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

Poor is an economic term,  it means that person isn’t rich, it’s specific to the exact need to know that that person is lacking… something…  but what is lacking is usually money.  As far as someone who is rich,  it means they have more than enough, and it’s usually money also.  But here Jesus is talking about spirit, something which is not tangible like wealth or money.

When we talk generally about spirit, we talk about a persons drive – “That guy has a can do attitude”, or “They have spirit”.  Usually an enthusiastic and cheerful disposition of optimal success, and they usually succeed.  In the United States, we often refer to spirit as a movement like “The Spirit of 1776” in which our founding fathers designed our government.  Spirit is a good thing.

So why is Jesus saying “poor in spirit” are blessed, it sounds like an oxymoronic statement, or a “contradiction in terms.”  You can’t be lacking spirit and be blessed, well blessed by being poor in spirit.  But that is exactly what Jesus is saying.   Those who are broken, those who are lacking any measure of perfection in themselves, those who are the poorest in self worth, these are the poor in spirit.

Jesus didn’t come to get the best and the brightest, and “Make the Kingdom of Heaven Great!”, He’s saying quite the opposite.   Jesus came for the broken, the imperfect, the people who would be thrown on the trash heap of humanity.   Jesus came for the blind, and the weak and the frail, because these are the poor in spirit.  Jesus came for the lost!

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus needs broken people, he fixes broken things, but then he makes them important, he makes them honorable, not just in a museum, but in his dwelling place, in heaven.

This fallen world does a smash up job of ruining good things and making a wrath of broken humanity.  Deep down inside all of us, if we are honest, we realize, we are broken wretches, so dirty and vile it would make a dog barf off the back of a gut wagon (sorry about the Texans idiom, it just seemed to fit).

Here in the south I often hear people say “Bless your heart”, which really means sorry for you, you have a bad life.  In a way, it’s getting back to this entire idea, Jesus blesses our hearts, cleans us up, takes us from that refuse pile, and makes us His.    I am poor in spirit, and I’m broken.   I’m torn up, I need a doctor, I need a healer, I need a friend!  I need Jesus, each and every day!

But the blessing!!!  The blessing is I will live with Him in eternity, and I am part of the The Kingdom of heaven.   Broken in spirit = Kingdom Citizen.  This vile cruel broken and fallen world is not my home, i’m just a passing through!

Picture by Steve Knutson