THE LUCKY LIFE

Winning Backwards

By
Skip Moen, D. Phil.

2011

1
 THE LUCKY LIFE

Winning Backwards

Luck is for losers. Winners do not believe in luck. But they believe in the lucky life. They believe in the
lucky life because God's view of life is all about being lucky. Understanding the difference between luck and
lucky will change everything for you.

Stop waiting for good luck! Start living the lucky life – God's way.

In 2002 my luck ran out. In a single e-mail, I discovered that I was the victim of a huge financial fraud. I lost
everything. I went from millionaire to pauper at the speed of the Internet. That's when God introduced me to
the life of a man named Job. That's when I began to learn something about the difference between luck and
lucky. Today I have not recovered from this financial blow. I will ever see that money again. But my life is far
richer because I know now what it really means to be lucky. I don't need good luck. I don't even want it. Good
luck is a myth of an accidental world. What I want is the lucky life God tells me that I can have. And He
guarantees it.

When life smacks you in the face, when the only kind of luck you have is bad luck, it's time to change your
point of view. Luck is for losers. Now it's time to let God show you the lucky life He wants for you.

2
 Life As It Is: The Biggest Lottery In The World

Choosing to win

Would you play the lottery if you were guaranteed to win?

According to current surveys, today more people believe that they will become millionaires by winning the
lottery than by developing a business or working hard at what they do. That's why they play. They want to win
big. They want to put life's problems behind them and be free from worry. However, it shouldn't surprise us
that surveys also show that most people who win the lottery are broke within a few years. Winning the lottery
changed the size of the bank account but it did not change the kind of person who signed the checks. The old
habits just got bigger budgets.

God has a lottery too. The difference is that God has designed His lottery so that everyone can win. That's
what Yeshua* tried to tell us in those famous sayings on the hillside. The Beatitudes are not spiritual exercises.
They are not a new kind of morality. They are lottery tickets in the biggest game in town. The best part about
this lottery is that everyone who gets a ticket wins the jackpot. There is no limit in God's lottery. Forget Pick 6
or Scratch Off. If you play in God's lottery, you will win the big one – Life the way it's supposed to be.

How do you play God's lottery of life? Amazingly, in this lottery you don't even have to buy a ticket. Just
being alive makes you a potential player. God tells us that if you play the game His way, you win. If you try to
play the game your way, you are guaranteed to lose. No amount of luck will make any difference to the
outcome. If you want to win, you need to listen to what Yeshua says about this game. He gives us the "How to
Play" manual for the Lucky Life. The only question is this: are we ready to play?

The Beatitudes don't sound like fortunes from Chinese cookies. They sound like disasters: poor, mourning,
hungry, dirty, guilty and persecuted. Those aren't the kind of words that we associate with lucky. That's the
mystery of the Beatitudes. They are sacred paradoxes about the lucky life. When you discover what they really
say, you can't help shouting, "WOW! I just won God's prize." Put aside all those old Sunday school lessons on
the Beatitudes. Push away your preconceived ideas about being a good person or living up to the rules. The
Beatitudes are not about how to make yourself more virtuous. The Beatitudes are about responding to life as it
is. They are God's view of lucky. When life throws curve balls or hits below the belt, Yeshua says, "Now you
are playing in God's lottery. Now you are the lucky one. Jump for joy. You win."

Want to play?

(* Yeshua is the proper name of the man most of us call “Yeshua.” He is a Jew and His name is Jewish, so in
this book, I will use the name He was given, not the one we gave Him.)

THINK BACKWARDS

The world in reverse

Oswald Chambers’ thoughts were collected into the most popular daily devotional ever printed. His comments
for May 26 pose a serious question for lottery players.

The danger with us is that we want to water down the things that Jesus says and make them mean
something in accordance with common sense; if it were only common sense, it was not worthwhile for
Him to say it.1

1
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For his Highest, (Barbour & Company), 1935, p. 147.
3
I believe that this is what we have done with those statements Yeshua made on the hillside – the statements that
we call “the Beatitudes”. I don't mean that we have tried to make Yeshua’s words into comments about
economic, political or material well-being. We don’t need a Yeshua who is “politically correct”. We have
focused on the “spiritual” meanings instead of the “physical” ones. But even these efforts have often converted
the words of Yeshua into common sense “God” language. We have diluted His declarations to accommodate
our contemporary religious pluralism and our cultural framework.

When I study these short sentences carefully, when I begin to understand the deeper meanings of the Greek
words used to convey Yeshua’s message, when I investigate the Hebrew He spoke which was translated into
these Greek sentences, I find something very different. I find a radical, upside down, backwards thinking about
life that says that my usual common sense view is not even close to what God thinks. The Beatitudes are
suddenly converted from spiritual comments on proper religious attitudes into penetrating, demanding and
incredibly revealing looks into a kingdom that is nearly invisible to the common sense eye. These “macarisms”
(that’s really what they are – a kind of Greek saying that comes from the first word of each statement in the
Greek – makarios) show that Yeshua was the greatest Zen master who ever lived. In less than a dozen
sentences, he completely undoes the world’s values and goals by showing us that the Ruler of the Universe has
a different way of pointing out those who are jumping for joy.

Read on and see for yourself. You’ll never be able to listen to a “Blessed are” again without wanting to stand
on your head.

WHO ARE GOD'S LUCKY WINNERS?

It's not who you think.

Each of the Beatitudes introduces a class of people who seem entirely unlucky. They are:

the desperate
the grieving
the oppressed
the ones under judgment
the ones not getting what they deserve
the ones not good enough
the ones at risk
the ones being driven out

All of the Beatitudes focus on something that the world rejects or tries to avoid. We can hardly imagine how
anyone described in these ways could ever be a candidate for “jumping for joy” happiness. But Yeshua says
they are. Yeshua tells us in His macarisms that God intends to make the wisdom of men foolishness and the
foolishness of God eternal wisdom. In every case, the true reality is exposed in light of God’s Kingdom. What
4
passes for the apparent reality of this world is just wrong-headed. Yeshua tells us that we must think
backwards if we are to see God’s reign correctly.

Yeshua announces lucky good fortune to exactly those whom the world considers the most unfortunate. His
announcements about the happy ones seem utterly paradoxical. These statements are just backwards. Yeshua’
Beatitudes reverse all of the expected values of life on earth. Yeshua seems to throw common sense out the
window.

Let's look at the structure of each Beatitude to find the rules for playing the biggest lottery ever conceived.
Each Beatitude begins with the Greek word makarioi. This word means "happy, fortunate or lucky". It is not a
verb; not an action word that requires that we do something in order to receive a blessing. It's an adjective. It
describes the present state of a person. Our English translation "Blessed" makes us think that these sayings are
like spiritual principles for right actions. "If you are like this or that, you will receive a blessing from God."
But this is not the sense of Yeshua's "Lucky Life" descriptions. Yeshua is talking about the inner emotional and
mental state of the people who are winners in God's game. They didn't do anything to deserve God's favor. In
fact, they probably don't even know they have won. The life that God engineered for them brought them into
circumstances that made them lucky just because they were there. These people are walking around with the
$340 million Powerball winning ticket but they don't know it. It's right there, in the pocket, but they are still
living on an hourly wage from McDonald's.

Yeshua wants to show us the ticket in our pocket that we forgot. But he wants to show us that ticket by helping
us see life as it is. Without filters. Without protection. Without escapes. God's lucky winners are found in the
midst of life's trials. That's the big news. The Lucky Life belongs to the down-and-out, just like you and me.

5
LIFE AS IT IS: LOTTERY WINNER NUMBER ONE

DESPERATE

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

Wednesday, March 26. The man from Uz stopped by to say hello.

Most of my life I feared his visit. I suspect that none of us really want him to show up at our front door. When
he comes, pain and suffering follow. Of course I was afraid. But like most of his visits, I didn’t know he was
coming until he was already there. No longer the man of ancient times, he traveled electronically from half way
around the world to greet me. Believing that my world was safe and secure, I simply opened the evening e-
mails. And there he was, shaking hands with me. In a few sentences, my world collapsed. Job came to town.

Job lived in Uz. One day, for no reason that he could imagine, four messengers arrived at his doorstep. Each
one brought news of disaster. In the course of a single afternoon, Job lost everything. He was transformed
from a prosperous, joyous father to a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. His life was turned upside-down
with pain and suffering.

On the Wednesday that Job greeted me, my life was shaken to the core. One minute I was a multi-millionaire,
the next I was penniless. One minute I was secure in myself, the next I was completely vulnerable. One minute
I had few cares and concerns, the next I was afraid. All that I thought was right with my life was gone. What
fell on me was unexpected catastrophe. I was caught in the vise and my life was being squeezed from me.
Suddenly my life was spelled "desperate".

Job listened to those messengers. When they finished their declarations, Job went out of his house, torn his
clothes from his body, fell on his knees and said, “God! You brought me into the world with nothing. I will
leave the world with nothing. You give and you take away. I will still worship you.”

After I heard what Job had to say to me, I was so numb that I could hardly think. My security was stripped
away in the blink of an eye. Everything that I thought I could count on, all the plans and hopes for my future,
were dashed to pieces. I was afraid to the bottom of my soul. How could I survive? What would I do? Where
could I go? Who would help me? I should have listened to Job’s reply when his life turned to dust. God gives
and God takes away. The question is not what I have but whom I worship.

I sat still. Thousands of miles from my home, alone, disconnected from everything that I counted on, my chest
felt as though a mountain fell on it. My stomach was sour with dread. My head hurt. My mind reeled with
panic. I clenched my teeth to stay in control. Death would have been easier than this. To live with the pain, to
have to bear the suffering of losing everything. To know that friends, family, loved-ones who counted on me
would be pulled into this spiral. It was almost too much. The air I tried to breathe was sick syrup, choking me.
Where was God? Why was this happening to me? I thought I was safe. I thought I had achieved the dream –
independently wealthy. Now it was gone. And deep inside I knew why. I just didn’t want to admit it or even
think about it. I was not Job, the righteous man from Uz. I was Jacob, the manipulator, the schemer, the
unrighteous fortune seeker. And God was hunting me down.

Desperately lucky

The first Beatitude in Matthew’s gospel is usually translated something like this: “Blessed are the poor in spirit
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. That’s probably the way most of us learned the verse. Unfortunately,
learning it like this has meant that most of us never really had any idea what Yeshua was actually saying.

