Blessed are the Reviled
There was a PEANUTS cartoon years ago in which Lucy asks Charlie Brown if he has ever known anybody who was really happy. Before she can finish her sentence, however, Snoopy comes dancing on tip-toe into the frame, his nose high in the air. He dances and bounces his way across two frames of the cartoon strip. Finally, in the last frame, Lucy finishes her sentence: "Have you ever known anybody who was really happy and was still in their right mind?"
In February 1978 Cosmopolitan magazine presented a quiz to determine how happy people are. The author concluded that happy people enjoy other people but are not self-sacrificing, they refuse to participate in negative feelings or emotions, and they have a sense of accomplishment based on their own self-sufficiency.
That definition of happiness does not accord with Jesus' definition. He said that a truly happy person is not self-sufficient but a spiritually cowering beggar who realizes he has no resources in himself. A happy person is meek rather than proud. He's not positive about himself--he mourns over sin and his isolation from a holy God. Contrary to what the world says, our Lord affirmed that a happy person is self-sacrificing. He's merciful, and willing to endure persecution to make peace between God and man.
Today people are pursuing happiness on their own terms so when they run into Christians, conflict inevitably results. They experience conviction for sin and that causes resentment and persecution.
Matthew 5:10-12 says,
“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Those who desire true happiness must seek it on Jesus' terms as presented in the Sermon on the Mount: they must go through a narrow gate onto a narrow way build their house on a rock and desire to be known by the Lord on Judgment Day. Such people confront a hostile and godless world with the righteousness of Christ, receiving the world's hostility in return.
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