He Fills Our Nothing with Everything

From Gospel Translations

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Revision as of 18:40, 26 February 2026

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

Poverty of spirit provides the path to the riches of Jesus. Who would have expected that?

When I read the Gospels, Jesus sure seems to enjoy teaching through paradox. He deliberately flips expectations upside down. What a way to start a sermon: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). Really? Happy are those who are low? Fulfilled are those who are empty? Joyous are the sad? It seems to make no sense.

When I first hear “poor in spirit,” I think of the ways I don’t want to be. Dejected. Blue. Diminished. Inert. Hopeless. Stuck. Depressed. How can these states be a way into the kingdom of God’s glorious reign, where all is just and right and harmonious?

Just as Jesus wants, to understand him we listeners have to keep reflecting. Then, like a bomb on a timer, Jesus’s words go off inside us. Oh, that’s what he meant! These reversals are true. The way up runs via the way down. Somehow, paucity of soul really can lead us to splashing in the overflow of heaven’s bounty.

“Poor in spirit” means openly admitting complete dependence on God for our very survival. This first beatitude assures us that Jesus turns our genuine humility into thriving.

Pictures of the Blessed Poor

To help such a paradoxical truth to bloom within us, we can press into the encounters Jesus had with people who were desperately poor in spirit.

Mark 5:21–43 recounts two healing stories entwined as one episode. First we meet Jairus the synagogue leader achingly concerned for his dying daughter. Then we encounter an unnamed woman weakened for years by continuous menstrual bleeding. Both present dire physical needs. Both display the soul poverty that releases kingdom bounty. In so doing, both enact the great faith that makes a transforming connection to Jesus.

Their Dire Need

The scene opens with Jesus’s return by boat to the Jewish shores of the Sea of Galilee. A great crowd immediately forms around him. The competent, influential man in charge of local synagogue services threads his way through the throng to Jesus. Does Jairus come proudly? Is he full of himself and, therefore, like so many other religious leaders, full of demands on Jesus? No, he falls on his face at the feet of Christ. He takes the posture of a complete supplicant. He abases his rank in order to request — urgently and humbly — a boon from Jesus.

Jairus’s words reveal an earnest man motivated by all the love a father can have for his twelve-year-old daughter in a dire state. We can render the Greek of what Jairus spoke in verse 23 as “My little daughter is holding at the end.” In other words, “She’s at her last gasp. Death has reached out its icy hand, and it seems to have taken hold of her.” There’s absolutely no proud entitlement in what Jairus then asks of Jesus. I hear it this way: “Won’t you come? Lay your hands on her that she might be saved from this peril. Your touch would make her well. Then, instead of death, she could lay hold of life once again. Please.”

In a myriad of ways, need bankrupts our illusion of autonomy. When it does, do we go on stubbornly standing, pretending and proud in our tatters? Or, like Jairus, can we find the blessing of being utterly poor in spirit, accepting it as the path to our Savior?

Jesus starts out for Jairus’s home. The multitude moves with him. But now urgency drives another person to wrestle her way through the crowd. Mark describes not only her physical infirmity but the poverty of spirit created by this continual discharge of blood. This woman had spent all she had over all those years on medical procedures. Mark tells us, with no small understatement, she “suffered much under many physicians” (verse 26). They had not only failed to bring healing, but this ailing woman had grown worse. She must have wondered if she would ever get well. Imagine how much she had internalized the word used for her religious status: unclean. Not fit for human contact. Too tainted for the assembly of God’s people. A pariah to be shunned.

How easily we feel connections to her. We recall situations where life bleeds out of us, and we lose hope that we will ever live fully again. Our confidence gets shattered, and we begin to internalize this diminishment as who we are. Yes, we know this woman.

His Kingdom Fullness

When all worldly hope had proved vain, faith yet leaps up in her at the sight of Jesus. She feels sure that one touch of his would heal her. She wouldn’t even need the polluting skin-to-skin contact. Just a brush against his robe would do. This woman thinks so little of her power and so much of Christ’s.

Then we can only admire her honesty when she comes forward after Jesus asks, “Who touched my garments?” (verse 30). Like Jairus, she falls down before Jesus. She admits that she, the unclean one, has potentially soiled Jesus. He could have been furious. But instead, he blesses the woman poor in spirit with redeeming words even better than the physical healing. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace” (verse 34). Jesus loves her like Jairus loves his daughter. He claims her as part of his family. She can return to communion with God and the community of his people. Bold faith from humble need has led to her redemption at every level. The kingdom of heaven flows into the poor in spirit.

With this interruption, by the time Jesus arrives at Jairus’s house, his little girl has died. The neighbors coldly declare there is no longer any need to bring in this rabbi. Jesus simply says to Jairus, “Do not fear, only believe” (verse 36). Surely the thought crosses Jairus’s mind that this has been a fool’s errand. He could send Jesus away and go join the mourners. But instead, he leads Jesus to the girl’s bedside. Jairus is all in, even as the mourners ridicule Jesus. And then Christ takes the little girl by the hand and raises her!

‘I Can’t, But Jesus Can’

Both Jairus and the bleeding woman reveal that “poor in spirit” can mean “full of faith.” Jesus prizes this humble trust. The posture of “I can’t, but Jesus can” leads to the overflow of heaven’s kingdom down into earthly lives. Instead of being self-sufficient, these believers become self-dispossessed. Their dire need becomes a gift.

We would never choose their situations. Yet I feel sure that, even now, Jairus and the healed woman would say they wouldn’t trade those hours, days, and even years of open need for anything in the universe. Poor in spirit led them to Jesus. Their open-hearted, open-handed supplication revealed their abandoned trust in Christ. Only he could fill their need — and only when they embraced their emptiness.

So, how about us? Shall we not surrender our pride and offer up these situations in which we are empty of solutions? We too can leap all in with trust and then watch for Jesus’s surprising response. Poverty of spirit still provides the path to the riches of Jesus.