Blessed Good Friday, Ye Poor in Spirit

by Rick Campanelli

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

It is Good Friday.

Good Friday helps us contemplate what it means to be poor in spirit because whatever we may think it means, on Good Friday, God himself demonstrated it: He chose to enter into our poverty, by becoming poor in spirit for us. And in demonstrating that trait, He became the blessing, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

To me, this hymn, Go to Dark Gethsemane, so well expresses the Gracious Poverty He entered out of inexplicable love for us:

Go to dark Gethsemane,
You who feel the tempter’s pow’r;
Your Redeemer’s conflict see;
Watch with Him one bitter hour;
Turn not from His griefs away;
Learn of Jesus Christ to pray.

Follow to the judgment hall;
View the Lord of life arraigned;
O the worm-wood and the gall!
O the pangs His soul sustained!
Shun not suff’ring, shame, or loss;
Learn of Him to bear the cross.

Calv’ry’s mournful mountain climb
There’ adoring at His feet,
Mark the miracle of time,
God’s own sacrifice complete:
“It is finished!” Hear the cry;
Learn of Jesus Christ to die.

Early hasten to the tomb
Where they laid his breathless clay;
All is solitude and gloom;
Who hath taken Him away?
Christ is ris’n! He meets our eyes:
Savior, teach us so to rise.

So, in light of Good Friday and this Holy Weekend, let’s consider these questions:

Happy Easter! May we all grow in the last words of the hymn,

“Christ is ris’n – He meets our eyes: Savior, teach us so to rise.”

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Rick Campanelli is teaching at the University of Virgiina Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. He has extensive leadership experience in private law practice, industry, the nonprofit sector, and in government service at the U.S. Departments of Health & Human Services, Justice, and State. He also seves on the CLS board of directors.

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