Lent 10 Real Hunger and Thirst

[HKHaugan]

Lent 10 Mt.5:6

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled.

“We’ve got to get it right. We don’t want to act before we have all our ducks in a row. We have to be well organized. We have to make sure we get it right.” The consuming concern at a recent organizational meeting was expressed in these statements. This group, by the way, has been meeting for three years. Unfortunately, they will never get ‘it’ right whatever right is in their case. This situation, one of myriads, points to the basic human concern, the need to be right.

Again the issue of spiritual poverty is the recognition that makes one hungry and thirsty to be right. This is the greatest of our personal needs. There is nothing that drives the human heart more than the desire to be right in whatever we undertake. Whether it is being right about who we are, what we say, what we do, the idea of being right is at the top of the list. We want to feel right about ourselves. We want to feel right in our relationships with others. We want to always be right in the decisions we make from the purchase of a toothbrush to the choice of a college and career. We want to be right in our minds, feel right in our emotions and look right in the world. If we can just sense we are right within then we can approach the world with confidence and balance.

How do we satisfy the hunger and thirst to be right? Hold on and follow the sequence.
First, the whole issue of right as opposed to wrong is a moral issue.
Second, moral issues are spiritual issues.
Third, being right is a spiritual issue.
Fourth, spiritual issues can only be dealt with in God’s Word.

Following the sequence of the Beatitudes we recognize our spiritual deficiency, recognize our real mourning, yield to the presence of God’s Spirit, then we know what our real hunger and thirst are. They are our heart’s hunger and thirst for the right person we can trust, who has a right spirit, who follows a right set of principles and is willing to personally relate to us. All of this takes place in the realm of the unseen. When Jesus taught these insights He was totally cognizant of the fact that He was that person. He hungered and thirsted to relate to His Father, to be obedient to His will and to remain steadfast in the Word.

But none could live life as Jesus did unless He enabled them to do so. For centuries before Jesus the only measure of being right was obedience to religious laws. Obedience to the Law was righteousness, being right. But the Law brought with it a frustration. The harder one tried to be legally right it still didn’t make the heart right. So the purpose of the Law was to show that without the personal presence of God the sinful heart could never be right.

Enter Jesus.

Jesus, God the Son, was completely obedient in His heart and mind and body to the Law thus fulfilling it like no other human could. But there was one thing more in Jesus. When He went to the Cross He went faithfully. In fact everything in His life was done in faith. In faith He became the final sacrifice to satisfy the demand of the Law. He faithfully submitted to death. In faith He was released spiritually through His Resurrection. Freed from a human body, risen from the dead, He now is free to enter the heart of every person who receives Him by faith.

This is why Paul said that a new righteousness had been revealed in Jesus, a righteousness that is by faith. The new righteousness is faith in Jesus who acts within our hearts to release us from the power of sin and death and even though our body dies we live on eternally in the Spirit. Thus it is Jesus who is the Right person with the Right Spirit who relies on the Right Word. It is Jesus’ hunger and thirst to be right that sets our course. When we let Him fill our hunger and thirst with His Spirit He moves our hearts and minds to be His examples of right. What Jesus has shown in this Beatitude is that our real hunger and thirst is for the Spirit of God who makes us right within. (Now maybe we can understand what fasting is all about.)

The real ‘Good News’ is that if we let Jesus be right through our faith in Him then we are right in His eyes. We are right with God, right with ourselves and confident in the presence of others. That is why Paul was so excited and revealed God’s very heart when he taught that we are no longer justified (made heart-right) by obedience to the Law but are now justified (made right in our hearts) by faith in Jesus Christ. Our need to be right is satisfied by faith in Jesus who is the Right One. So stay hungry, stay thirsty to be right and the Right One will fill you with the Spirit of Right. Also, stay tuned.