The word ‘righteousness’ is not used much these days.  It has to do, of course, with what is right and good and true.  Righteousness....!  And Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled.”

Someone suggested that if we take these words of Jesus and turn them around then we have a pretty fair description of the human race.  Not then a hungering and thirsting for righteousness but rather a strong desire for unrighteousness.

A little reflection will make us aware that there’s a lot of truth in that.  Think of the many movies over the years that have glorified violence and brutality, or movies that promote a barnyard view of sexuality.  Think of books... the novels... that have to be explicit and vulgar if they are to sell well.  These are the symptoms of a sick society that’s busy imitating the unrighteousness of ancient Sodom and Gomorrah.  Well, Jesus has no blessing on such a hunger and thirst for UNrighteousness.  In fact, he would say, “Woe to those who hunger and thirst for unrighteousness for they shall never be satisfied.”

When folk glory in evil and that which is opposed to God’s standards then we never find fulfilment.  On the other hand Jesus speaks a word of blessing to those who long for righteousness... for those who hunger and thirst for what is right and pure and true.  Blessed are such people who seek for that in their own lives and in society – for that alone brings satisfaction.

But all this raises the question: who sets the standard for what is right... for righteousness?  I discussed this with a young man recently and he said: “I believe my conscience sets the standard for me of what is right and good.  All I need to do is follow my conscience.”  That’s not a bad answer but it leaves us with the problem of human beings with a frizzled conscience that allows them to do the most outrageous things.  Think only of the consciences of the men who flew the aeroplanes into New York’s Twin Towers.  Their consciences convinced them that they were doing something good.  Sadly, there were other twisted consciences that applauded their atrocity.  My young friend saw the problem and retorted: “Well, of course our conscience is shaped by our community – so I guess that ultimately it’s our society that sets the standard of righteousness... that determines what is good and what isn’t.”  But that only intensifies the problem of the hardened and twisted conscience.  Whose society should set the standard for our conscience? The society of Hitler’s Nazi Stormtroopers!?  The society governed by Hamas – that blithely wiped out a thousand Israelis in just one terrorist raid!?  No!  When Jesus talks about hungering and thirsting for righteousness he had in mind the Judaeo-Christian ethic summarised in the Ten Commandments.  Jesus Himself taught that standard of morality in the Sermon on the Mount.  Matthew’s gospel records three chapters of Jesus’ teaching – as he applied God’s standard of righteousness to our various human relationships.  It’s this hungering and thirsting for God’s divinely given standard of righteousness that is ultimately most satisfying.  Blessed indeed are those who’s great desire is to live by that standard of  righteousness.

That leaves us with just one other question.  We live in a culture that – by and large – no longer knows the Ten Commandments and that is ignorant of the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.  We make up our standards of righteousness on the run.  So we approve same-sex marriage and we legalise prostitution.  Isn’t hungering and thirsting for righteousness then a matter of swimming against the current of unrighteousness and permissiveness that we see everywhere today?  How, in fact, can we conquer our own baser instincts that pull us in the direction of unrighteousness?  The answer is: only by turning in faith to Jesus Christ and so share in the perfect righteousness that he achieved for us.

That’s the crux of the matter for Christians.  We believe that Jesus not only died to pay the penalty for our unrighteousness.  We also believe that Jesus lived a perfectly righteous life of total and perfect obedience to God His Father in heaven – but he didn’t only do that just for himself... he also did it for us.  By faith in him we are now credited with the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.  Hunger and thirst for that and you will be satisfied.

John Westendorp