How do we
understand the law of God?
In the Book of Exodus, God delivers a series of commandments to Moses, ten words in the Hebrew tradition, that
speak of the people’s relationship with God and with neighbor. The people can
show their love of God, they are told, if they remain faithful, call out to God
in love alone, and keep God’s day holy; moreover, how they care for their
neighbor says a good deal about how they care for God. As people of the covenant, the people of
Israel are to love one another with a covenant bond as they love God. Psalm 19 notes that The law of the Lord is perfect.
God’s law is sweeter than honey
from the comb, enhancing our existence, if only we embrace it as a set of
guidelines that teach us to love.
If the message
wasn’t clear in the Old Testament, God’s love, made manifest in the coming of
Jesus, becomes crystal clear in the New Testament. As Paul tells the Corinthians, we proclaim Christ crucified – a means
of death that would have dismayed the Jews of Jesus’ time and utterly puzzled
the Greeks. Yet the bottom line is
this: Jesus died for the sake of all
mankind, to redeem all mankind; his love is stronger than anything, even death,
for this love is the very power of God. Jesus’
cleansing of the temple, in John’s Gospel, is an occasion for him to foretell
this death and resurrection: Destroy this temple and in three days I will
raise it up, he tells his spectators.
I have come to die for you, in other words, and that death will be an
expression of God’s great love for you.
Jesus is the ultimate law, the ultimate Word, the ultimate sacrifice –
it is this law we are to embrace, for it teaches us, at every step, to love.
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordle.net
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