10/8/2023

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE READING:

“For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will truly disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.  Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5.18-19)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

I don’t suppose that anything else I may reflect upon in these two verses will mean much if any of us fail to understand the major caveat. What is that caveat? Jesus said, “…not until heaven and earth disappear.” And exactly when will that be? Knowing the answer, even the hint of it, thus validates the reality of the authority of the Law of God from the “greatest commandment/s” to “the least of these.” Jesus said, and is saying even now in our reading and contemplation of these verses, the Law remains in effect as a call to righteousness until all that we know of “heaven and earth” shall cease.

I know we have had times in our lives when life seemed to have stopped and ceased to exist; at least life as we had grown to know it. The loss of a job, a relationship, a family member or close friend, our financial future, our homes or neighborhood or community certainly have created a sense of “so great a loss as this” that we entertain the idea that “heaven and earth have ceased and disappeared.” I am working on a book that shares possible thoughts of the Apostle Peter on the night when Jesus had been buried in Joseph of Arimethea’s tomb. In those closing moments between being taken from the cross, wrapped carefully in swaddling cloths and carried to the body’s resting place, Peter and the other disciples (except for the Marys and Salome) were nowhere to be found. Had they ceased and disappeared? Had their lives and their world come to an end? What was it to wrestle through the night hours of the Sabbath each with their thoughts? Just twenty-four hours prior, they had been sharing the Passover, listening to hard words of Jesus’ final teaching before He was betrayed, gone to the Garden of Gethsemane to worship and pray and been caught out by the Romans, the Herodians, the Temple Guard and, of course, Judas of Kerioth. Their eyes would never meet again. For Judas, the culmination of those events would cause his “heaven and earth” to disappear. He would forever abide in the place which God reserved for him in his dark night of the soul. What was it like to “wake up” the next morning for any of them and be confronted with the continuation of “heaven and earth” having not disappeared?

Jesus was clear on that point from the very beginning as He taught them all in this “Sermon on the Mount.” The commandments of God, those rules and guidelines of righteousness intended to establish the kind of life which the Shepherd intended for His flock, had not changed. Even Jesus’ death and resurrection would not be able invalidate the Law and the Prophets. John wrote, “For I have not come to invalidate the Law or to remove it but show that one can live in the ability of fulfilling it.” Further, Jesus said, “In a short while the world will not see Me. By this, you will know that I have gone to the Father. Keep My commands and demonstrate your love for Me.” Heaven and earth did not disappear but Jesus would upon His ascension into Heaven forty days later. It would not be until He appeared again “coming as on the clouds” that Heaven and earth would disappear. They would be replaced by a new Heaven and a new Earth which He would fashion Himself and bring into existence for all believers to enjoy and dwell in for all eternity. He said, as the writer of the Gospel of Matthew remembered, “Heaven and earth shall pass away but My Word shall never pass.” The call to righteousness is eternal. It endures forever and ever. And we, as mighty ones of God who believe that Jesus is the Christ, will abide in that Word forever and ever.

The question is for me today: “Why would we think that there should be another word?” Why would we demand such interpretation and extrapolation of what has been said to fit our current context, culture and climate if the first word was sufficient to meet all our needs? Have we outgrown the Word? Have we exceeded the value and worth of the Word? Or have we found it too difficult, as did the Rich Young Ruler and others, to master that we have decided to make it more pliable, ameniable and easy? Yet, in light of the gospel, it was the simple who confounded the wise, the weak who overtook the strong and the believer who became the leader. Those “be-attitudes” are descriptors of those who will never pass away. They are meant to be us and we are meant to be them. There is no use in fixing something that isn’t broken. Jesus didn’t. Why should we?

PRAYER IN LIGHT OF GOD’S WORD:

Father, You have revealed to us best in Jesus the Christ. By Him and Him alone shall we gain the eternal life and our place in eternal rest, living for You always. Show us more and by Your Holy Spirit instruct us in the way we should go, the truth we should reveal and the life we shall live with you forever. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.