Tuesday 20th February
Read Matthew 5:3
“‘Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (NIVUK)
Some translations use ‘happy’ to capture the idea behind ‘blessed’, others suggest ‘the good life belongs to…’ and I confess I lean towards the latter. Goodness and life are rich biblical promises held out to God’s people and here Jesus defines for us those who will find it.
Those who will find it are those who are ‘poor in spirit’. Does it mean spiritually impoverished or perhaps lacking in spirit, in the sense of lethargic and powerless? Both can be true and both probably capture Jesus’ pronouncement. It is not those who are spiritually privileged who will find God’s kingdom, but those who are outsiders, those who are powerless. In Luke’s gospel this Beatitude is translated simply as the ‘poor’, those who are economically and spiritually humiliated.
So if we are actually spiritually privileged and economically powerful does that mean we miss out on the kingdom? Should we actively impoverish ourselves in order to find the good life? The best we can do is recognise at the very beginning of the sermon that we are simply unable to meet the criteria Jesus is about to lay out. Our economic circumstances and spiritual privilege are just too great.
Don Carson captures the most appropriate response well. “We cannot fulfill God’s standards ourselves. We must come to him and acknowledge our spiritual bankruptcy, emptying ourselves of our self-righteousness, moral self-esteem, and personal vainglory. Emptied of these things we are ready for him to fill us. Much of the rest of the Sermon on the Mount is designed to remove these self-delusions from us, and foster within us a genuine poverty of spirit. The genuineness and depth of this repentance is a prime requirement for entering life.” (Don Carson, The Sermon on the Mount).
