THIS next two verses are a continuation and expansion of the thoughts in the last Beatitude. Though the message is basically the same, yet there is some additions which Jesus makes in these two verses.

The crucial thought made in these two verses is at the end of verse 11. It is the words ‘because of me’, or translated also as ‘for my sake’. Persecution that is spoken of by Jesus is not every sort of persecution, but that which results from our love for Jesus, and our practice of showing that love in the way we live and in service for Jesus. Such living is the Christian way. We have been loved by Jesus Christ with an everlasting love. We have felt that love in his redeeming grace and the real consciousness that Jesus has told us he died to save us personally, and that if we were the only sinner needing salvation he would have still died to save us. Christ has convinced us by this how much he loves us and that this love means he will never let us go, and will not be content until he has brought us to be with himself in his everlasting glory. This experience of the love of Jesus causes us to seek to please him by being and living to be like him, and in give our lives in service for him.

Such living as this reveals the character of those who are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, and as such shine as lights in this world. The world hates this light and so insults, opposes and persecutes those whose life shines in this way.

The blessing of experiencing persecution because of Christ is found in what it proves concerning our lives. The blessing is in the fact when the world hates us it shows we are identified by the world as belonging to Christ and that we are showing his likeness. The joy then follows because we then are assured that Christ owns us and he is now preparing a place for us in his eternal glory. If we are persecuted for Christ’s sake, we have evidence that Christ is changing us into his likeness.

Persecution is never joyous in itself but only painful, but we may rejoice that the love of Christ for us and our love for Christ because he has loved us, is much more precious to us than any worldly happiness, and it is so precious that we know nothing this world can throw at us is so bad that we could consider giving up this joy in Christ’s love.

Jesus goes on to develop this joy. He says “Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.” It has been popular in certain circles over many years now to deride the idea of ‘pie in the sky when you die’ as this heavenly reward is despisingly called. These people deride it because it was often an excuse for Christians to justify feeling no responsibility to alleviate temporal needs amongst those in poverty and need. However Jesus gives the hope of reward in heaven as a potent strength in persecution and insult which we suffer just because we are Christians. We may have to suffer in this life, but we know that the pain is short compared with the life to come, and that the life to come is so joyous that any suffering in this world is worth enduring to gain that glory.

Paul speaks in Romans by saying that the suffering of this present world is not to be compared the the glory that is revealed in us (Romans 8). Jesus comforted his disciples by assuring them that he was going to his eternal glory to prepare a place for them, and that they may be sure that he would return to bring them to that place he had prepared. This blessing is worth all the suffering this world may offer. It was the strength that energized the martyrs in their hour of trial. It gave courage and strength to those being burnt at the stake in Queen Mary’s reign so that they died well in the midst of tremendous suffering.

In times of persecution we have two things which we need to remind ourselves of. The first is that Christ’s love is more precious and more wonderful than any suffering. The second is that if we persevere there is a crown of righteousness reserved in heaven for us.

To suffer for Christ’s sake has been the experience of all the saints, that is those who are disciples of Jesus and who love and live for him. Jesus reminds us of this in these verses. He tells us that we are not suffering something new, but something that the prophets of old all suffered. It has always been the attitude and way of the world to the disciples of Jesus.