Beauty: Those Who Have a Clean Window Into Their Soul

"Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they will see God." (Matt. 5:8)

"Blessed are those who have a clean window into their soul, 

for they will perceive God when and where others don't." 

(Brian Zahnd paraphrase)

To see Jesus is to see God. When we read the Gospel stories it's interesting to note that those who were quicker to recognize God in Jesus were the sinful and irreligious people. Jesus called the religious leaders and Pharisees "blind" on various occasions. According to this beatitude, seeing God is connected with purity of heart, or cleanness of heart. Zahnd says, "There is a sense in which the heart or soul is an organ of perception...The heart of man is like a window, which if clean, can perceive God at work in the world...But the cleanness of heart that enables us to see God...(is) not the morally upright or ethically irreproachable who have clean hearts (as commendable as these things may be); rather, cleanness of heart has to do with a lack of pride, hypocrisy, and judgmentalism. Overconfidence in our ability to see, producing the perception that we can accurately judge others, is in reality a form of spiritual blindness..."

In John 9:39-41 Jesus says that it was the Pharisees' certainty that they could see that actually kept them blind! "The same window that allows light in so that we can see our own sin is also the window by which we can look outward and see God at work in the world. Those who claim to be qualified to judge others because of their own supposed moral superiority are, in fact, living in profound spiritual darkness..."

It is in the incarnation Christ that we see the invisible God apart from which we can't see God. However, God continues His work on earth through incarnation in lives of common people who live and love and serve others as Jesus did. If pride and judgmentalism corrupts us, we can't see God's activity in the lives of flawed and broken humans.

The author concludes this section by saying that "if we in humility acknowledge our own sins and flaws, disqualifying ourselves to judge others, that is when we at last begin to see...Instead of seeing the sins and shortcomings of others, we will see God unexpectedly at work in the lives of ordinary people, even sinners. Sometimes the world becomes a much more beautiful place simply by being able to see God - ...present in the lives of others. In this case it's true - beauty lies in the eye of the beholder."

The next post will be on the seventh beatitude: "Blessed are the peaceful bridge builders in a war-torn world, for they are God's children working in the family business."