The Kingdom Movement

A Literary & Pastoral Study Guide to the Gospel of Matthew

The Inspiration of Matthew,

by Caravaggio

On the King's Errand

Devotional Reflections on Matthew's Gospel

Influential Ambassadors, Part One:  Mt.5:3 – 4

^5:3 Blessed are…

          Jesus’ beatitudes are poetic descriptions of the character qualities of the kingdom of heaven.  They’re given by the King himself.  They describe a process of transformation.  And they also describe the way Jesus believed his people would influence the rest of the world.  The famous ‘salt and light’ passage coming at the end of the beatitudes indicate that.  That makes us ‘influential ambassadors’ if we hearken to these character qualities.  A story I read recently demonstrates this process of transformation, and also influence.  I’ll retell part of that story, mentioning how I see the first four beatitudes demonstrated. 

Erica Shinya was once a spoiled, rich kid from a Buddhist, Japanese-American home.  However, she came to know Jesus, and now she gives herself to those in desperate poverty all over Southeast Asia.  Her story encourages me.  Erica’s father, Dr. Hiromi Shinya, invented a medical device now utilized in endoscopies around the globe, becoming a world-renowned — and wealthy — physician. Life changed drastically for the Shinya family.  ‘We went from this tiny, nothing apartment where we couldn’t afford milk to a 10,000-square-foot home with a swimming pool and tennis court,’ Erica recalls.  ‘My first car was a BMW.’  But it couldn’t fill a deeper need in Erica’s life. ‘I felt empty.  I had everything, yet I had nothing.’ 

In college, Erica accepted an invitation to a Bible study.  She remembers clearly how deeply Jesus touched her.  She saw that she was poor in spirit, needy and empty, and Jesus opened the door for her to enter his kingdom:  ‘I was overwhelmed by the love and forgiveness of Jesus.  Buddhism taught me to do the right thing, to do things by duty, by tradition.  But there was no heart change.  When I learned about Jesus, I recognized that my life needed to change, as well.’  She mourned the brokenness in her life, and wanted to change.

^5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
^5:4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

In Isaiah, God speaks of ‘dwelling with’ those who are ‘poor in spirit,’ which seems to mean humble before God:  ‘But to this one I will look, to the one who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at my word’ (Isa.66:2).  ‘I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite’ (Isa.57:15). 

Isaiah also speaks of the Lord comforting those who mourn:  ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, to proclaim the favorable year of the LORD and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn’ (Isa.61:1 – 2).  ‘I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and to his mourners’ (Isa.57:18).   

Jesus, in the first two beatitudes, speaks of a person who wants to change from something:  spiritual poverty/emptiness, and sin that deserves nothing but to be mourned.  I think of them as meaning, ‘Lord, I need you’ and ‘Lord, I’m sorry.’  Praise God that our healing and transformation begins in that simple way.  Come, Lord Jesus.

(Erica Shinya Kim’s story was distilled from an article in Christianity Today by Claudia Cangilla McAdam, http://www.christianitytoday.com/tc/2007/002/10.24.html)