If you were described as being blessed, what would come to mind for you? I usually think of having something good happen to me – or at least good in MY mind. Financial gain, a healthy report, and a thriving family can all be varying types of blessing.
But there is a word for blessing, makarios, which has a different connotation. To be blessed (makarios) is not the past tense of having received something. It may be easier to distinguish by saying bless–ed. In fact, Raymond Brown uses the familiar kinds of favor we seek as a contrast in defining this type of blessing:
The words we use to understand makarios are “not a wish to invoke a blessing “(i.e. a specific external outcome), “rather they recognize an existing state of happiness or good fortune.“[1]
One who is bless-ed is one who is a partaker of God, experiencing His fullness. A helpful scriptural example can be found in 1 Peter 4:14:
If you are being reproached in the name of Christ, you are blessed (makarios); because the Spirit of glory and of God is resting upon you;
The state of being blessed is one in which the Spirit of God is resting on you. That is the blessed state and it has nothing to do with what is outside of you.
Makarios is the word Jesus uses in giving us the beatitudes. He is not talking about a promised result, but rather a present state of being.
That puts the beatitudes in another light. The blessedness Jesus referred to is an already existing state: not cause and effect but rather statements of fact. Those that are blessed – are pure in heart, are meek, they are comforted when they mourn.
We don’t become blessed by striving after peace. If you ARE blessed, you are peacemakers. It’s what comes out. Those that ARE blessed – are meek. If you exist in a blessed state, then even in your mourning, you are comforted.
I’m so works oriented – I keep trying to do something to get to peace – to blessedness – but that’s backwards. Blessedness is a state of joy based on an assurance of the kingdom, His favor and glory. This blessedness, this joy, flows from the assurance that God is God and in experiencing His fullness regardless of outward circumstance. If I seek God first, if I allow Him to fill me with His Spirit and walk in faith, I will experience blessedness. And everything else will follow.
[1] Raymond Brown, “The Gospel according to John.” p. 553
