March 11, 2015 Wednesday: Third Week of Lent, Lenten Pilgrimage
A Lenten Pilgrimage
Wednesday, Third Week of Lent
March 11, 2015
Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill." Matthew 5:17
We sometimes wonder how many laws we have in our country. There are so many laws, that one lawyer can be trapped by another lawyer who accidentally discovers an obscure law. However, in spite of so many laws and lawyers, there is so much lawlessness that we may wonder what will happen to the country.
Like Moses in the Old Testament, Jesus emphasizes the importance of the law. What puzzles us is that Jesus stresses the strict fulfillment of even the smallest letter of the law while He Himself often violated the law by healing on the Sabbath or by not performing all the rules of ritual cleanliness.
When Jesus speaks about not abolishing the old but fulfilling the Law he does not think of the manmade oral law of the scribes, their petty rules and regulations that lead to legalism. He thinks of the old law of God, especially the Ten Commandments. He teaches that what he brings is something between the past and present, between old and new, between traditional and progressive. It is because real progress builds on the past. The present grows out of the past. When Paul wrote, “Christ is the end of the law,” he did not tell his readers that they could do now what they like, something our permissive society encourages.
If in the gospel Jesus gives importance to the law or God’s law, no matter how limited and human is its interpretation, then it must be lived seriously. For Jesus did not come to abolish the law or the prophets. For God’s law, as a bible scholar puts it, is a synthesis of human and divine wisdom. Beneath God’s word or law is God’s spirit. So, His word will not return to Him empty, for it is alive and dynamic.
May these days of Lent help us to reflect on our attitude towards God’s commandments: do we keep them only when it is convenient and ignore them when they go against our desires? Do we realize that the commandments are given to help us find the right way and preserve us from spiritual anarchy? (Fr. Rudy Horst)
Wednesday, Third Week of Lent
March 11, 2015
Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill." Matthew 5:17
We sometimes wonder how many laws we have in our country. There are so many laws, that one lawyer can be trapped by another lawyer who accidentally discovers an obscure law. However, in spite of so many laws and lawyers, there is so much lawlessness that we may wonder what will happen to the country.
Like Moses in the Old Testament, Jesus emphasizes the importance of the law. What puzzles us is that Jesus stresses the strict fulfillment of even the smallest letter of the law while He Himself often violated the law by healing on the Sabbath or by not performing all the rules of ritual cleanliness.
When Jesus speaks about not abolishing the old but fulfilling the Law he does not think of the manmade oral law of the scribes, their petty rules and regulations that lead to legalism. He thinks of the old law of God, especially the Ten Commandments. He teaches that what he brings is something between the past and present, between old and new, between traditional and progressive. It is because real progress builds on the past. The present grows out of the past. When Paul wrote, “Christ is the end of the law,” he did not tell his readers that they could do now what they like, something our permissive society encourages.
If in the gospel Jesus gives importance to the law or God’s law, no matter how limited and human is its interpretation, then it must be lived seriously. For Jesus did not come to abolish the law or the prophets. For God’s law, as a bible scholar puts it, is a synthesis of human and divine wisdom. Beneath God’s word or law is God’s spirit. So, His word will not return to Him empty, for it is alive and dynamic.
May these days of Lent help us to reflect on our attitude towards God’s commandments: do we keep them only when it is convenient and ignore them when they go against our desires? Do we realize that the commandments are given to help us find the right way and preserve us from spiritual anarchy? (Fr. Rudy Horst)
