+ Today we come immediately to the understanding that Jesus was not going to have decades in which to gradually and methodically unfold an agenda, with carefully crafted plans and constitutions: that would be for his emissaries the apostles to do under the very real guidance of the Holy Spirit. And so today we have Jesus beginning to make some of the critical and chief points that he came to make; points and understandings on which a variety of other ones could rest, and be built on:
and so
he makes it clear that even some of the religious dictates of the past are now
to be superseded by a newer, more basic and simple understandings that puts
everything in proper perspective: the observance of the Sabbath was not to be
for its own sake, as though men had to be a slave to it, but rather, the
Sabbath was to be for God’s sake – the merciful and loving God - and when any
aspect of it needed to be changed (by the One who had authority to do it:
Jesus) then it could rightfully and legally be done: changing the emphasis from
a strict legalism, to a more lenient compassionate observance that “put people
first.”
This did not sit well with the
“religious purists” – whose insistence on rules was strong, but whose
comprehension of the spirit behind them, and personal practice of them, was
not.
May we today peer and perceive
into the spirit behind the “religious rules” of the Church that Jesus left us,
and in fact is, and be sure that we
are grasping the spirit and heart of what is going on and not the dead letter.
May
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ enlighten the eyes of our hearts, that we
may know what is the hope that belongs to our call.
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