Blessed are you when people insult you … Matthew 5:10-12
Jesus is the Master of throwing our assumptions on their head, but this may be one of the most counterintuitive things that He says. He tells us that the appropriate response to being mistreated for His sake is to “rejoice and be glad.” Just let that sink in.
Let’s not downplay how extreme this is. In case we think it’s a “spiritual rejoicing” (you know, the kind that looks more like mourning than rejoicing), Jesus doubles up on the verbs – REJOICE and BE GLAD!
Why? Because we know some things. In the past, God’s faithful have always been mistreated, so rejoice in what this says is true about you. In the future, we will have a reward in heaven that is directly related to this mistreatment, so rejoice in what this says will be true about you. Jesus encourages us to experience this moment in the context of God’s long-term plans and actions.
We shouldn’t fail to notice the predicament that this teaching places us in as modern Americans. You see, when our rights are infringed (i.e., when we are persecuted), we can do something about it. We can sue, we can call our reps in Congress, we can rant on Facebook. We have options. The very ability to do this in the face of persecution would seem to be a rather novel experience in Christian history. My encouragement here is that before we “exercise our rights as citizens” we must first exercise our call as disciples. First, I must learn to rejoice. Then I will be in a place to discern how to exercise my rights as an American.
One other thing we should note here. Jesus makes clear that this kind of rejoicing is reserved for mistreatment that is truly about Him. We can rejoice when we suffer with Him, but not when we are just being jerks. Jesus makes clear that the accusations against us must be false. If people are justified in calling us out, we can’t claim that is some sort of blessed experience. But we can always be glad when we are insulted for Jesus.
– Deryk Pritchard, Preacher
