Matthew 5:1-3 (NIV) 1Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2and he began to teach them saying: 3"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus constantly encountered people on their futile search for happiness. He offered them hope for what they were looking for and a new way of finding it, but that way was met with skepticism, puzzlement, and rejection. The Sermon on the Mount is a summary of the happiness that Jesus offers which is so radically different from what we have been taught by our culture. Jesus says we are to hope for the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven speaks to that joy we find in living under God’s rule, like the experience of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before sin came in. The Kingdom of Heaven is like those moments when we experience life just like it should be, as we hope it always will be. The moment may pass, but it leaves a residue of hope in our life.
The Kingdom of Heaven brings to us more than a fleeting moment of happiness. It builds into our life a kind of permanence that no hell on earth can destroy. The pains of failure and disappointment may be great but they cannot squash our confidence in God’s providential care. We may hurt with the emptiness of being single or the frustration of being married, but nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. We may not have achieved our potential. We may be broken in body or cripple in spirit and yet still know that life Jesus called abundant.
Those who experience the Kingdom of Heaven are the poor in spirit, which is the opposite of what the Scriptures call pride. Pride is an inner attitude of overconfidence in ourselves. Pride is a kind of stance in life that says we can handle life by ourselves, fight the battles by ourselves, and that we want no handouts.
Poor, in this passage, literally refers to a beggar, who in Jesus’ time knew survival was utterly dependent on the generosity of others. Each day was lived in dependence on unearned gifts received from others. The poor in spirit are those who recognize that they are helpless without God’s help. They are dependent on God in whatever way God provides for them.
To be poor in spirit is to recognize our beggar status before God. To some of us that may sound like having low self-esteem, an inferiority complex, or a lack of confidence. But, that is not the way the poor in spirit look in real life. All around us are calls to recognize the truth about ourselves. There is the sheer drudgery of life. No matter what status the world gives to our work or life, the sheer wear and tear of the routine can begin to make us poor in spirit. When we realize how fragile the gift of life is, when we see our hopes and dreams go unfulfilled, when we have achieved all or most of what we hoped for and realize we have come up empty the experiences of life will constantly be giving us notice that we are poor in spirit. Will we heed the message? Will we give in to the truth?
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope April 7, 1991
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles
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