Happy are the Sad
Jenaya has been a substitute teacher, HS English teacher, and Alumni of University of Northwestern. She also teaches a HS Newspaper elective and a HS Missions elective. If you need any fun recipes to try in the kitchen, Jenaya is the one to ask! OR if you need a book recommendation for your summer reading list, she’s got great suggestions!
A Meditation of Matthew 5:3-4
“Chase happy things.” This was one of the eye-catching advertisements I saw as I was waiting for my drink order at Starbucks this morning. If we are honest, don’t we all want to be happy? God has made each one of us with the desire to be happy and fulfilled, but what kind of “happy” things ought we to chase? As we flit from one thing to the next, pursuing this unattainable “happiness,” we may understandably begin to lose hope. In our disappointment, we may drown ourselves in constant entertainment, fill our time with “to dos,” or fantasize how we wish our lives could be. We go anywhere we don’t have to think about how our Christian life seems to continually get harder, the pain goes deeper, our sin grows more disgusting, and hope in our own goodness melts away faster than we are comfortable with.
Despite all this, God calls “blessed” the person who lives in the messiness of life within the presence of God, without trying to avoid, escape, or run from it. Jesus starts out his famous Sermon on the Mount with some pretty shocking words. He states, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:3-4). In these verses “blessed” literally means “happy” or someone whose life is enviable. As the ESV Study Bible commentary puts it, this word “blessed” means “well-being in relationship with God that belongs to those who respond to Jesus’ ministry.” In this section of His sermon, Jesus is defining the nature of life in God’s kingdom for the Christian.
On the surface, who would want to be poor in spirit? Don’t we want to be strong in spirit? Someone who is “poor in spirit” is a person who confesses their own spiritual bankruptcy and recognizes their need for God. If we have awareness of our sin, that is a blessing from God. Being able to see our sin is the first step that can lead to repentance and acknowledging our need for Christ. We don’t only need this process of recognizing sin, repenting of it, and going to Christ one time. As Martin Luther said, the Christian is meant to, “begin, continue and end their life of faith here on earth with repentance.” How about the mournful person being “blessed”? Second Corinthians 7:10 puts this verse into good perspective: “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” By mourning, Jesus means a godly sorrow that recognizes that life is broken because of sin. Not only that, but there is a longing for God’s forgiveness and healing due to that sin.
Have we been desensitized to sin to the point where we no longer mourn it? We don’t like to sit in the awful, but sometimes that is just what we need. We are not meant to constantly dwell there, otherwise that would be utter hopelessness. However, getting to that place is a work of God in us, with the aim to then fix our eyes toward Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). It’s through the awful that we see our sin and need for him. Christian, let’s allow God to redefine what truly makes us happy. We need God’s Spirit to transform us by the renewing of our mind (Romans 12:1). In the Christian life, happy are the sad. Why? Because for the Christian, recognizing our poverty in spirit and mourning the brokenness of life due to sin is a good thing. As the endings of those first two beatitudes state: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. There are good promises ahead for those who see their need for Jesus and trust that his promises will be fulfilled, whether that is in our lifetime or ultimately in eternity. For this reason, happy are the sad Christians.
