Jesus' Teaching: Blessed are Those Who Mourn

Jesus shows a new way of being Israel, and says that the promised end of exile is not going to come through revolution or through the Law but through meekness, mourning, and gentleness. This was not the message anyone really wanted. Gentleness is harder work than fighting, since it means taming your angry impulses. But God’s new kingdom is not based on anger but on love. Jesus was meek, poor, and mourning in a way that we could not, and so he fulfilled the end of the exile.