The Best News Ever: You’re the Worst Person in the WorldSample

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.” — Matthew 5:3

I remember the first time I read that verse in my little blue leather Bible— Blessed are the poor in spirit. What does that mean?

Blessed - does that mean rewarded? Poor in spirit - doesn’t poor mean broke or sad? My parents seem to have all the money we need to eat, live, and buy things. Does that mean I won’t get to have the “kingdom of God? Because we aren’t poor enough?” What IS the kingdom of God, anyway? Like, a palace? I don’t even like fancy things.

These beatitudes, as they’re called in the heading, didn’t make sense to me, right out the gate. That first one. Like, what in the world?

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Apparently, in the original Greek language this verse was written in, the word “blessed” simply means “happy.” Happy are the poor in spirit. That doesn’t seem right, right?

How often do we associate happiness with poverty? How can people who are lacking be people who are happy? Jesus wasn’t talking about people living paycheck to paycheck or collecting unemployment. Jesus clarified that happy are the poor in spirit.

The Holman New Testament Commentary puts it this way: “The beginning of repentance is the recognition of one’s spiritual bankruptcy—one’s inability to become righteous on one’s own. The blessing or happiness that belongs to the poor in spirit is because such a person is, by his admission, already moving toward participating in God’s kingdom plan, acknowledging his need for a source of salvation outside himself.”

The commentator lists specific Old Testament scriptures that would have been familiar to the first hearers of Jesus’ sermon and the first readers of Matthew’s book. These include:

Psalm 40:17 - “I am oppressed and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my helper and my deliverer; my God, do not delay.”

Isaiah 57:15 - “For the High and Exalted One, who lives forever, whose name is holy, says this: ‘I live in a high and holy place, and with the oppressed and lowly of spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the oppressed.”

See that? Blessed are the poor in spirit. Happy are those people who recognize the reality of their needy position.

We are not aspiring superstars. The truth is this — we are poor. We are wretches, not winners. We are sinners, not successful. We can ignore it, but we can’t change it. Because whether or not we live like it, that’s what we are in our fallen state apart from God.

We, you and me, are needy people. Since the very beginning, it has been this way when Adam and Eve rebelled against God and broke the world and the human heart. We, and all who have breathed since that day, are born in sin. Mrs. Bo Peep was right. We don’t have to be perfect. We can’t be, and yet still God says to the rebels, You can be blessed. You can be happy. Only believe that you are what you really are, and I will give you the kingdom of Heaven. What a gift. What a God. In God’s upside-down kingdom, when we understand we are poor, that’s when we’re primed to experience the joy and peace only He can give us.