10th Week in Ordinary Time
I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. (Matthew 5:17)
Being outside in a snowstorm can be very disorienting. Even if you’re very close to your house or car, you can feel a million miles from anywhere. Trying to push your way through the deep snow is exhausting. It’s not a perfect analogy, but in many ways trying to follow God’s law can be similar: even though God’s law is good, we still lose our way, and even when we know where we’re going, our energy can fade fast.
We can imagine various solutions for the snowbound traveler. If the temperature were to rise dramatically, the snow would turn to rain, and the piles would melt. Problem solved! Or a helicopter could arrive and airlift the shivering hiker to safety. In the same way, we sometimes picture our salvation in Christ in these terms. We can hope that our struggles will melt away like snowbanks in the warm sun. Or we may think, “I shouldn’t have to keep struggling and fighting. Jesus will lift me out of this mess.”
But Jesus gives us a different vision in today’s Gospel. He explains that he has come to fulfill the Law and the prophets, not abolish them. Abolishing the Law would be like raising the temperature in a blizzard. The challenges just melt away. But Jesus’ plan for us is also not like a helicopter rescue. He tells us that anyone wanting to be his disciple needs to follow all of the commandments. He won’t just whisk us out of the situation and deposit us safely in the kingdom of heaven!
So what does Jesus do for us? Sticking with our analogy, Jesus is something of a Sherpa guide. He knows the way, and he goes ahead of us, allowing us to follow behind him where the going is easier. Eventually we find our way out of the snowstorm, but only because we are with the One who shares our journey with us.
Take a few minutes to reflect on this. Have you been hoping for a warming spell or a helicopter airlift? Take this to Jesus, and ask him to show you his presence in your life. Then join him in the great journey.
“Lord, thank you for working in me so that I can live for you.” Amen!
2 Corinthians 3:4 Such is the confidence we have through the Messiah toward God. 5 It is not that we are competent in ourselves to count anything as having come from us; on the contrary, our competence is from God. 6 He has even made us competent to be workers serving a New Covenant, the essence of which is not a written text but the Spirit. For the written text brings death, but the Spirit gives life.
7 Now if that which worked death, by means of a written text engraved on stone tablets, came with glory — such glory that the people of Isra’el could not stand to look at Moshe’s face because of its brightness, even though that brightness was already fading away — 8 won’t the working of the Spirit be accompanied by even greater glory? 9 For if there was glory in what worked to declare people guilty, how much more must the glory abound in what works to declare people innocent! 10 In fact, by comparison with this greater glory, what was made glorious before has no glory now. 11 For if there was glory in what faded away, how much more glory must there be in what lasts.
Psalm 99:5 Exalt Adonai our God!
Prostrate yourselves at his footstool (he is holy).
6 Moshe and Aharon among his cohanim
and Sh’mu’el among those who call on his name
called on Adonai, and he answered them.
7 He spoke to them in the column of cloud;
they kept his instructions and the law that he gave them.
8 Adonai our God, you answered them.
To them you were a forgiving God,
although you took vengeance on their wrongdoings.
9 Exalt Adonai our God,
bow down toward his holy mountain,
for Adonai our God is holy!
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