6
Our first mis-understanding comes with the opening word, “Blessed”. While this certainly sounds lofty,
something fitting for a pronouncement from the lips of the Incarnate Christ, the real meaning is not about
bestowing some great favor. The word that He used, handed down to us in Greek, is makarioi
() and it really means “happy" or "lucky".

This very old Greek word, found as early as Homer, is associated with material prosperity. In fact, in the Greek
world there was an entire collection of these terse sayings about being lucky. They are called by a formula
name, “macarisms”. They are something equivalent to Zen sayings, a sort of Greek version of the Japanese
haiku, juxtaposing two usually opposite thoughts in a single mind-jarring composition that demands a complete
overhaul of the listener's picture of the world. Some examples of macarisms from classical Greek are, “He who
has no possessions is free of many worries” and “The only attitude to be desired is that of self-sufficiency”.
Yeshua was the ultimate Jewish Zen master with his unique declarations. With this in mind, we might ask how
the macarism recorded in Matthew 5:3 rattles the structures of our thinking, for if it does not, we have missed its
whole point.

“Lucky”, says Yeshua. Not “blessed”. The reason these verses are called the Beatitudes comes from the Latin
translation of the Greek New Testament. For more than a thousand years, Latin was the language of the church.
The first word in Greek becomes the Latin word beatitudo, which means blessing. This Latin word was
transported into the English Bible as a title for these verses. So we got "Beatitude". That was the first mistake.

Being blessed is not the same as being lucky. The idea of a blessing conveys the thought of someone in a
superior position granting a favor to someone in a lower position. From the position of God’s supreme
authority, blessings are granted to His children, just as a king grants favors to his subjects. “Blessed” would
make us think that we are going to be given something. It makes us think that we are some special class of
people who will be granted an incredible favor from the King of kings. “Blessed” makes us think that this
statement is about an action of lofty, divine entitlement. That’s because “blessed” is associated with an English
word that comes from a root meaning to be marked with blood, consecrated, praised. Blessed is more in line
with our thoughts about being set apart. It carries with it the notion of being special, of having a birthright. As
we shall see, the idea of “blessed” radically affects the interpretation of this verse.

The church and its representatives may claim to “grant” God’s blessings, but they cannot grant being "lucky”.
Lucky is a condition that knows no hierarchy. The least in the kingdom can certainly be happier or luckier than
the most powerful in the kingdom. No “favor” is required for the condition of being lucky. In a world
governed by God’s sovereignty, being lucky is simply a matter of being in His will. Since there are no
accidents in this world, luck isn’t accidental either. It is a direct result of seeing what’s really there.

Yeshua is saying something about being lucky. Whomever he happens to be addressing in this Zen saying (and
we have yet to see who that might be), He is announcing that the hearer of this proclamation is lucky, fortunate,
a outright winner. Something amazing is occurring, and the hearer is the luckiest person alive just for hearing
it. So pay attention, audience! What He is about to say will produce great joy, heart-throbbing, mind-leaping
euphoria. If you are a hearer of this word, you have just won God’s lottery. And the prize is beyond counting.
Leap for joy, your ship has come in. Be happy! You’re the lucky one.

Playing without a ticket

Newman and Stine2 point out that that nearly all English translations fail to communicate a very important
element found in this opening word. What we miss in our English translation is that the action is passive. God
is the active agent here, not the people identified by the opening word makarioi. There is a reason why the

2
Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C, A Handbook on The Gospel of Matthew (United Bible Societies, New York), 1988, p. 107.

7
word is an adjective, not a verb. The action described in each of the Beatitudes is bought upon these people.
They are the passive recipients of this bliss. They have won the lottery without even buying a ticket.

We need to be very careful about our English translations. Every English Beatitude makes "blessed" a
predicate adjective. In order to do this in English, I have to supply the missing verb. So we get, "Blessed are
those who." But the Greek text contains no such verb. It literally reads "Lucky those". The usual English
translation implies that these people have received something favorable. But "lucky those" merely describes the
state of being of the subject. The adjective makarios does nothing more than tell us that the subject is
experiencing luck. It does not tell us how that happened or under what conditions it exists. Until I understand
the rest of the verse, I have no logical reason to expect anything. I am not given a guidebook for making myself
lucky. I am simply pointed toward those who are lucky. The Beatitude is much more like a news reporter's
statement of fact than it is like a minister's prescription for spiritual gain. When I discover the insight in the
second part of each Beatitude, I soon find that this state of bliss is not something I can earn at all. It is gift, pure
and simple. But it is a gift with a very unusual twist, as we shall see.

It's not what you do

Yeshua is not proclaiming a right of passage for the select few (the blessed), and He is not announcing the
rewards for actions performed by the chosen. So who is he talking about? Who are these lucky ones?
Yeshua’s answer to this question is so startling, so contentious, so argumentative and so radical that the
audience must have immediately taken a gasping breath in unbelieving unison. You see, Yeshua said that those
who should be jumping for joy are the ones whom the rest of society recognized as the absolutely “have-nots” –
the totally bankrupt ones.

I can imagine the day that Yeshua delivered this announcement. The news of His arrival must have swept
through the surrounding villages like a flash flood in a wadi.

“The prophet, the teacher, the healer – he’s coming. Hurry, hurry!” Bring young Simon, with the open wound.
Bring old Ezra who can hardly walk after the donkey kicked him. Bring Sarah, pregnant, bleeding. Bring
Joshua, Jerabohm, Judas. Hurry, everyone. Be healed! Get a blessing! Get something from God. God is
good.”

They spread out on the hill. Yeshua in the midst, touching the sick, the lame, the blind. Offering prayers to the
Father. And they were amazed. God was very good.

But when he opened his mouth their anticipation may have turned to shock.

“Lucky are the poor in spirit . . .” Once again English lets us down. Our English word for poor could be the
translation for two different Greek words - ptochos and penes. Both of these words in Greek carry the picture
of the poor. But penes means the poor person who lives from day to day on the labor of the day. The famous
photographs that come to mind are those images of migrant workers, the family on the porch of a run-down
shack, weather worn clothes, surviving one day at a time. Even so, they were surviving. The day laborer,
without bank accounts, corporate security, health care. Eking out an existence on the fringes of our society.
The penes - the poor. Welfare victims holding signs at the street corner, “Work for food”. Yeshua gave us a
few parables about these people. The most memorable one is the story about the laborers hired at different
times during the day but all paid the same amount at the end of their toils.

But these are not the poor of Yeshua’s announcement, even though they were surely in the crowd He addressed.
Perhaps they were even the majority. After all, Israel was an occupied country. Work was scarce. Taxes were
high. Times were hard. There were many, many penes.

8
Beggars for God

Yeshua claimed that another group, the ptochoi, were the new millionaires. Perhaps we have better English
words for these souls - the destitute, beggars, street people, homeless – the ones that are totally bankrupt. This
word carries with it some very vivid pictures. It comes from a root meaning to cower in fear, to cringe. While
the penes of Greek society may not have been wealthy, they were nevertheless recognized as an essential part of
the social structure. They were the labor force of an occupied economy, the working class. In fact, they were
not so different from us. They had social status. There was nothing to be ashamed of in their economic bracket.
Their distinction from the wealthy was only a relative one; they just had less. Without a credit-based economy,
we might easily be just like them. Today we have the same economic disparity. We employ illegal aliens and
migrant workers. They are the invisible work force. Poor but very important.

Yeshua does not pronounce happiness on these. He speaks rather to the ptochoi. Their lot in life is completely
different. They are not surviving. They are dying, right here, right now. They cannot provide for themselves,
even a subsistence living. They are the homeless, the indigent, the alcoholic bums, the druggies with the
shakes, the paraplegic war refuse, the masses of humanity who have been pillaged by the elite. The industrial
world’s leftovers. Society’s catastrophes. They lead lives characterized by one thing - to be without. Beggars
with sores on their bodies and hopelessness in their eyes. The words used to describe them carry overtones of
social disgrace. These unfortunates had no native rights. They were not important to the economic engine. In
fact, they drained it. In great unhappiness, they were so far down the ladder of humanity that in the Greek
world they could not even invoke the protection of the gods. In our society, they are worthless scum or starving
refugees. They inhabit the world by the millions but they are constantly pushed out of sight. They have no
value to us.

We rarely encounter these. Our Western world is a deliberately antiseptic one. When I walked along Olive
Street in downtown Los Angeles, I was careful not to step in the urine emanating from some cardboard box in a
doorway. When I drove along the elevated turnpike out of Newark, I looked away from the tattered figures
scraping through the garbage piles under the bridges. When I crossed 10th Avenue in Manhattan, I was careful
to be on the other side of the street. Then I took a trip to Haiti and for the first time in my life, the ptochoi
outnumbered the rest of society on a scale so immense that they were unavoidable. Every corner of the country
was crowded with the destitute, the dying, the helpless. One of us, the incredibly wealthy Americans (by any
standard in Haiti) offered three candy bars to a mother sitting on the street clutching a baby in each arm. She
refused, indicating she only wanted one. The man persisted. She shook her head again. Then he saw the truth.
Both of the babies were dead. If ever there was a place needing a little luck, this was the place. Yeshua speaks
to these – the ones whose lives are bankrupt of everything.

“Jumping for joy are the ptochoi in spirit . . .” No one I know personally, inside or outside the circle of
Christendom, is ptochoi. Much has been made of the fact that in general we are the richest beings who have
ever walked the earth. Much has also been made of riches as the Christian millstone. If we are sensitive to the
gospel at all, our possessions should embarrass us and cause real self-examination. Yeshua wants us to feel this
shock, not because He is pointing us in the direction of giving more to famine relief, but because He knows we
need a loud wake-up call. The imagery He uses is to jar our thinking and displace our comfort.

But Yeshua’s blessing was not for the ptochoi; it was for the ptochoi in spirit. It was for those whose spiritual
existence reflected the characteristics of the ptochoi. So what kind of spiritual existence is that?

