I still remember that Saturday morning like it was yesterday.
I was a little bored so I decided to go check up one of the bookshops in the city. And there I was minutes later standing in the corridor while thumbing through Bill Clinton and Barack Obama’ autobiographies.
It was all thrilling and though I wanted to savor all of it ,my wallet couldn’t match my thrill. One more thrill awaited for me though, it was unexpected. In one of the lower shelves I noticed a little brown book with a title that went something like “Greatest World Speeches”. So I quickly rushed to that seeing that am also a fair lover of words.
Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther, Winston Church hill where the speeches outlined therein, but that’s not what moved me, because I was like “Who gets surprised seeing Martin Luther listed as one of the great orators – come on, rhetoric!”
But wait...
Somewhere in the middle of the book was this speech that seemed misplaced. I did not expect to find it it looked foreign in this book, above it was a title that described it as the one of the greatest speeches central to the Christian faith, as I looked closely, I realized this was actually Jesus Christ’s speech at Mount Sermon famously known as the sermon on the Mount in Mathew 5.
Nearly ten of the first few lines began with the phrase “Blessed are those”
And yes I was surprised, left me wondering how many of us Christians seriously take the Mathew 5 as one of the greatest t speeches ever told in world history, it looked like the world took this chapter seriously than Christianity.
So anyway I read. (This is where I thank God for all the bookstore attendants who allow us to stand reading in the corridors of their book shelves in times when we cannot afford to buy ourselves copies,thank you)
Yep I read, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth Blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall be filled, Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.
The chapter went on and on talking about our need to be the salt of the world, the city on a hill and many other themes.
Well I don’t know whether Jesus stood behind a podium and held a microphone in his Jerusalem visits,I don’t know whether he had the Israeli national emblem emblazoned behind him as he spoke, the way Barack Obama poses in front of the United States one or the way those FBI chaps in movies stand in front of the CIA one, but I was left convinced of one thing .
That blessed..
Blessed are the cool,for they shall go read Mathew 5 on their own.
