Beatitude: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Purity isn’t something we talk much about in the church anymore. This is likely a reaction to
the purity sub-culture of the church that had some harmful unintended consequences that led
to a lot of shame, gossip, and double standards.
But here it is, present on the lips of Jesus himself in the beatitudes. The pure in heart are said
to be blessed, and thus it invites our consideration anew on how it relates to the righteousness
of the kingdom.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is a passage that every Jew in Jesus’ day would have known, and it’s a
passage that every Jesus-follower today should also know. It is the greatest commandment –
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
might.” In other words, love God with all of who you are.
Over time, and for sake of convenience, heart, soul, strength, and mind are simply shortened to
the single word, heart. To say love the Lord your God with all your heart is to say love with all
of who you are.
In the Hebrew worldview, the heart is the core of the person. It is the center of a person’s will,
desire, and direction. Today we might think that the brain represents the core of who people
are. We might think of their personality, or of psychologists who study the brain. But for the
Hebrew worldview the core of the person is the heart.
When Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart,” he’s not talking about romance, or good
vibes, or good feelings. He’s talking about the core of who a person is. He’s saying blessed are
those who are pure at the very center of their being.
Purity for Jesus is a way of saying that a person is uncorrupted by the worship of idols and is
faithful in following the ways of God. It also means that a person is clean, set apart for the
work of God, rather than unclean and divided from God.
Psalm 86:11 says, “Give me an undivided heart to revere your name.” A pure heart is one that
is undivided by idolatry, the desires of the flesh, greed for wealth, or personal gain. A pure
heart is undivided in its loyalty and allegiance to God, to Christ and his kingdom.
Divided, distracted, lost, false, wicked, and chaotic are all opposites to the idea of purity. Purity
is simple, genuine, true, and authentic. Purity isn’t always happy and perfect and all smiles and
rainbows. It is wide-awake to the reality of our human existence and fully present to God in the
midst of pain, heartache, struggle, and sin, as well as joy, celebration, praise, and adoration.
Nathanael is an example in scripture of someone who was pure in heart. Jesus calls him a true
Israelite with no deceit (John 1:47). The promise for Nathanael, the pure in heart, is that he will
see the heavens opened up and angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man (John
1:51). The pure in heart will see God. They will see heaven and earth come together.
This passage makes us think of the story in Genesis about Jacob, who is called Israel. Yet Jacob
was deceitful. He tricked his brother Esau for his birthright, and then he later tricked his father
to gain Esau’s blessing. It was only after Jacob was driven away, fleeing for his life, that he
learned singular dependence on God. His heart and his loyalty became undivided, pure, and
focused to the core. He had a vision at Bethel of angels ascending and descending on a ladder.
He saw the work of God.
Jacob didn’t go from trickster to pure in heart overnight. And truth be told the trickster never
quite left him. Yet Jacob, who was called Israel, became the father of the people of Israel. And
Nathanael, an Israelite in whom there is no deceit, is a kind forerunner of a new Israel; a new
people formed around Jesus, following him into the righteousness of the kingdom of God.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Nathanael saw God in the person of Jesus
of Nazareth. His purity of heart, his undivided loyalty, his willingness to go where Jesus goes
points the way for us as well. If we want purity of heart to see God, it helps to learn from those
who came before us and point us to the work of God in Christ.
The problem in Jesus’ day, as can also be the problem in our day, is that purity of heart can be
confused with religious purity. Religious purity is what the Pharisees were obsessed with;
things like washing, cleanliness, observing the Sabbath, and tithing meticulously. It’s not that
these things are bad, but they miss the mark of higher purity.
For us today, religious purity might mean putting on our “Sunday best.” It’s doing all the things
that outwardly identify us as “good, church-going Christians,” while inside our hearts, the very
the core of who we are remains unchanged and untransformed by Jesus.
Jesus had a hard time with the people who were divided, lost, deceitful, putting up
appearances, and focused on outward purity, rather than on inward obedience of faith. But
people like Nathanael, Mary Magdalene, the Samaritan Woman, and blind Bartimaeus on the
road to Jericho (among others) were pure in their longing for God. Their blessing was that they
saw God in the person and work of Jesus. That’s the purity and the blessing that we are also
invited into.
May you be blessed as they were.
May you also be made pure in heart to see God as you follow Jesus.
Amen.
Joel Shenk is the pastor of Toledo Mennonite Church and lives in Toledo with his wife and two daughters. Originally from Scottdale, PA, Joel studied at Hesston College, Eastern Mennonite University, and Fuller Theological Seminary. He has been pastoring since 2010 and is also an amateur blacksmith apart of the RAW Tools disarming network turning guns into garden tools. He likes baseball and is an avid fly angler.
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