In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus pronounced blessings on people the world rarely notices: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, the hungry, the merciful and the persecuted (Matthew 5:1–12). These sayings, known as the Beatitudes, turn our usual ideas of success upside down.
This story about the Beatitudes, retold in our own words, comes from Ukraine's Orange Revolution, together with the reflection the writer Philip Yancey drew from it. It ends with a takeaway for sermons or reflection.
Stories in this collection:
The Small Screen of Truth: Natalia Dmytruk and the Orange Revolution
In 2004, Viktor Yushchenko stood for the presidency of Ukraine against the candidate backed by the ruling establishment. During the campaign he became gravely ill. Doctors later confirmed that he had been poisoned with dioxin, which left his face badly scarred. He survived, and refused to withdraw.
When the votes were counted in the run-off election in November, the official results declared his opponent, Viktor Yanukovych, the winner. Independent observers and exit polls suggested otherwise, and the election was later found to have been marred by widespread fraud.
On state television, the news presenter read out the official line: the challenger had been defeated. But in a small box in the lower corner of the screen, a sign-language interpreter named Natalia Dmytruk was translating the broadcast for deaf viewers.
Dmytruk had decided she would not pass on what she believed was a lie. Instead of translating the presenter's words, she signed her own message to deaf viewers. The official results were false, she told them, she was ashamed to translate them, and Yushchenko was the real president.
Her act of courage spread quickly. Deaf viewers told friends and family, and others in the media were encouraged to speak more honestly about what had happened. Her protest became one small part of the Orange Revolution, in which huge crowds wearing orange gathered in the capital, Kyiv, for weeks to demand a fair vote.
In the end Ukraine's Supreme Court annulled the result and ordered the run-off to be held again. In the repeat vote in December 2004, Yushchenko won, and he became president in January 2005.
The writer Philip Yancey later reflected on the story in his book What Good Is God? The little screen of truth in the corner of the big screen, he wrote, became for him a picture of what the church is meant to be.
The church, Yancey observed, does not control the big screen, and when it has tried to, it has usually made a mess of it. The big screen tells us that what matters most is beauty, money and power, and it celebrates the rich and famous while the poor seldom appear at all. Every society has glorified winners rather than losers.
Then along comes Jesus, says Yancey, like the interpreter in the corner of the screen, telling us not to believe what the big screen says. It is the poor who are blessed, and those who mourn, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and the persecuted. Those who think they are at the top end up at the bottom, and those who feel they are at the bottom end up on top.
Takeaway: The Beatitudes are God's small screen of truth in a noisy world. Jesus asks, "What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" (Mark 8:36). His followers are called to keep translating that truth, even when the big screen says otherwise.
Source: Accounts of Natalia Dmytruk and the 2004 Ukrainian election; Philip Yancey, What Good Is God? (FaithWords, 2010).
Final thoughts
One woman in a small box in the corner of the screen, telling the truth. That is what the Beatitudes invite us to do: to see the world as Jesus sees it, and to say so.
For related stories, see our stories about justice. For further reading, Sopranu reviews Timothy Keller's The Reason for God.
Which Beatitude challenges you most this week?
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These stories are retold in our own words for teaching and reflection. Sources are credited under each story.
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