EARLIER THIS YEAR, I planted a peach tree in our front yard. It was just a sapling, small enough for us to bring home in the car. I carefully dug a hole of the right size, supplied the right fertilizer, amended the soil, then gently set the tree in place. Over the next few months, with some tender loving care, it grew from about five to seven feet. More importantly, we watched with eager anticipation as it began to set tiny fruit. As the fruit began to blush, I strung mylar flash tape near each little gem to keep the birds away. Eventually, two of the peaches ripened to maturity.

The first one, unfortunately, was nabbed by a squirrel, who didn’t even do us the courtesy of eating the whole thing. Like a finicky child, he abandoned it after a few bites. We immediately rescued the second, even though we wanted to let it ripen a few days more. My wife and I then divided the prize six ways, sharing it with our son and daughter-in-law, and our two granddaughters, who were all visiting.

It was one of the juiciest, most delicious peaches we’ve ever eaten. We had visions of the tree of the future, laden with sweet fruit — and hopefully, free of squirrels.

Given our neighborhood, I have my doubts about that second part.

But then the summer brought a scorching triple-digit heatwave. We kept the tree watered, but it didn’t help. It was simply too much heat stress too soon; all the bright green leaves turned a sad, wilted brown. I don’t think the tree is dead, just traumatized. But I really don’t know. For now I will act on faith, treat it as a living thing, and continue to care for it. I will remember the fruit we’ve already enjoyed, and look forward to next season, when I hope we’ll enjoy more.

LIFE CAN BE like that. One day, we’re enjoying the fruit of our labor, thinking the future bright. The next day something happens to take it all away, and with it our hopes.

What Jesus says about blessing in the Beatitudes is not limited to those who struggle with the basic necessities. It’s for all who, like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Things don’t always work out the way they should or the way we expected. Life can be unfair; sometimes brutally so.

When Jesus says that the poor in spirit, those who mourn, and the meek are all blessed, he’s not saying that any of these states is enjoyable or even intrinsically “good for the soul” in some spiritually masochistic way. Rather, he’s reasserting ancient wisdom about God: God cares for the downtrodden and oppressed.

“Meekness” in this context, therefore, doesn’t describe someone with a humble and self-effacing demeanor. It describes people who have been humbled by their circumstances, brought to their knees and made meek. Similarly, “mourning” can be the grief that comes with any significant loss — but in the context of the Old Testament, it can refer especially to the lament of God’s people languishing in Babylonian exile because of their stubborn refusal to change their idolatrous ways.

You don’t have to be economically poor, in other words, to be poor in spirit, to be brought so low that you lament the brokenness you see in your own life and everywhere around you. And you don’t have to be physically hungry to know a different kind of hunger and thirst that gnaws at your spirit: a longing for God to bring “righteousness,” to bring justice and make things right.

That is the humility with which we need to approach the Sermon on the Mount, indeed, with which we need to approach the life of faith itself in a broken world. But to sustain that humility, we also need renewed hope.

EACH OF THE eight Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-10 follows the same pattern (we’ll begin exploring verses 7 to 10 next time). Jesus says, “Blessed are…” then describes a group of people and the way God will bless them. Most of the promises are about some future blessing: those who mourn will be comforted, and so on. But the two bookend verses have the same blessing, stated in the present tense rather than the future:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. …
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 5:3, 10, NIV)

“Theirs is” — present tense — “the kingdom of heaven.” Contrast that to the “they will” promises of future blessing sandwiched between the bookends. This is an example of what New Testament scholars call the “already and not yet” of God’s kingdom. On the one hand, we live in a time in which the kingdom has already come, inaugurated in the life and ministry of Jesus. It’s here, it’s living, it’s growing — sometimes, despite appearances to the contrary.

But on the other hand, at the same time, it is not yet complete; its fullness awaits the day when Jesus returns in glory as King. That is when those who mourn will be comforted and the meek will inherit the earth. That is when those who hunger to see God make things right will be satisfied — because God will do it.

Christian hope is not mere optimism. It begins with the faithful recognition that we live in the time between the “theirs is” and the “they will” of the Beatitudes. We know that the kingdom is already here because we’ve seen its fruit and tasted its sweetness. We take this as a sign that points forward to the day in which such fruit will abound.

The fullness of the kingdom, however, in which God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven, is not yet, is for a future day. We live in hope and expectation, longing for that day, trusting that God will be true to his word.

But that doesn’t mean we just sit around passively waiting for God to do something. As we’ll see in the rest of the Beatitudes, those who know that the kingdom is already here and hope for its completion will live in a way that bears even more kingdom fruit.