritate, to unsettle, to stagger, to dishearten, or to draw aside from adherence to the true, are found calmly, quietly persisting in their allegiance. And would not such be the meekness which Christ was contemplating the meekness which, believing deeply, serenely holds on, in fidelity to its best vision, whatever there may be to vex or beguile?

II. Meekness, you will find, is frequently indicated in our sacred Scriptures as a prominent trait of the ideal teacher and the ideal governor; while we may think of it mostly in connection with pupils and with subjects, these Scriptures are found connecting it again and again with teaching and with governing. The meek governor is he who can be content to move slowly, to bide his time, to continue quietly steadfast in the apparently barren labour of laying sure foundations, that the building, however decayed, may be stable and firm in which sense God Almighty is the meekest of governors.

III. What is the inheritance of the earth promised to the meek? Suppose we take the land, as we well may, to represent what is most solid, substantial, and enduring; is it not true that meekness tends to inherit that? Men exhaust themselves, wear themselves out, in anxious devisings and weary working for things for pleasure, for influence, for repute, for standing when, if nobly at rest from impetuous self-seeking, and surrendered to calm, undistracted persistence in truth and duty, they would wake to find themselves presently in ample possession of these; for "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth."

S. A. Tipple, Sunday Morning at Norwood, p. 55.

References: Matthew 5:5 . Bishop Barry, Cheltenham College Sermons, p. 107; J. Oswald Dykes, The Manifesto of the King, p. 63; H. W. Beecher, Sermons, 3rd series, p. 373.