Anchor My Faith

Gathering for the Beatitudes

Scripture: Matthew 5:1-2; Luke 6:17-18, 20

Jesus has chosen the twelve who will live and travel with him for the purpose of being trained to understand the gospel and be able to communicate it to others. With these twelve, Jesus comes down from the mountain.

“And [Jesus] came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon” (Luke 6:17). Jesus is now with his twelve disciples, standing at the foot of the mountain on a level place. There he is confronted with two additional groups of people. In addition to his twelve disciples there is a great number of people that follow Jesus, like students, that are called disciples. In addition to these is an even larger group of people, described by Luke, as a great multitude of people who are there to hear him and be healed of their diseases (Luke 6:18). These people come from all over the area of Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon.

Matthew adds some additional information: [and] “seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him” (Matthew 5:1). Reading this you might get the idea that Jesus left the people and went up on the mountain again, away from the people. Remember in Lesson H185, when by the sea of Galilee, a crowd was growing and pressing in on him, Jesus uses a boat to get away from the people. Being in a boat a short distance from shore, placed some distance between Jesus and the people and elevates them above him so that more people could see and hear Jesus as he taught. In Matthew 5:1, Jesus goes up the mountain a small distance to a small ridge to be above the people; like being on a stage in an auditorium.

One can imagine that near him were his twelve disciples, and then just a bit farther away was the larger group of his disciples, and then finally the great multitude of people. When by the sea of Galilee, Jesus maintained separation from the people by being in a boat. Here by the mountain, the people understood this to be a formal teaching time, and like being in an auditorium, the people take their place, like in a chair in an auditorium.

With everyone in place, and late comers gathering farther out, Jesus “lifted up his eyes on his disciples” (Luke 6:20). It was time for teaching to start and Jesus sits down and focuses his attention on his disciples and “he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:” (Matthew 5:2). What Jesus said will have to wait for our next lesson.

Prayer

Father, with a small ridge as the platform and a level place as the floor of an amphitheater, Jesus is about to begin the Sermon on the Mount or the Sermon on the Plain, as called by some. I pray for understanding as we listen to Jesus teach.