Thursday, February 25
Scripture: Matthew 5:8

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

THE PURE IN HEART

When I hear this promise, that the pure at heart will be blessed because they will see God, I am tempted to oversimplify its meaning. Blessed are the good little girls, for they will get ice cream. But as I listen to the haunting, bittersweet melodies of Vladimir Martynov’s Beatitudes and look at examples from scripture, I am challenged to re-think what it means to be pure of heart, and even what it means to be blessed.

We have examples in the Old Testament of men who, in their purity of heart, saw God. But their lives likely did not often seem to them like blessed ones. Moses narrowly escaped a genocide as a baby, was exiled from his home as a young man, rejected by his people when he came back to deliver them from slavery, and was forced to wander in the desert for forty years before dying without entering the land of promise. No earthly consideration would count his life as blessed. And yet, when we read the account of his relationship to the Lord we see that he was. Moses spoke with God face to face, “as a man speaks to his friend” (Ex 33:11).  Even more than this, Moses asked and received perhaps the most incredible blessing described in the Old Testament. He asked for God to show him His glory, and God passed before Moses in all of his goodness, shielding Moses in the cleft of the rock so that the majesty he witnessed would not destroy him.

Elijah, too, lived a life full of earthly hardship because of his pure devotion to God. He stood with courage against the cruel and idolatrous rulers of his time, accusing them in their idolatry, taunting them for worshipping idols. He lived a life in exile, making outrageous promises because of his wholehearted belief in God’s power to save widows, to bring rain, to reign down fire from heaven. He was so exhausted from running from Jezebel that he asked God to take his life, but in that moment God showed himself to Elijah instead. Just as with Moses, God offered his presence.

What did these men have in common? It seems to me that their purity of heart was exemplified by their willingness to be bent and strained for the sake of the Lord. Both spent years in the desert, with nothing but their trust in God to rely on for food and water. Both spoke boldly before kings and fled from their wrath. Both stood faithfully against idolatry. And both were rewarded for lives of hardship, persecution, and suffering by encountering God. Perhaps it was the fact that these men could count their lives as blessed, when the only compensation they got for their trials and suffering was the sight of God, that most shows the purity of their hearts. I too count them both as having been blessed, but am I so purified in heart that I would venture everything for the mere chance to see God?

PRAYER
Lord, I so easily mistake my own comfort and ease with your blessing. This Lenten season awaken me to the reality of Godly blessing, which is as demanding as it is richly rewarding. Help me to let go of my own pleasure and peace for the calling you offer. Help me to seek nothing other than the sight of you. Amen.

Janelle Aijian, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Torrey Honors Institute