Knees

The overwhelming characteristic of the ptochoi in every age and every place is this: they know how to beg.
Calluses on the knees are common to them. They were unclean, covered by the dust of the street, the grime of
the garbage cans, and they knew it. It was, in fact, all that they really knew. The scraps of life. They knew that
9
without luck they were dead. And luck came by way of abject humility. No ptochos could afford the luxury of
defiance or the arrogance of denial. No ptochos could survive a single day if he was were governed by pride.
Arrogance, bravado, self-righteousness produced only one result - starvation. Ptochoi were saturated with
humiliation. Ptochoi were well past the anger stage. When a disenfranchised person is angry, activity occurs.
Ptochoi were no longer active. They were starving to death in body and soul. All of this gave them a single-
minded purpose that exceeded the drive of even the greatest warrior kings. They were consumed by a goal
whose clarity was emphasized with every churn of the stomach - find grace (charity) or die! Arms extended,
knees bent, they cried to the passing crowds, “Alms, alms! Have mercy on us! Help us!”

The “haves” of the Twentieth Century were generally introduced to the ptochoi in recent years through the press
coverage of Somalia, Mozambique, Bosnia and other “far away” disaster scenes. That is about as close as we
want to get. Just turn the channel, it’s all too hideous to think about. In Yeshua’s time, one only had to look as
far as the edge of the road, outside of the city wall, the tombs. Nevertheless, “they” were still “over there”.

In 1995, professional photojournalist Kevin Carter committed suicide at age 33. He is remembered for his
Pulitzer Prize winning picture of a starving Sudanese child, huddled in the fetal position of death, while a
patient vulture perched a few feet away waited for its next meal. Time magazine reported the suicide as a result
of severe depression brought on in part by witnessing the hideous violence he photographed in his work. Carter
came face-to-face with the Twentieth Century ptochoi and it killed him. Most of us can remember the haunting
images of starving children in Somalia. Today we view mass extermination in Rwanda and Croatia. But we are
sanitized by the electronic filter. Face-to-face, we know that we might also seek final escape from the
inhumanity of human beings. So we turn to the football game.

In Port-o-Prince, Haiti you cannot escape. You, the Western observer relief worker, the one who can retreat to
clean water, air conditioning and a working toilet, must face death on a scale few ever witness. That’s why
when I appealed for help with projects in Haiti I got the response, “Why bother? No one can save all those
people. Between disease, environmental genocide and Voodoo, they will all die. What will a few dollars
mean? Nothing.”

The objector is right, of course. Nearly all of them will die. But that isn’t the point. It is possible to save one!
When our focus of attention is shifted to the masses of ptochoi, there are no answers except God – and
sometimes it doesn’t look as if He is listening. Until we read this macarism.

The desperate truth

Yeshua claimed the ptochoi in spirit were the luckiest people alive. But I suspect that most of us are very far
from such a happy event. We do not see our spiritual bankruptcy. We are not beggars for God. We are not
consumed with our spiritual destitution. We do not live for crumbs from the Master’s table. We do not picture
ourselves huddled on the ground, surrounded by Satan’s hoard, unable to offer any resistance to our spiritual
headlong rush into sinful rebellion. We can’t imagine ourselves as God’s homeless, living in cardboard boxes,
sleeping in our own urine, eating scraps from the garbage. We are not ptochoi because we refuse to see the
truth. We employ all kinds of defense mechanisms in order to ward off the truth that if we were confronted
with our own spiritual destitution we would probably opt for the Kevin Carter solution.

Because we will not admit that we are ptochoi, Yeshua’s announcement of happiness passes us by. We cannot
enjoy the kingdom of heaven, God’s incredible gift of unfathomable grace, because we will not beg. Our false
pride means that we would rather die than admit what we really are – desperate without God.

I am sure that on the day Yeshua delivered His sermon there were many in the crowd who were offended. Poor
or rich, they were not ptochoi. They believed with all their hearts that self-sufficiency was the path to success.
And for all of the hardship around them, the evidence certainly seemed to justify such a belief. Weren’t the rich
10
rich because they were hard working, aggressive, self-confident, and self-reliant? How could this teacher
suggest that God’s kingdom was for the ptochoi in spirit? Those who could not provide for themselves, who
lived off of others, leeches, filthy, disgusting! There must have been murmurs, glances, knowing smiles. It was
all right for a teacher of righteousness to say such things, but it would never work in the real world. So the
incredible good news passed them by. They didn’t have the ears to hear.

Willing

Beggars have been a part of the human race throughout history. Whether they are in Calcutta or Calgary,
beggars have one common characteristic. It is this characteristic that Yeshua wants us to see. It is the most
important reason that they are lucky. Beggars are willing. Willing to do what? Willing to do anything, that’s
what! Willing to submit themselves to utter humility. Out of complete desperation, they are willing to go to
any lengths to receive a gift. “Lucky”, says Yeshua, “are those who are willing to bend the knee, beg, humble
themselves in their plight before God”. Something wonderful is coming.

If you've never been to the place of desperate willingness, you've had very bad luck. God engineers life to bring
us to this point. It may not be sleeping in a cardboard box under the freeway. It may be the desperation of
facing another day with overwhelming responsibilities. It may be a moment when disaster strikes or it may be
that gradual decline into the murky gray. But there is a point of desperation, a point when you and I come face
to face with the question, "Are we willing to beg for God?" The pain of that moment is enough to crush us if
we let it. Our hope is gone. Our vision clouded. We can think of only one thing. "God, help me!" Yeshua
tells us that at that moment, we have become the luckiest people on earth.

On that day, Yeshua, proclaimed that the absolutely worthless were today’s lucky winners. That those who
knew they were complete beggars before God were to leap up in exultation. That those who did not even have
enough to buy a lottery ticket had won the prize. I am quite sure the crowd reacted.

“No, this can’t be! This is just too much. What about my tithing, my attendance at every worship service, my
hours of volunteer work, my special offering for the Deacon’s Fund? What about the last fundraiser for the new
building, the Sunday School Rally, the prayer meetings? What about all my Bible study, my orchestrated
sermons, my witnessing? What about all those lost souls I have saved? Surely that counts for something.
Surely God sees that I have done more than those filthy beggars. I deserve some credit, don’t I?”

“No”, says Yeshua. “There is no credit. There’s only the lucky gift.” And the gift is only for the ones who
know they are desperate. The gift is for those who know they don't deserve it.

Then Zen Yeshua did the impossible. He went on to say that the Kingdom of Heaven, the goal of every
religious zealot, was the exclusive benefit of these worthless examples of human spiritual existence. The
translation reads, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” But the structure of a macarism might indicate that
there is a deeper meaning here.

The lucky arrival

Why should those who apparently have nothing except their absolute desperation for God be considered lucky?

Yeshua answers: because those who appear to have nothing at all actually experience the greatest treasure in the
entire universe. Only those who come to God in complete agreement with His assessment of their spiritual
condition (that they have nothing to offer that is worth anything at all), only they find the kingdom.

11
Newman and Stine suggest this is the proper understanding of the “poor”. They remark that these are people
who are forced “to look to God for everything, but who also receive from God the gift of the spirit (faith) to
look to him for everything.” 3 These poor “stand before God and recognize their absolute need for Him.”4

The second part of this Beatitude has not been taken seriously by most translations. The difficulty lies in the
present tense of the Greek. Translators have struggled to capture the thought that the kingdom of God could
actually belong on anyone. “For if the kingdom refers to God’s rule, how can it be spoken of as “belonging to”
someone?”5 Newman and Stine call the usual translations “impossible”. But the text is present tense. It does
not allow a revision that would push the emphasis into the future. Yeshua is not saying that someday they will
get to heaven. He says that this day they are lucky. Something is happening right now.

How can we understand this? Yeshua is saying the kingdom of heaven comes into existence precisely because
of those who are totally destitute of their own righteousness, precisely because of those who are complete
paupers for God. Yeshua might just be saying that God’s kingdom is a direct result of the fact that there are
those who seek Him out of abject spiritual poverty. The truly poor in spirit should be jumping for joy because
they are the very reason that the kingdom of heaven has broken on to the scene. Their destitution, their
desperation, their begging for heavenly alms has brought about the most fundamental shift in the entire history
of everything. God has arrived on the scene.

You're not getting blessed

Let’s return to the original transliteration of “blessed”. If I start my interpretation of this verse with the context
of “blessed”, I will expect that the verse will provide some sort of entitlement or grant some sort of favor. This
is what a blessing does. So, I will be inclined to translate the end of the verse in the context of an expected
reward – in this case, I will expect to be given the reward of the kingdom of heaven. If I begin with "blessing",
I will end with some possession. The kingdom of heaven will become an inheritance. If I begin within the
framework of "blessing", I will end up in the framework of "having". But this will violate everything about the
macarism because the macarism is a statement about not having anything at all.

Theologically, the phrase "kingdom of heaven" is completely interchangeable with "kingdom of God". It is not
a place. It is a condition. It is the condition of God's reign and rule. No one has possession of such a thing.
We are participating citizens under the reign of God. We are not owners. The kingdom of heaven doesn't
belong to us. It belongs in us as the context of lives desperately seeking Him. It is not a statement of what I
have. It is a statement of whom I serve.

If the verse really starts with the idea of being lucky, then there is no expectation of receiving a reward. The
verse is not a shorthand method for becoming lucky. It is a statement about who already is lucky. It is about
relationships, not things. Yeshua is telling us why these people are lucky, not what they are going to get or how
they are going to become lucky. It's news reporting, not morality instruction.

Isn’t this what Yeshua said when asked about the proximity of the kingdom? It is at hand. It is here, right now.
It is dawning upon you as you speak. Isn’t this what Yeshua proclaimed in his first public address? “I have
come to . . .” do all those things that characterize the kingdom’s coming. 6 Only this view allows the
interchangeable phrase "kingdom of God" to be substituted without strain.

The kingdom of heaven is completely different than any human order. It cannot be initiated, precipitated,
developed or established by any human action. It is the work of God alone. The only issue that faces Mankind
3
Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C, A Handbook on The Gospel of Matthew (United Bible Societies, New York), 1988, p. 108.
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
6
Compare Luke 4:16-21
12
is whether or not we belong to this reign as servants of its king. Men do not make heaven on earth. God
makes His reign in the hearts of earthly men.

So what about the ptochoi? Are they less joyful because they do not possess something? To suggest that the
kingdom of heaven belongs to them (“for theirs is”) is to do travesty to the very spirit they exhibit. They know
beyond any shadow of doubt that they don’t own anything. They are bankrupt. Nothing is theirs. But, says
Yeshua, they are to be overwhelmed with happiness, because the very fact that they recognize their spiritual
destitution is exactly why the kingdom of heaven has come. They don’t own the kingdom. It isn’t theirs. It is
God’s, just like everything else. But what they do have that is their own, their poverty, is just what is needed to
usher in the riches of the Father. The gift is given to those who are in desperate need. When I come to God in
spiritual desperation with only my bankrupt life to offer, I am perfectly equipped to accept His reign. The
kingdom of heaven has arrived for me.

