Jesus opens the Sermon on the Mount with a list of blessings that describe covenant life upside down from the world’s expectations: blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the gentle, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. These are not conditions to achieve blessing by works, but descriptions of those to whom the kingdom of heaven already belongs.
The sermon ties these blessings to the new covenant sealed in Christ’s blood — ‘this cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood’ — and to entering the kingdom of God itself, which Jesus says requires being born again, of water and the Spirit. The blessings of the covenant, then, are not scattered benefits but the whole shape of a life brought into God’s kingdom through the new birth and sustained under His blood.