From rules to the Messiah

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/030720.cfm
Deuteronomy 26:16-19
Matthew 5:43-48

In the reading from Deuteronomy, Moses tells his people that the Lord is making an agreement with you.  You are to be a people peculiarly His own and, provided you keep His commandments, He will raise you up above all other nations and you will be a people sacred to the Lord.

Well, we know that they failed many times and each time the Lord came to straighten them out.   Of all the people on the planet the Lord chose the Jews for the purpose of bringing salvation to the world.  We don’t know all the reasons the Lord chose them, but we can figure out some of them.  The Jews were, for the most part, monotheistic.  They were a very close knit people and this made it easier to mold them into the people that would eventually bring the Messiah to the world.

The Old Testament is all about the Lord forming the Jews into a particular culture that was strong in their faith.  It is also all about the life of the Messiah.  Although there were many prophesies regarding the Messiah, it was difficult to imagine how it was all going to turn out.  The Talmud is a commentary and interpretation about what is written in the Old Testament.  Some of the confusion is seen in how the Messiah is described.  There are readings where the Messiah must suffer terribly.  There are other readings where He has come to rule the world.  The Talmud makes a distinction between what they called the Messiah Ben Joseph and the Messiah Ben David.  Messiah Ben Joseph was the suffering Messiah while Messiah Ben David was the conquering Messiah.  Using our hindsight we can see where the confusion comes from.

In order to prepare the Lords chosen people the Lord lays down some rules that His people must follow.  There are two commandments, Keep the Sabbath Holy and Honor your mother and father, which are things they must do.  The other eight are a list of "Thou shalt not’s."  And this leads me into an analogy.

When we were babies, the first thing we recognized was the voice of our mother and then our father.  In the same way, our Lord, was made known to the Jews as their creator.  In the painting by Rembrandt of the Prodigal son, we see the son kneeling at his father’s feet and dressed in rags.  The father is depicted as an old man looking lovingly down on his son and with his hands on the son’s shoulders.  If you look at the hands of the father you will see that one hand looks very masculine and the other looks feminine.  Rembrandt’s intent was to show the father as both the father and mother of the son.  The father being the one in charge and the mother being the source of immense love for her son.

In the same way, the Lord reveals Himself to the Jews.  He loves the Jews as a mother loves her child and He disciplines like a father disciplines.  Which brings us to the second part of the analogy.  When the child begins to talk, his first words are something like mama and papa.  The next word he learns is a loud and threating word, NO!   As the child grows he learns more and more the things he should not do.

And so, we have the Jews growing and being formed by a loving Father.  When His children behave they are rewarded and when they misbehaved the punishments were sometimes severe.  The Jewish exodus from Egypt has some excellent examples of the rewards and punishments if you are interested in some outside reading.

As the time of the coming Messiah drew near the Jews were formed into a culture that was not only ready for the coming of the Messiah but knew just about every detail of His coming.  But their culture was based on the ‘Thou shalt not’s.  There were volumes of ‘Thou shalt not’s, a lot like our tax code, where it would be impossible to follow all the rules.

This brings us to the gospel.  Here Jesus turns everything upside down.  Instead of ‘Thou shalt not’ He proclaims ‘Thou shall’.  In the first line of today’s gospel Jesus says ‘You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy (i.e. you shall not love your enemy).  But I say to you, love your enemies.’  This was totally unheard of.  How can you possibly love the unclean, pagan Romans.  I would imagine they were thinking He was out of His mind.

It is easy to love your friends, family and others who love you back.  Everybody does that.  Even the enemy loves those who love them back.  Some of the worst dictators in the world, cartel lords, and others who spread fear and destruction have friends, family and others who love them.  Now Jesus is calling the Jews and us to love those who persecute us and kill us.  Part of being a Christian is enduring suffering at the hands of our persecutors and enemies just as Christ did and so did all of the martyrs.

In Acts 5, there is the story of the Apostles being arrested for preaching in the Temple.  They are flogged and called before the Sanhedrin.  They are told to cease preaching in the temple.  In verse 41 it says “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for His name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.”

Suffering in Christ’s name is not limited just to persecution.  Any kind of suffering can become a tremendous source of prayer.  As a matter of fact, it is the highest form of prayer because we are joining our suffering to Christ’s suffering on the cross for the salvation of the world.  Does this mean that we have to become best friends with our persecutors and invite them over for a beer after they’ve flogged us?  I don’t think so!  What we can do is pray for our persecutors that their hearts be opened and that they find the peace of Christ within themselves.

On the ‘Thou shall’ list, Christ tells us to love one another as He has loved us.  When we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, care for a stranger, clothe the naked, tend the sick, visit the prisoners, give alms, etc. we are fulfilling Jesus’ command to love one another.

When we love one another as Christ has commanded us to do, then the "Thou shalt not’s" will take care of themselves.