The U turn

The Beatitude is not a statement about receiving a blessing. It is a statement proclaiming the lucky state of
those who recognize their essential desperation and the complete dependence on God. The concept “kingdom
of heaven” contains within it the idea that we are desperately in need. Citizens of the Kingdom are citizens
precisely because they have nothing to offer on their own. They know without question that they have no part
to play in the arrival of this kingdom. Its advent is the signal of God's gracious will. God's kingdom is nothing
more or less than His miraculous rule arriving for me.

The Greek text should have given us an earlier clue. The phrase literally reads, "because of them is the
kingdom of heaven." The possessive pronoun auton is in the first position. The emphasis of the phrase is not
on the kingdom but rather on the subject referred to by this pronoun. That emphasis places the ptochoi in our
focus.

God’s promise is as true today as it was when Yeshua uttered it. In fact, it is not so much a promise as it is a
statement of fact. In God’s order, in the "real" real world, only those who know that they are ptochoi in spirit
will experience God’s kingdom. The reign of grace arrives to meet their cry, simply because they have no other
means, no other motive. “Sell all that you have”, “Give”, “Forgive”, “Repent” - all of these actions are
precipitated by being ptochoi in spirit. Beggars for God. Yeshua is making a public announcement. “Shout
for joy you who know that in front of God you are completely bankrupt. He heard you. And because of your
begging for His grace, He is ushering in His reign”. This is not a “blessing”. I’m not going to get some
reward. I’m being told that implicit within the recognition of my spiritual destitution is the sign that God is
coming. Hallelujah! I couldn't be luckier!

The seduction of luck

Now the imagery of this Beatitude really strikes hard. I cannot gain God's reign and rule in my life by taking on
the attributes of the poor. Even selling all that I have, sacrificing my body, giving up my life, will not bring me
one step closer to the Kingdom unless desperation for God has overwhelmed me.

This fact should scare most of us to death. We live in a world that does everything possible to insulate us from
the acceptance of our poverty. My world was made up of houses, cars, corporate paychecks, air-conditioned
church sanctuaries, leisure vacations. I was light years distant from being ptochos economically. And that fact
made it extremely difficult to remember that the truth of my existence is to be found in being ptochos in spirit.
Yeshua said it himself. When my economic condition is wealth, I am easily deceived. I can forget that my
spiritual condition is destitution. The props of my world, all of those things on my balance sheet, act as
constant seduction and delusions. Unless I get on my knees and let God examine my heart, I will never know
that I am really bankrupt. Jeremiah knew my true condition (Jer. 17:9) - deceitful and desperately wicked.
13
Only one thing can save me from myself. Begging God’s grace. Ptochoi in spirit. Find God or die! I had to
lose everything for this reality to take a grip on my everyday existence. I had to become ptochos in this world
to become lucky in His Kingdom.

The world has made an idol of self-sufficiency. We are committed to finding God in me, or finding God on my
terms, by which we simply mean that we will be our own god. We amass theories, routines, disciplines, rituals
- all designed to prove to ourselves that our inner resolve and inner reliance is the seat of power, fame and
fortune. We flood the media with “success” images. And most of us go away in a drunken stupor. We worship
the self-made person. We willing bend our knees to this idol, as long as there is a gold embroidered cushion
underneath. We all want good luck. We want fate to give us the good life. That's why we buy tickets in the
lottery. We want to escape our desperate condition. But our desire to escape is a seductive trap. With the little
we have, we become prisoners of the more we want. We wish for "luck" instead of "mercy". We worship the
way out instead of kneeling on the way in.

Yeshua issued the declaration of our true state. Implicit in the announcement of happiness for God’s beggars is
the corollary that self-sufficiency or self-reliance does something terrible to us. Yeshua story about Lazarus
(whom he calls ptochos) and the rich man drives the message home. Riches alienate us from God. We forget
our true destitution, whether our wealth is material or psychic. We become unwilling. And unwillingness
makes the opposite macarism true - “Unlucky are those who are not willing” or even worse, “Unlucky are those
who think they have spiritual credit. Their condition forces God's reign to pass them by."

Left to ourselves, every one of us is deceived and bent toward despicable wickedness. We need sackcloth and
ashes. We need begging. We need to become ptochoi in spirit because we stand in the presence of a holy God.
Isaiah knew it instantly. “Woe is me. I am undone for I am a man of unclean lips!”

Will you dare to take Yeshua at his word? Can you beg God for mercy and mean it? Are you willing to let God
show you your real balance sheet, the real condition of your personal assets? If you’re like me, you will need to
overcome great resistance. The self wants no part of ptochos. Just bending the knees may become an
incredible struggle. But God does not lie. Only those who know they are destitute live the lucky life.

In God's lottery, you can't jump ahead and play the games out of order. If you don't win this game first, you are
SOL. Desperation is the essential beginning.

Lucky in Desperation:

1. Have you been to the place of begging for God? Recall what it was like. How did it affect your vision
of who you are? How did it re-order your priorities?

2. Do you think that you were lucky to have had that experience? Do you see God's engineering to bring
you there?

3. How has your life changed as a result of your desperation?

4. Are you still completely dependent of His grace or are you slowly accumulating your own sufficiency
again? Do you ask God to show you your real daily balance sheet?

5. Have you thanked God for your lucky desperation or are you trying to avoid being His beggar?

14
LIFE AS IT IS: LOTTERY WINNER NUMBER 2

GRIEVING

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” Matthew 5:4

"Mommy, why are they all wearing black?"

She turned to the five-year-old, resolutely determined not to break down in front of him.

"It's because it's such a sad day, sweetie. They all feel so bad."

"But isn't Marie in heaven with Yeshua?"

"Yes, honey. Of course she is."

"Then why are they so sad. If she's with Yeshua, she's happy, isn't she?"

Five-year-olds have a different perspective on life. Maybe that's why Yeshua told us that we needed to be like
little children if we wanted to really appreciate God's kingdom. We have so much trouble viewing this world as
a way-station on the trip. We never have more trouble with the temporary nature of our existence than we do at
a funeral. That's when we look at the second Beatitude and think, "What good is this? What difference does it
make to my mourning now? I don't need comfort years from now. I need it today."

The casket was tiny, built for the little girl who lay inside. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Life snatched
away this girl before she really had any life at all. Not even twelve. The tears just wouldn't stop.

Then the minister read, "Blessed are those who mourn". She wanted to scream, to jump up and tear down the
pulpit. "It's not fair, God. How can I be blessed when my little girl is gone? Why? Why?" She clutched the
hand of her son, shaking, sobbing. There was no relief even if Marie was with Yeshua. Sometimes just being
born was bad luck.

Luck is dead

“Mourn” is a sorrowful word. It's not easy to give comfort. Grief, sorrow, despair all have a way of infecting
the deepest part of our souls, turning us inward toward that place of darkness where we are most acutely aware
of our loss and our helplessness. There are times in every person's life when the utter incomprehensibility of
our frail existence simply overwhelms us. In fact, it might be appropriate to say that no person finally
understands the depth of the human dilemma until such an experience has been anchored in the soul. That is
why the stages of life move forward and down, from the exuberance of youth with its innocence and naivety
toward the press of responsibilities in middle age to the age of memories, of death, of finality. We struggle with
this pathway, being caught off guard when the truth of our existence suddenly invades our usual complacency.
The penetration of sorrow and loss, most forcefully experienced in the death of someone close to us, reminds us
that we are too weak, too frail to sustain life. Life as it is is a very unlucky place.

Yeshua sat with the crowd on that hillside, looking at their faces. Seeing into their hearts, he knew that each
one of them was swimming in the stream of human grief – even if they were at the moment unaware of it.
Much later, the author of Hebrews would pen the final assessment of human existence – “that through death He
might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through
fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” Afraid, not only for ourselves, but also for the power of
that awful sting over those we love. Yeshua knew. From the beginning he saw his road less traveled, straight to
15
that place in the garden when he would say, “If this cup could pass from me.” It was the cup of final agony, of
grief so unbearable that no human soul could live through it. He experienced the grief of total and complete
separation from the One who was the real Sustainer of life.

Now, gazing over those lives held in bondage by the fact that they were born human, Yeshua spoke His father’s
words. “Lucky those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Common ground

The crowd grew silent. They knew mourning. They were an occupied people under a harsh rule. Many of
them felt the lash, many hung on the tree. The crowds that followed Yeshua were not the noble, well fed,
educated, protected. They were the poor, the lame, the beggars. They knew sorrow. Sick bodies, broken
hearts. They knew grief. Starving children, anguished mothers. They knew fear. And they knew death.

Yeshua was probably more aware of this byproduct of human existence than anyone who has ever lived. He
knew what it was to experience the full impact of human helplessness. Descending from the realm of the
divine, taking on the form of a “slave”, Yeshua, the man-God, encountered all that human life contains to a
degree that none of us will ever know. Our existence begins with our birth. We do not set aside all power and
glory in order to assume the mantel of humanity. While our fall from grace is certainly real, the drop in altitude
is considerably less than the chasm descent from heaven to earth. And this should give us pause, not simply to
consider the sacrifice on our behalf, but to understand that God knows how we feel. Our God is not ensconced
in the lofty other world, far removed from travesty, anguish and grief. Our God is in fact the One who is
intimate with human angst – “a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief”. He knows us better than we know
ourselves, for he is not deluded by the appearance of power, the mask of control or the false promises of
security. He knows that life is a thin red line. He knows that we are just hanging on.

In this Beatitude, the word translated "mourn" has a special meaning. It is one of the passions. Passions like
grief, sorrow, anger and envy were things to be suffered through, things outside of personal control. Passions
were things that happened to you. Life as it is! For the Greeks, these emotions disturbed the essential balance
of life. Consequently, they were to be avoided. No one could ever be happy having these emotions rage like
storms through the soul. The message seems clear - there is nothing good about life traumatized by passions.

