us in our journey to be made more like Him.
The word for hunger here is( peinaō). It means more than the feeling of being unable to eat but rather to be famished. It was used in the previous chapter of Matthew’ s gospel to describe what Jesus was feeling at the end of a forty-day, forty-night fast( Matthew 4:2). The word for thirst is( dipsaō). Jesus uses this same word for thirsty in Matthew 25:35 in His parable of the sheep and goats. Again, the meaning isn’ t that you could use a drink of something but rather your mouth has dried out, your tongue is stuck to the roof of your mouth, and you are dehydrated to the point of danger. The picture here is a person in deep need— desperate.
However, in the Beatitudes, hunger and thirst are used metaphorically of the state of the blessed one’ s soul. It’ s not food or beverage they are desperate for but righteousness. We can’ t ignore the sheer number of times the term righteousness is used in the Scriptures. It’ s used eighty-nine times and is in almost every book of the New Testament. If I were to ask you for a definition of righteousness, what would you say? Would you mention the legal principles found in the moral law of God? Or maybe a list of God’ s standards? Would your mind go to all the things you should and shouldn’ t be doing?
Right Relatedness My wife, Lauren, has a broad swath of gifts.
I do three things well. Lauren sings, writes, leads, paints, teaches, gardens, and whatever else she sets her mind to. After twenty- six years together I actually believe she can be good at anything she wants to be good at. Several years ago, I bought her an old, upright piano. It fit perfectly in the front room of our house, and she could sit and write songs surrounded by bay windows and a view of the large, landscaped flower beds in our front yard. The sprinkler system was on well water, so even the Texas heat had a hard time knocking the beauty off the flowers. The piano looked amazing in the room, and when Lauren played a single note, it sounded fine. The sound bounced off the hardwood floors and the ceiling and filled the room. However, when she tried to play a chord, the dissonance was unmistakable. The problem wasn’ t that the piano was broken; it was just out of right relationship with the standard. It was out of tune.
When the piano technician came to tune it, he didn’ t smash the piano or replace the keys. He listened, gently adjusted, string by string, key by key, bringing every note back into harmony with A440— the universal pitch standard. When he was done, the piano hadn’ t changed its identity. It had become what it was meant to be: rightly related, rightly resonant. That’ s righteousness. Not legal perfection but restored harmony. Not behavior for behavior’ s sake but fidelity to the relationships for which we were made:
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