Counterintuitive blessings

Over at Wilderness Fandango, Bob has discovered something totally counter-intuitive about the beatitudes of Matthew 5:1-12: the blessings are not so much future promise as present condition. Here's Bob:

You see how none of this has anything to do with the great by-and-by? "Blessed" is more than a promise. It's a divine assessment of the the poor in spirit, the broken-hearted, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, etc.

"They shall be comforted." That is promise. "Blessed are." That is an assessment.

Yes, it is.