But Yeshua called the ones mourning “lucky”! How could they be lucky? Is it “lucky” to see your child suffer,
“lucky” of know the agony of your spouse’s death, “lucky” to look for the missing limb or a lost business?
What could Yeshua have in mind with such an outrageous statement?

The reason Yeshua gives for his claim that the lucky ones are those who intimately know the meaning of
mourning is this: they shall be comforted. But isn’t that exactly what we would expect? Don’t we, even as the
powerless, frail humans that we are, rush to comfort when one of our kind falls under the horror of mourning?
We empathize. We sympathize. We offer condolences. So, how could Yeshua suggest that comfort is a reason
to consider us lucky? This is just ordinary, common sense experience. Where does Yeshua turn this common
sense expectation upside down?

Clues

There are clues. First, Yeshua does not address “those who mourn”. He addresses “those mourning”. The verb
is in the present, active sense. They are right now, at this moment, in the midst of the grief. It is not past or
future to them. It is the weight on the heart, the piercing blow, the gasp of breath just as the awful news hits,
just as the calamity is revealed. Listen, says Yeshua, in the center of your anguish is a promise – the promise
that you are the lucky one, for something amazing is going to happen. You will be comforted.

16
Yes, that’s true, we might say. Some day God will make it all right again. I will see my spouse, my child, my
mother or father again – in heaven. Yes, some day. But that doesn’t help much right now. Right now the pain
is so deep that I can hardly breathe. Right now I am suffocating in sorrow. Where is God right now?

To this question, Yeshua answers, "Think backwards." Those who are mourning are experiencing life at the
raw edge. They are on the cusp of the spiritual/physical slice through the universe. Mourning means that they
have given up their self-delusions about control, power and protection. They know that life is fragile, and that
they are not in charge. Their masks of self-imposed denial have been pulled away. They are lucky. They see
life for what it really is.

Most of the time we operate on the mistaken belief that life revolves around us. Most of the time we think that
tomorrow will be the same as today. We only see the real picture of our existence, that we depend on God’s
graciousness for every breath, after Life jolts us. Mourning brings about the acute awareness of powerlessness
– an essential ingredient in spiritual growth. Yeshua knew that those who were mourning were ready to receive
God’s gracious favor. In fact, he knew that the rest of us, the ones who still think that life is supposed to be the
way that we want it to be, are far from the awareness needed to find God. Those who are mourning open God’s
heart. He feels our anguish too. The Great Hunter-Lover reaches to us. Unless we have reached the end of
ourselves, unless we are broken, like the one who mourns, we will not notice that God is here. We will miss the
great announcement: God comforts now.

Heaven Can Wait

Many theologians see Matthew 5:4 as a statement about the next world. They say that this announcement is for
those who mourn over the present life because they see the disaster that sin has created. They read this
Beatitude as an offering hope after death.

God will comfort us in heaven. But I don’t believe that Yeshua is only telling us to hold on. We need to look
harder at the backwards thinking that Yeshua wants us to see. Yeshua looked out on the broken-hearted in the
crowd and he saw that some were ready, poised to accept the incredible announcement about to be theirs. They
were ready because they were no longer able to cope. They were indeed the lucky ones. God could reach them,
now, in their moment of raw openness.

The rest of us were too preoccupied with our own agendas to know that God had drawn near. We still thought
we had control.

That brings up the second important word. The word that translates what Yeshua said about being comforted is
the Greek word parakaleo. It is the word for the action of calling. Yeshua says that those of us mourning now
are lucky because we are ready to have God answer our call. And it is not an answer from afar. The word
implies the “right along side of me” return of my call. It is the comfort that comes when I feel those arms
around me, when I know the warmth of another’s care. It is relief, right here, right now.

Yeshua knows that this comfort has two critical elements. First, it is comfort found only by those who are at
this moment open because of their agony. And secondly, it is a promise that reaches beyond the immediate.
The same root word for comfort in this verse is used by John to describe the role of the Holy Sprit, the Great
Comforter. The Holy Spirit will come, Yeshua tells us later. He will be our “close at hand” witness, reminding
us of the promises of God and the triumph of Christ over the prison of death.

You and I no longer wait for the arrival of the Holy Spirit. Yeshua’ work has been done. The Holy Spirit is a
present reality in the life of every believer. This fact fulfills the promise of the Beatitude of grief. It is the
guarantee that no matter what crisis comes upon us, God is here. God is in control. Our lives are not adrift on a
stormy ocean of emotional trauma. The Holy Spirit will stand as our Advocate and close-at-hand Comforter.
17
He will intercede. All of His unfathomable power, care and love will be ours because God hears our cry. There
is an eschatological element in this Zen saying that points us toward something wonderful in the future. But
“They will be comforted,” promises much more than relief when we enter heaven’s gate. It is relief now, in this
very moment. It is relief in the middle of Life as it is. The Beatitude has a double temporal application. It says
that the day will come when all the tears will be wiped away, when sorrow will cease, when heartache ends
forever. God will see to it. And it says that God is seeing to it right now. God is present to me in the very
center of my mourning because Yeshua has overcome death.

In this Beatitude, Yeshua announces the most startling fact that any living person could ever hear – death is not
the end. Could anything be more comforting? When I face the complete helplessness of my humanity, when I
look into the face of death and see that everything looks like it has been lost, Yeshua tells me that death doesn’t
win. God wins. And God provides His guarantee of this victory by wrapping me in the arms of the Holy Spirit.

The Paradox

Now we can see why this announcement of Yeshua fits the pattern of a macarism – why it is common sense
turned backwards. We all try desperately to avoid exactly the condition necessary to be called lucky in grief.
We all are Greeks, trying to run from the sorrow of loss, trying to escape the clutches of death. But until we see
that this world is truly broken, that death is here and we are not in control, we will not be ready to be comforted
by God. So, grief comes upon us, not as a judgment or a punishment but as the single most clarifying moment
of life – the moment when I see that my life is not my own, that it is not mine to keep. At that moment, when I
know my limits most intimately, I am ready to hear God’s message – comfort is upon me. It is the moment
when I can shout, "I'm so lucky. I see now that God wins. And so do I."

But the promise is even deeper than this. From the day we are born, we begin to die. Life spirals toward death.
All that we have, all that we are, all that we accomplish will be undone at the grave. Life appears to teach us
that in the end everything will be lost. We all know the saying, "You can't take it with you."

Yeshua stands up and says, “NO”. What you thought about death is wrong. Those of you who are experiencing
the terror of loss are open to God’s greatest comfort. Death has been destroyed. It is not the end. Everything
has not been lost. God has changed all the rules.

It is no accident that the word Yeshua uses here is also the word associated with the Holy Spirit. When Yeshua
told that crowd on the hill that comfort was coming, he knew that until he died and rose again, the prison house
of death held all of us in torture cells. But not now. Death is defeated. The Comforter has come.

that He might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives

There is another layer. First we set aside our delusions of control. Then we discover that death is not the end.
And then, if we look deep enough, we find something else. We find that the prison door has been opened and
we are free to walk away.

Imagine what life would be like lived without the fear of dying. Imagine the incredible freedom you would
have knowing that no matter what the consequences hurled at you in this world, you are completely free to
accept them because your life is not imprisoned by the powers of this world. Why, you could do anything!
You could live completely under God's guidance and protection. You could take on any task He assigned. It
wouldn't matter what happened to you, even if you died, because you are free from the sting. You could even
go to the cross. And that is exactly what it means. Yeshua is the man of the second Beatitude. He is free to let
God act unconditionally through him because death has no power over him. He is God's servant, not a prisoner
of this realm. That is comfort, right now!

18
Grief holds a hidden promise. It is a promise that only those who know their true condition can understand. It
is the promise that God is still in control. It is the promise that God is able. It is the promise that God Himself
will wipe away the tears. It is the promise that the jagged edge of human life is not the end. It is the promise of
freedom.

Oh so lucky are those who at this moment are broken over life’s finality because the day is upon them when
God’s gracious love is at hand and they have the promise that death is defeated. They are free.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Lucky in Grieving

1. Have you experienced the intimacy of death?

2. What happened to your soul when you stood in the presence of the prison of this world?

3. Did you see the fragile illusion in your thinking?

4. Did you find God's answer?

5. Are you free?

19
LIFE AS IT IS: LOTTERY WINNER NUMBER THREE

OPPRESSED

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5)

The crucial word in the first part of the third Beatitude is the word translated “meek”. Some English Bibles use
the translation “gentle”. Neither of these really captures the deeper meaning of this word. If we want to really
understand how these people are lucky, we must first reach back into the Hebrew roots of this word.

This is the only Beatitude that seems to be a direct quotation from an Old Testament verse – Psalm 37:11 7. In
that Psalm, David uses the word anaw for meek. The root word ana is used more than 200 times in the Old
Testament. The most interesting thing about this root is that it carries the sense of being forced into submission
or being inflicted with pain for punishment. Only through extension does it come to mean a moral and spiritual
condition, denoting the inner self-inflicted pain and humiliation of contrition. Its initial sense lies in the arena
of conflict, oppression and war. It is even used as a description of the “humbling” of captured women (a
euphemism for rape) and what God does to His enemies.

When this Hebrew word is used as an adjective, it is often connected with suffering. A person who is anaw is
one who lives in both internal emotional affliction and external pain and suffering. This state is the opposite of
what the world seeks; yet the Bible says that God uses exactly this condition to bring His people to repentance.
The afflicted will rejoice when they see God’s deliverance, will find protection in His power and grace and will
follow His laws.

This Hebrew background is explicitly intended in Yeshua’ remark 8. The quotation from the Psalms makes it
clear that Yeshua wants his audience to recall from their history the God of the afflicted. Echoing David,
Yeshua says that these afflicted ones should be jumping for joy.

Consider the audience listening to Yeshua that day. If anyone in the world felt afflicted, it would have been
these people. They were under the occupation of the Romans. The Romans had little hesitancy peppering the
landscape with reminders of their supremacy. Often the roads were lined with crucified Jews who attempted to
throw off the bondage of Roman oppression. We can be sure that Jewish women did not escape the desires of
the conquering soldiers. The economy was in a massive depression. Tax collectors were notorious for “double-
dipping”. The monarchy of the Jews was nothing more than a puppet arm of the Emperor. Affliction,
suffering, hardship and pain flowed freely. Not the kind of place you or I would want to live. Yet it is exactly
the kind of place that we see over and over in our modern world where war, pestilence and poverty join forces
to subdue humanity.

