How You Look at It
People don't like following rules.
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. - Matt. 5:17-20
I can imagine that word spread about Jesus. If you follow this guy, you don't have to worry about breaking the Sabbath. He does it and gets away with it.
So, Jesus sees that this is a problem, and he decides to make a proclamation about the law and the prophets.
Now people could be confused, but Jesus makes it clear that the Pharisees and scribes, the ones who make the rules about the law, are corrupt.
Oh, I get it, they say.
We can keep the Sabbath holy by praising and revering God, and by praying and fasting, but we don't have to believe that all the rules these guys made up about what is work and what we cannot do is baloney.
We have a similar situation today but in reverse.
Our laws continue to try to clarify the law with specific examples of what is against the law and what is within the law.
For example, self-defense is a defense for someone who kills a person who is attacking him or her.
That may get you off without sending you to jail, but you did kill someone. You broke a commandment.
We can look at this both ways.
Last week I was sitting on the porch at my sister's house and I noticed that all but one of the cars that came down the road stopped at the stop sign. The school bus failed to even slow down.
What does that say about following the laws.
Sure, it is not like killing someone, but not too long ago someone came around a corner nearby and ran over three teenagers, killing two.
If we want to distill the laws of God into one or two the way Jesus did, we would honor and respect life.
Stopping at a stop sign when there are no people or cars around seems like a waste of time, but it is a habit that just might save a life sometimes.
If we love one another as God loves us, we will respect one another. So, it is all in how we look at it.
More to come...