The Joy of Lament: The Soul's Search for Happiness

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

This is the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on The Mount. It is so simple that a child can grasp its points and so profound that it has perplexed theologians and scholars for centuries. My aim here is not to enter the fray of the theological and scholarly debates, though I commend them to you, but rather to encourage you if I may, with that perplexing child-like understanding that produces an absolute dependency upon The Holy Spirit to speak to us individually and as One Body in Christ.

Everyone wants to be happy. We seek it out and sacrifice for it in a myriad of ways, and contrary to popular preaching, God wants us to be happy, but that happiness is not to be found in our 21^st century Western Worldview, for that is ever changing and those things which promise it perish with the using. God intends for us to find our joy in Him. He wants us to be eternally happy and that’s the whole point of the first 12 verses of Matthew 5.

The Old Testament ended with a prophecy about The Day of The Lord and the promise of the coming Messiah. The New Testament opens with that promise being fulfilled with the birth of Christ and for His first sermon Jesus blesses the people. This is only fitting since He is our great high priest, not after the order of Aaron, whose line was perishing but after the order of Melchizedek, whose line has no beginning of days nor end of life and who is the King of Salem, that is the King of Peace (Hebrews 7; Genesis 14:17-20).

To be blessed is to be happy and to prosper. Jesus makes clear that this has extraordinarily little to do with money and earthy possessions and everything to do with one’s spirit. “Happy and prosperous,” he says, “are the poor in spirit.” To be poor in spirit is to recognize one’s need for God. It is the realization that all the trinkets of the world can never fill the true void in the soul. The more that is accumulated the less fulfilling we find them to be and the cycle is such that unless the Holy Spirit of God opens our eyes to it we will continue to fill ourselves with the fluff of the world. The James Bond movie was right, the world is not enough.

When I was a child, I used to like eating marshmallow fluff. It was just the best stuff ever, until one day I’d eaten an entire jar of it and found myself hunched over the toilet with a horrific stomachache, vomiting out a continuous stream of now watery, foamy, white stuff I’d so gleefully crammed into my mouth only moments before. In love my mother scolded me for having done so, later explaining that there’s nothing wrong with eating marshmallow fluff, but it doesn’t make for a good meal.

There’s nothing wrong with having nice things but those nice things are not to be an end unto themselves. To be poor in spirit is to recognize that every good and perfect gift comes down from the father of lights in whom there is no variation or shadow due to change (James 1:17).

Each blessing in this portion of the sermon comes with a promise and that promise is revealed as a change in perspective. Why are those who poor in spirit blessed? Because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Those who recognize their need for God are met by Him, and so have found the true desires of their soul, which is to be loved, known, and accepted, overflowingly satisfied in Christ alone and thus, given an eternal perspective. The Apostle Paul puts it this way:

We do not look at things which are seen for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal (2^nd Corinthians 4:18).

And again, in another place Paul says:

Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things, I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:11-13)

Paul had an eternal perspective. His joy was found in Christ and therefore, his was the kingdom of heaven. Paul lived his life out of the realization that this was not his home! The blessings and promises that Jesus makes here in Matthew 5:3-12 bid us to do the same. Jesus is inviting us to live out of a reality anchored in eternity. This is not pie in the sky in the sweet by and by. This is in the grit and the dirt of everyday life.  2^nd Corinthians 4:7-15 makes it clear that we are going to have hard and trying times here on earth. We are going to be struck down, persecuted, hard pressed on every side and perplexed but Jesus commands us to be of good cheer, because He has overcome the world (John 16:33).

Beloved, do not despise being needy before God, for He will meet you there and so fill you with Himself that you may know that yours is the kingdom of heaven. Do it as often as you breathe. Acknowledge The Lord in all your ways and He will direct your path. Anchor your life in eternity and not in the fleeting pleasures of this world. Live in the promise. Yours is the kingdom of heaven.

In Christ, 

Storm

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