Yeshua tells these strugglers, “Be incredibly happy. You will inherit the earth”.

Let’s go back to that day on the hillside.

“Did you just hear what he said?” Ezra’s eyes opened wider. He nudged his friend with his elbow. “I can’t
believe it”. The crowd was electrified.

7
LXX Ps. 36:11 where anaw is translated by the Greek praeis leaves no doubt as to the connection.
8
Some modern translations (e.g. The Jerusalem Bible) indicate that this entire Beatitude could be a gloss, that is, an addition inserted
by someone who copied the text in the ancient past. The reasoning is that this verse is the only one that quotes an Old Testament
passage and it could be seen as an extension of the first Beatitude (verse 3). But I do not believe there is any real argument for this.
Once we understand the deeper meanings of verse 3 and verse 5, we see that one is not an extension of the other at all.
20
“Yeah. I heard him. He’s the one for sure. He’s gonna’ get us out of this mess”. Jacob pressed forward
against the crowd. Now he was all ears. He couldn’t wait for the next word from the lips of the Teacher.

Ezra wouldn’t shut up. “Do you think he’ll want an army? I can fight and so can my brother. You remember
what the soldiers did in my village. I lost two cousins to those bastards. But now we’ll show them. We’re
gonna’ take it all back”.

“Shhhh! I can’t hear a thing. Stop and listen. He just said something about seeing God”.

The crowd surged to the left, carrying Ezra with it. A moment of panic swept over him as he realized that there
were so many packed so close that he couldn’t resist the movement. Jacob was being forced another direction.
Ezra had no choice – he went with the flow. Then he became aware of the conversations around him.

“I never thought he would say it. We’re going to fight back. How can we lose if he’s leading us? He can feed
us all, heal us too. We’ll be invincible.”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right. He never talked like this before”.

“Didn’t he say we should be happy? What else can he mean? Look at us. We’re the ones who are suffering.
Now we’re gonna’ get revenge”.

What Yeshua said must have hit home. His audience was downtrodden. They were looking for relief. And it
seemed that Yeshua was offering just what they wanted. But something else was in the mind of the Teacher.

The Greek word in Matthew that we translate “meek” is praeis (from praüs) This word is not used in any of the
other Gospels, a fact that is quite unusual. 9 The parallel of this teaching found in Luke 6 does not include a
statement about the meek.10 In classical Greek thinking, the word means, “gentle, pleasant, friendly, or mild”.
Originally, the word was used for taming an animal, converting its raw, uncontrolled power into useful
obedience. Applied to men, this control was seen as a virtue. The most famous example was the life of
Socrates who remained calm and congenial even when he was deliberately poisoned. Serene composure in the
face of abuse was considered laudable. If this is all that Yeshua meant, he would only have succeeded in
reminding his audience of the power of inner tranquility. “Be happy those of you who are gentle, friendly,
pleasant and mild, for some day you will have your inheritance” is hardly comfort to the abused, dispossessed
and disenfranchised. It is little succor indeed to tell a woman being raped that she needs to remain calm and
gentle. It doesn’t go very far to remind a man being tortured that his inner life should rejoice in tranquility.
Socrates was not on the rack. Yeshua has more to say than this.

Without the Old Testament background, this Beatitude crumbles into nothing more than stoicism. But with the
Old Testament background, the entire concept changes. The reason that this changes everything is that unlike
the Greeks, Yeshua teaches that those who are anaw or praüs are so because they are within God’s hand. They
have succumbed to God's control. Yeshua deliberately refers to the same concept in the Psalms because he
wants his audience to know that affliction is not the result of an occupying army or of evil men or of blind
catastrophe. Affliction is a mark of God’s hand on life.

Life is a fabric of troubles. Those who suffer under it seem to be the most unfortunate ones on earth. No one in
pain and agony desires such a life. But Yeshua is saying that precisely because God is afflicting you now, you
have reason to rejoice. You have reason to rejoice because you are actually living out some of the most
important lessons of life. First, you are experiencing right now the sovereignty of God. Your world is not ruled
by blind fate or irrational chaos. It is under the control and power of One who guides its movement to His
9
The word is found only in Matthew 11:29, 21:5 and 1 Peter 3:4
10
See Appendix
21
purposes. You are not the victim of happenstance. God is at work in your life, remolding it to suit His goals.
Life is a fabric of troubles because God uses trouble to shape His vessels. Is this sadistic pleasure on the part of
the Great Judge? No, not at all. The history of Israel teaches that God disciplines those whom He loves just as
earthly fathers correct and discipline their own loved children. Your present affliction has purpose and
meaning. God is working on you.

Is affliction and suffering good? How can a God of love allow such terrible, evil acts? Yeshua makes no
comment here. He simply says that life comes to us as it is. We are not in control of it. God is both the Ruler
and the Judge of everything. We know that His hand covers us, whether in affliction or victory. We are asked
only to submit to His will. Does that mean that we become passive toward evil? Once again, no. God directs
our lives. His permissive will for us may mean that evil befalls us. But we are also asked to stand up for Him
and His holiness. That may require some very active resistance.

Remember the initial meaning of the Hebrew word – to force into submission. Isn’t that exactly what happens
to us in affliction? We are forced to confront our oppressors and we are forced to confront our God. Affliction
is not passive. We do not have the choice of avoiding something forced on us, whether it seems to come by
accident or not. How we respond to this forced submission is our only choice and our true responsibility. The
Old Testament context of this word means that we will see life very differently than stoic resignation to abuse.
We will see that the world is God’s. We will see that He is sovereign. We will see that His will prevails. We
will see that affliction, suffering and pain pass through His grace before they touch our breath. We will see that
submission is the hallmark of victory because it places our will in His. Finally, we will see that our response to
trials and tribulations must come from His direction, not ours.

To see this change in perspective, we should look at the Psalms of David. David is no timid, gentle wallflower
believer. He lets his feelings show before God. He is disturbed. He is depressed. He asks for rescue. He
wants relief. Then he is shouting for joy or praising with song. But his focus is always toward God’s hand on
his life. Whatever befalls him, he sees it as God’s confrontation. His faith is dynamic, active involvement with
the purposes of God.

When the abused, afflicted and suffering are given a promise of relief, they face a tremendous challenge. It is
the challenge of turning away from revenge, away from the balance scales of justice and toward the purposes of
God. Who will rejoice in affliction? Only those who know that God’s will prevails, that God is the rightful
Judge who will bring peace and justice to a forsaken world. They are the only one who can rejoice because they
know that God’s will is being done.

Judgment, sovereignty, purpose, power and hope are all implied in the context of “meek”. These are not people
who lay down without a fight. These are not spiritual wimps. These are men and women who acknowledge the
Lord God Almighty as their protector, who submit to His will for their lives while battles rage in heavenly
places. They are the true soldiers of the Kingdom, willing to give up their lives for their King. God brings
affliction to them to prepare the stage for His victory.

Do you see the amazing announcement here? Yeshua tells the ones who are feeling God’s hand of oppression
that they are very special. They have been granted the divine privilege of suffering. Suffering is one of God’s
ways of shaping us into His image. It is a mark of God’s love. These people are earning the merit badge of
affliction under God’s special grace – the grace of fellowship in trials. There is a reward coming.

Do we really live with the attitude that affliction is God’s grace in our lives or do we complain to God about
how “unfair” life has become? Do we see our trials as God’s hand shaping us into men and women who reflect
His image or are we kicking and screaming our way into His presence? Praüs is not about mild and timid
responses to life. It is about heroic deliberate transformation – taking what life throws at us and turning it into
a celebration of praise for God’s craftsmanship through submission. It is power converted and controlled.
22
“Incredibly happy are those afflicted for they shall inherit”. The next word we need to probe is inherit. Its
Hebrew background carries the context of an “allotment” or “portion”. It is used extensively to describe the
division of the promised land among the tribes of Israel. Behind this allotment is one central theme – divine
ordination. God is the One Who promises the allotment. God is the One Who carries out this promise. The
covenant is not a covenant between men and God. It is a covenant that God makes with Himself - an
unbreakable promise based solely on His character of righteousness. God guarantees the outcome. Nothing
will prevail against it. “You who are afflicted of God, rejoice, for you shall receive your fair share”. The same
God who brought you into submission guarantees your allotment. There is a promise hidden in your plight.
God’s judgment contains His mercy. Rejoice. He has not forgotten you in your suffering. He is only preparing
you for your share.

No one is more receptive to hear the words of “fair share” than those who are suffering. Suffering always
brings the question of fairness to the front. “Why me, God?” is the heart burden of the afflicted. Yeshua turns
this question upside down. Yeshua makes us see that suffering and affliction are the privilege of those who are
under God’s rule. Suffering and affliction are the badges of our affiliation with God. Instead of the question,
“Why is this happening to me, God?”, we now shout an answer, “Why not me let this happen to me, God!”

On another occasion Yeshua commented on the “fair share” philosophy of life. He remarked that we should not
emulate the Pharisee who stands before God and says, “Oh, God, I thank you that you have not made me like
those poor beggars and those terrible afflicted ones. You made me great, wealthy, powerful”. Yeshua says that
people with that attitude already have their fair share. They have pandered to the world. They opted for the
world’s version of reward. But the man of true godly humility has a different attitude. His attitude is “Oh, God.
I am not worthy. I am a sinner. Your hand on me is heavy. I can only ask for your mercy. There is nothing in
me that is righteous before you”. This attitude is the attitude of the oppressed. It will result in a fair share from
God.

The Zen of Yeshua asks us to look deeper into our suffering. The Zen of Yeshua asks us to look into the very
heart of the universe for our answer. That answer is to be found in acknowledging God’s absolute authority
over all of life, no matter what shape it takes. Submission to His will guarantees suffering. It did for the Son, it
will for the Son’s followers. Life is a fabric of troubles. But it also guarantees something else. It guarantees
purpose and promise. God has a purpose. Submission means that my allotment is certain. God will judge me
on the basis of inherited righteousness. “Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven” means that I will receive
my allotment on an earth that is under His will.

