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Introduction: The BeatitudesThere are all sorts of things that could be said about the Beatitudes by way of introduction, but I would like to note only two of them:Firstly, the Beatitudes speak to us of the countercultural nature of the Kingdom of God and therefore the life of discipleship. The first group of people – the poor, the hungry, those who weep and are persecuted – are the ones who would be thought of in our world as cursed not blessed. And the second group – the rich, the full, the praised – are those who would be considered blessed and not cursed. And yet, as far as Jesus is concerned, it is in fact the other way around. Translation: Jesus is introducing us to a completely different value system to the one we are used to.Secondly, the word translated here “blessed”, makarios, refers not only to a future state of happiness but to a present one also. Christ is saying that those who are hungry, poor, weeping and persecuted will not only be compensated in the future but are actually blessed now and therefore can rejoice now.Christ says about this, “Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven.” In other words, the blessing of the future and the hope that we have in God is enough to make us happy now. We are like wealthy heirs and heiresses, happy and secure because we know we will inherit the vast family estate. We don’t have it all now but we have some of it and we know we will have all of it soon.There’s an old Syriac translation of one of the Beatitudes that captures this, “Happy it is for the poor in spirit, that theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”Life Without God: Poor and WeepingLet’s have a look at some of the Beatitudes in Luke and see what they mean. Firstly, blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” To cut a long story short, Jesus does not mean that people who are economically poor are blessed. That view might even promote the idea that poverty makes people happy, which it certainly does not.Jesus is not romanticised the hell of serious economic hardship. There are two keys to helping us understand what he does mean. Firstly, Isaiah 66:2, “But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is poor and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word”. We can pair this Scripture with the same Beatitude recorded in Matthew’s Gospel but in a slightly longer form: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The poor, in other words, are not those who lack basic physical necessities, but the humble and pious who seek the presence of God and who recognise the poverty of their existence without him.Contrast this with the “rich” spoken of by Christ. They have received their consolation. Why? Because whatever it is that makes them rich in this world is all that they have. They don’t know God and their wealth or their status or their pleasures or whatever they have is all that they have. And so woe to them because they do not have the only thing that matters ultimately.A similar thing can be said of those who weep now, for they shall laugh later. There are many types of weeping. Those who weep in despair and hopelessness, those who weep in grief and physical pain and not those in view here. Rather Christ speaks of those who weep over their sin, who desire to overcome it, who are frustrated and anxious only because of their wayward hearts. As the old hymn says, ‘Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.’ Do you feel grief over your sin? Do you wish to put it away and never to repeat it? Do you feel shame and the desire to know the presence of God in your life again? Although these feelings are not what one could call positive they actually indicate a position of spiritual blessedness. True repentance leads to forgiveness, reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ and, yes, even laughter. As the old Psalm says, ‘…weeping tarrieth for the night, but joy cometh in the morning.’In this sense those who are poor in spirit and