It is important to notice that the promised inheritance is not the Kingdom of God. That topic is covered in the
first Beatitude. The Kingdom of God is not something that can be inherited. The allotment that we receive as
the rejoicing afflicted ones is our part of the earth, not our part of God’s Kingdom. In God’s Kingdom we are
permanent guests, not fellow owners. It is His Kingdom that we share with Him, not His Kingdom divided up
among us. But the earth was created for Man and there is a sense in which we will become its true owners.
Adam was given that same ownership – an ownership that carried the responsibility of being a custodian under
God. God gave all that He created into the hands of Man in order that Man would manage and care for it all.
That day is coming again.

Yeshua makes the most startling announcement that any of us could ever here. Do you want to know why bad
things happen? Suffering has a purpose, says Yeshua. Suffering is not accidental. Only those whom God
loves enough to want to change them are given the privilege of suffering. Reverse your thinking. Suffering is
homework, preparing you for your fair share responsibilities under God’s command. The question “Why do I
suffer?” is answered by the response “God loves me so much that He cares enough to shape who I am”. The
blacksmith has to heat and beat the iron to make it conform to the design he sees hidden in its structure. The

23
sculptor has to break and hit the granite to make the piece of art hidden in the rock. We are works in progress.
God’s tools are affliction and oppression.

Is life beating you up? Yeshua knew that it would. Is life unfair? Yeshua tells us to rejoice in our troubles.
Why? Because His will is being done.

When God loves you so much that He puts His hand of suffering on you, jump for joy. You have a hidden
promise. Grace has come to visit. You are being prepared for a special purpose.

Paul understood this Beatitude. He said “that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the
fellowship of his sufferings . . .” (Phil. 3:10)

The question of life has changed. It is a question that can only come from the perspective of the afflicted.

Why not me too, God?

Lucky in Suffering

1. Are you intimately acquainted with the experience of suffering?

2. Have you recognized God's hand in your affliction?

3. Are you rejoicing in God's control?

4. Do you see how affliction has shaped your expectation of reward?

5. Can you embrace suffering as a mark of transformation?

24
LIFE AS IT IS: LOTTERY WINNER NUMBER FOUR

HUNGRY

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Matthew 5:6

The fourth Beatitude is perhaps the most complex and the richest. It is woven from fabric that has significant
Old Testament threads. Before we turn to this heritage, we need to dispel some of the common less powerful
interpretations of Yeshua’ pronouncement. Once we have cleared away these misconceptions, we will be able
to find the deeper meaning in his words.

First, Yeshua is not addressing a class of people made up of the hungry and thirsty. There is no question that
first century Palestine was cluttered with those who fit this description. They are referred to by a Hebrew term
that means “common people”, a euphemism for the poor and destitute. The political and economic environment
of Palestine brought about a great mass of destitute and suffering people. But Yeshua was not singling them
out. His statement is not aimed at those who are nutritionally suffering, either in the first century or in the
twenty-first. While this interpretation has some historical precedence, most of us will concur that Yeshua had
more in mind than receiving food and drink as a result of seeking God’s justice. In other words, this is not a
promise of social or political correction for the millions of poor across the world. Of course, a byproduct of
turning our lives over to God will be concern for the starving masses and attempts to meet their needs. But this
is not the focus here.

Secondly, and perhaps surprisingly, neither is Yeshua’ statement aimed at those who would spiritualize this
saying. Most recent common interpretations of this Beatitude tend to follow the “spiritual” path. We have all
heard a sermon or two claiming that what Yeshua said is that we need to adopt an attitude of diligent striving
for God’s holy law of life, and if we do, we will find internal spiritual satisfaction. Unfortunately, this
interpretation overlooks the etymological treasures of the words used here, and as a result, leads us in the wrong
direction. Yeshua is certainly talking about spiritual issues, but I do not believe he is talking about a deep
yearning for morality. He is not telling us that those who strive after righteousness will be satisfied. Once
again, the deepest motivation to see justice done will come as a byproduct of the godly life. But Yeshua still
has something else in mind.

Finally, a variation of the spiritualizing interpretation can be found in even great scholars like Nicoll. He
remarks, “The hunger whose satisfaction is sure is that which contains its own satisfaction. It is the hunger for
moral good. The passion for righteousness is righteousness in the deepest sense of the word”. This makes
Yeshua’ statement a sort of self-fulfilling psycho-spiritual tautology (you get to look up this word). It sees the
force of the Beatitude as an adjustment in our outlook. If we hunger for righteousness, we have already fulfilled
the law of righteousness. We are satisfied because we are already practicing the essential element of
righteousness, that is, fervently desiring its application. While this is also true - those who genuinely crave
righteousness will undoubtedly bring it about because they will settle for nothing less – it is still not what
Yeshua meant.

Let’s remember the pattern of makarios (Rejoice or Be happy). We learned that a macarism was a special form
of address announcing a blessing on a person due to some circumstance or virtue. Yeshua took this pattern and
used it in a special way. He announced spiritual paradoxes where something considered unworthy or
unacceptable becomes the pathway to reveal the hidden values of God’s Kingdom. Yeshua turned the logic of
the world’s virtues upside-down. Like a Zen master, he forced us to think backwards. In order to understand
the real Zen teaching of this Beatitude, we must reach back into the history of Israel.

The metaphor of hunger and thirst was not new to Yeshua’ audience. But the imagery carried with it a great
deal more than physical deprivation. In fact, the Jews remembered the passages from Deuteronomy and Isaiah
25
where hunger and thirst were signs of God’s wrath poured out on a disobedient people. They saw God inflict
hunger and thirst on His enemies (Lam. 5:10 and Neh. 5:3) and on His chosen people (Isaiah 65:13). These
people believed that hunger and thirst were signs of God’s punishment and rejection. Therefore, to hunger and
thirst meant to be under the condemnation of God. This was not just a social condition. It did not demand a
change in mental outlook. It was about obedience and disobedience. It was holy judgment. My hunger was not
the result of some social or political or economic circumstance. Those might be the vehicles that brought about
the condition of depravity, but ultimately my hunger was the result of God’s vengeance poured out on my life11.

The religious clergy of Yeshua’ audience believed that God exercised control over life’s physical realm as part
of His moral accounting. Those who are obedient to His Law are rewarded. Those who are not obedient are
punished. It is all a matter of the balance scale. If my good deeds outweigh by bad deeds, I have hope of being
spared God’s wrath. But if my current accounting is deficient, God may use such common human needs like
food and drink to correct the scales. He may decide to punish me now, thereby rectifying the imbalance in the
present, or He may withhold His immediate wrath and punish me in the future. Hunger and thirst represent two
separate functions of punishment – either chastisement for the purpose of instruction and purification or
suffering due to disobedience.

One other element must be added to this Jewish background. The Jewish audience was also very familiar with a
promise connected to hunger and thirst. They knew that the prophet Isaiah foretold that God would restore
Israel where none would go hungry or thirsty (Isaiah 55). In this sense, the removal of hunger and thirst is
eschatological – it looks to the future vindication and reconciliation of God with hope that all of life’s trials will
be removed. Implicit in this promise is the idea that it is futile to seek relief from this present hunger and thirst.
God has decreed it. What my present hunger and thirst should produce is an understanding that only God is the
source of my sustenance. If I hunger now, my current lack of nourishment points me toward the fact that the
world cannot and never will provide me with what life needs. Only God can do that. From this Jewish
background, we now understand that even the basic necessities of life are not within our power to provide.
Human beings are completely impotent even in these fundamentals. God is in control and only He can sustain
us. The idea that God’s verdict produces hunger as a judgment or abates hunger as a reward led the rabbinical
world to a nearly fatalistic attitude toward physical calamity. If calamity befalls me, it must mean that I am
unworthy. God has decreed my punishment and nothing can be done to prevent it. If God removes or restrains
this calamity in my life, it must be a sign of personal worthiness before Him. We often hear a modern version
of the same idea: If bad things happen to me, I must have done something bad. If I am successful and
prosperous, I must have done something good. Don’t we say, “What goes around, comes around” and “They
got what they deserved”. We could call this belief the Law of Just Rewards. This is exactly the concept that
Yeshua overturns.

Now let’s turn to the Greek background. There are two Greek words for hunger, limos and peinao. Limos is
hunger in the extreme, closely related to famine. It carries the sense of a fatal need. Peinao, on the other hand,
means a regular lack of nourishment. The difference between these two Greek words is the difference between
starvation and chronic malnutrition. Notice that both of these words refer to a lack of sustenance, not a striving
for sustenance. This is an important element for understanding the deeper meaning of Yeshua’ statement. Two
things become clear from the Greek. First, the Beatitude uses peinao, not limos. We are talking about a chronic
state of deficiency, not a catastrophic fatal situation. Secondly, the sense of this word points us toward those
who are being deprived of something essential to life. Therefore, Yeshua is talking to those who are the passive
victims of this situation. These people have experienced circumstances that have taken from them something
absolutely essential for living. They are not fervently striving for righteousness. Rather, what they need for
survival is missing from their lives and they are now dying without it.

11
The Hebrew word group comes from the root ra’eb, a verb that describes the condition of serious lack of nourishment. Adjectives
and nouns in this group all carry the essential idea that God is the provider of life’s necessities and His hand either offers or removes
these gifts. Ra’eb describes the situation of being in constant need as a chronic condition of lacking what is needed for life.
26
Goppelt summarizes this eloquently:

The hungry are men who both outwardly and inwardly are painfully deficient in the things essential to
life as God meant it to be, and who, since they cannot help themselves, turn to God on the basis of His
promise.12

Who are these people that Yeshua calls “Happy”(Blessed)? They are not some group of people we can point to.
Their old clothes, their empty wallets, their homeless shelters or even the lack of food on their tables does not
identify them. They are the people who are singled out by their own internal keen awareness of the need for
something essential. They are the ones who know that life is missing something vital, something that can only
be supplied by God Himself. They are the ones who recognize that the elements needed to make life what God
intended life to be are painfully absent. And they know something very important. They know that they cannot
provide whatever it is. They are helpless to rectify this situation.

Think of this example: you are a miner trapped far underground by a massive cave-in. You know that people
are on their way to rescue you, but right now, at this moment, your most vital need is oxygen. It is running out
and as your breathing gets harder and harder, you know that there is nothing you can do to provide yourself
with this critical element for life. No matter how hard you try to conserve, every breath brings you closer to
dying, but you cannot stop breathing. Your lack of oxygen becomes the most important fact of your life.
Yeshua is speaking to those who realize that their lack of righteousness is the most important fact of their lives.
Without it, they will surely die. Something that they must have is lacking and they have no ability to provide it
for themselves.

Remember the Law of Just Rewards. Yeshua shocked his audience by telling them that precisely those people
who appeared to be under the judgment of God are really in a state of rejoicing. Everyone supposed that if you
were suffering from chronic malnutrition it was a sign that you were being punished for your unworthiness.
Everyone supposed that if you were well fed and wealthy it was a sign that you were upright and worthy.
Yeshua turned all of this upside down by saying that those people who were chronically helpless in their need
for worthiness should rejoice and be happy. Their need was going to be taken care of.

“Be incredibly happy! Those of you who know that you cannot provide what you need by yourselves, who
know that life is not giving you what you must have, who know that you are dying without what only God can
provide, JUMP FOR JOY! Your day has arrived.”

Everything about this proclamation by Yeshua was wrong, according to the religion of the day. God could
never count as worthy those who were essentially unworthy. Don’t we say the same thing today – “God helps
those who help themselves”. Every belief in “bearing my own cross”, every effort to earn God’s blessing, every
bit of striving to make myself into something acceptable to God – all of it – Yeshua casts aside. God is for
those who know they don't have a prayer.

What essential element of life do these people lack? It is not bread. It is not water. It is God’s righteousness.

The Greek word for righteousness is dikaiosyne (de-kay-o-sin-a). It comes from a Greek root that means
“justice”. The concept of righteousness is closely linked to the Hebrew concept of Law. God’s law was the
most powerful expression of His covenant with His chosen people. From the ten commandants to the laws
given in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, God’s rule governed all aspects of life. The Old Testament consistently
affirms that God’s rule is the proper order of all life. This concept is very different from our modern Greek
based legal system. The Greeks believed that Law was essentially a result of rational implementation of what
benefited the state. Law was what is proper and what is established for the good of the citizenry. This concept

12
GoppeltTDNT, Vol.6, p. 18
27
is not present in the Hebrew view of Law. The Hebrew view of Law begins and ends with God. Unlike the
Greek concept of Law, God is not subject to some higher principle that He merely administers in the world.
God Himself is the embodiment of righteousness. The Law is simply an expression of His character as the Holy
God. God is The Ruler Who establishes the Law based on what He knows to be true because it is the
expression of His very Being. Because He is The Ruler of all that is, He is the proper authority for the
expression of any rule governing life. His law is unchangeable and incontestable. God is the interrogator,
prosecutor, judge and jury concerning conformity to the Law. Righteousness is the term used to express the
idea that God is both the Lawgiver and Judge.

Nevertheless, God’s righteousness is not a static set of rules to which human beings must ascribe. God is
actively engaged in the exercise and application of His righteousness. God’s rule is not like the Greek idea of
conformity to what is proper. God’s rule is the active involvement of His righteousness with our deficiency. In
simple terms, God is holy. We are not holy and can never be holy based on our own efforts. We will forever
fall short of God’s standard. But this does not mean that God casts us aside as unworthy. Amazingly, in spite
of our unworthiness under His own rules for life’s order, He counts as righteous those who recognize their
unrighteousness and seek His help. We can think of the stories of Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Daniel and
many others who knew their essential unworthiness in front of a holy God and yet, God established them as
righteous.

In the days of Yeshua, the rabbinical clergy believed that right standing in front of God (righteousness) was
based on godly behavior. In other words, they thought that if they kept all the rules, their human efforts would
result in a balance in their favor and God would reward them. For this reason, the scribes and Pharisees were
meticulous about rule keeping. This was incredibly serious business. Their lives hung in the balance, both in
this world and the next. Yeshua attacked this belief and practice over and over as nothing more than self-
righteous sinfulness. No wonder the clergy was so opposed to Yeshua. Yeshua proclaimed that no man could
earn his way to God – a statement that challenged everything about the purpose of rule keeping religion.
Furthermore, Yeshua claimed that no man could find favor with God except through him. From the perspective
of the clergy, this was insanity, megalomania and blasphemy.

On the hillside, Yeshua speaks about right standing before God. The first thing that he says is that his message
is only for those who already know their essential depravity. They feel the pangs of unworthiness, the dregs of
life out-of-synch, the pain of knowing that life was not intended to be like this. And they also know that they
can’t do anything about it. They are helpless victims of the lack of righteousness. They need something that
they cannot give themselves. They need to be right with God but they know that nothing they can do will make
it happen.

Yeshua once amplified this Beatitude in a parable. His story helps us to see the bigger picture. A son who
believed that he had a right to his own life left home with his inheritance. When his fortune was gone, he
realized that what he needed in order to survive was the provision from his father’s house. So, he returned to
beg only for the allotment of a servant. He came in complete humility, devastated by his own unworthiness,
begging no more than enough to survive. But the father was so overjoyed at his return that he showered the son
with everything that a full life could wish. The son’s intimate knowledge of his unworthiness became the
ground of his acceptance.

It is important to know that the literal translation of this Beatitude is “Happy those hungering and thirsting”.
This promise is not for those who experienced something in the past. It is not for those who may come to this
place in the future. It is for those who are right now, at this very moment, aware of their desperate need. It is
present tense, immediate, desperation. Just like the first Beatitude, these people are keenly sensitive to the fact
that if something doesn’t change their condition; they are going to starve to death.

28
Yeshua says to them, “Rejoice! You are going to be filled”. The last word we need to examine is this one –
filled. “Filled” isn’t quite right. It is a form of chortazo and it comes from the Greek word that means “grass”.
It means “to be fed”. Oh, the depth of God’s word. How marvelous it all is! Yeshua tells those who know they
cannot bring about their own righteousness that it will be provided for them. They are going to be fed. They do
not need to forage in life’s garbage piles to find enough to sustain themselves. They don’t need to build up
some spiritual bank account of goodness. God is going to provide them with exactly what they are missing.
There is a rich heritage that supports this teaching. Consider the following Old Testament passages:

Ps. 23: 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures.

Ps 79:13 Then we thy people, the flock of thy pasture,
Ps 100:3 we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Jer 50:19 I will restore Israel to his pasture
Ezek 34:14 I will feed them with good pasture
Ezek 34:31 And you are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God
Zeph 3:13 For they shall pasture and lie down,
1Sam 2:5 but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger.
Neh 9:15 Thou didst give them bread from heaven for their hunger and bring forth
Isa 49:10 they shall not hunger or thirst,

But Yeshua is not finished. He is not a prophet pointing to some distant future restoration of righteousness by
God. He knows that those who live with the agony of their insufficiency before God place their hope in
Yahweh. Yeshua is announcing something incredible. He is proclaiming that God's solution to this yearning is
being disclosed right now. He said “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who
believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). He said, “I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be
saved and will go in and will go out and will find pasture” (John 19:9) and “I am the Good Shepherd” (John
10:11). Yeshua is the answer to the problem of hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

Let us attempt a fuller translation. "Rejoice and jump for joy you who at this very moment know that your
helpless lack of worth before God is killing you. You are incredibly lucky. I have come to restore your
righteousness before God."

Yeshua is declaring happiness to those who know their lives are inadequate. Do you know what it is like to be
constantly inadequate in your standing before God? Has your life been under the specter of slow death from the
lack of His grace? Can you feel those racking pains that accompany spiritual starvation? If you said, “Yes”,
then you are most fortunate. This is not judgment. It is reward. This Beatitude is not about your efforts to
bring righteousness into the world. It is not about your striving for the application of God's rule. It is not about
the desire for morality or a program of spiritual purification. It is about your total and utter inability to fill your
most basic need of life – to be rightly related to our Creator. It is about that moment in your life when you
know that how you live and what you live for is all wrong, and you just can't fix it no matter what. It is about
the instant when you know that you are completely helpless in your efforts find righteousness in yourself. All
you can do is cast yourself on God. Rejoice, says Yeshua. I am the way, the truth and the life. I have found
you. And I will fufill your desperate need.

Yeshua' macarism is a thought-provoking saying that reverses ordinary understanding by providing a new and
deeper way of looking at the same thing. It stands common sense on its head. Yeshua points to the basic
necessities of life as a symbol of another essential – righteousness. But what Yeshua says to each of us is that
we are helpless when it comes to life's necessities. Only God can provide them, even if we fail to acknowledge
His blessing. And those who will receive the most precious of all essentials, righteousness, are the ones who
are most keenly aware of their complete inability to provide for themselves. When we are finally starving for
God, He arrives. It will not happen while we try our own versions of ethical purity. It will not happen while we

29
measure our deeds by balance-scale goodness. The only ones who are going to be blessed in this macarism are
the ones who have nothing to show for themselves except their need.

In our modern world, it is very important to see that Yeshua does not say that they should be happy because
they will be empowered. He doesn't promise a sudden insight or spiritual trick that will make them acceptable
or even capable of getting what they need. The desire for righteousness is not self-fulfilling. What Yeshua
says is that righteousness will be "fed" to you. We are not going to suddenly be empowered to belly-up to
God's table and eat our share of righteousness. No, we can only receive righteousness when we are so
malnourished in ourselves that we require God to spoon feed us. The secret of receiving righteousness from
God is to come to God without any self-ability at all. It is no different than feeding the starving children in
Somalia. Carried in on stretchers, unable to do anything for themselves, hovering near death unless they receive
a blessing from someone else's storehouse, we watch the doctor or nurse feed them one spoonful at a time. In
the same way, God will feed us what we must have in order to live, one spoonful at a time. But only when we
reach the absolute end of our own self-rights.

In an age when personal rights are in the forefront, we as Christians would be well served by taking this
Beatitude to heart. There is no personal bill of rights for a Christian. There is only unmerited, underserved
grace from the Creator God though His Son Yeshua the Christ. Standing on my personal rights automatically
excludes me from those who hunger and thirst. I substitute self-rights for right selflessness. When my rights
become the standard of my life, I exclude myself from being fed by the grace of God. I remove myself from
those who are characterized by a lack of life's essentials. And the result is that I cannot receive God's bounty.
It's a world turned upside-down. God gives to those who cannot offer anything except their need. Blessing falls
on the undeserving. Only those with hungry eyes will see it.

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; . . . for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne
shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes. (Rev 7:16-17)

Lucky in Insufficiency

1. How has your true insufficiency been revealed to you?

2. Where does God meet your needs?

3. Do you trust Him to completely provide?

4. Are you willing to be fed?

30
31