GRACE FULFULS THE LAW

WEDNESDAY, THIRD WEEK OF LENT   

Deutero 4:1,5-9; Ps 147:12-13,15-16,19-20; Mt 5:17-19

Attaining the Spirit of the Law

As Saint Paul attested in his letter to the Romans, the Law is good as coming from the God who is infinitely good. He therefore wondered why the good Law produces evil results in us. The problem is an overemphasis on the written code without an equal or corresponding emphasis on God, who makes Himself present to His people through the means of the Law. The Law is a codification of the restrictions that prevent anyone from falling out of communion with God and His people. The focus should not be on the codes of the Law, but on God, who is the cause of the covenantal communion with the people of Israel. Our personal experiences validate this assertion or understanding. It is usually the case that our beginnings in spirituality are marked by a strong desire not to offend God by breaking any of the commandments. This initial focus on keeping the commandments is driven by fear; it usually ends in disappointment. We would discover that every attempt we make to keep God’s commandments ends in failure. Saint Paul had the same experience. The problem is our focus on the codes. A focus on the codes will only resonate fear and judgment in our minds, leaving our hearts sad and dry. Our experiences of failure in all our attempts to keep the Law are invitations to encounter the love of God in Jesus Christ, who opens the font of living water within us.

For the community of God’s people, who were redeemed from slavery and bondage in Egypt, it was a natural thing for them to approach the Law of God with fear and trembling. This is a consequence of their experience as slaves in Egypt, coupled with the manner in which the Law was administered to them on Sinai through Moses. Their birth and nurture as slaves would only have taught them the language of fear and threats. It was difficult for Moses to handle them otherwise; to make them appreciate the goodness of the Law in itself, which is the purpose of these words addressed to them. “Now, Israel, take notice of the laws and customs that I teach you today, and observe them, that you may have life and may enter and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers is giving you.” A focus on the laws and customs would not produce the desired effect of goodness without the love of God, who gives the laws. Our focus on the laws and customs does not lead to knowledge of God and His goodness, but our focus on God and knowledge of His goodness empowers us to observe the laws and customs. The Law can only lead to knowledge of God when we attend to it as a means to knowledge of God and not as an end in itself. “When they come to know of all these laws, they will exclaim, ‘No other people is as wise and prudent as this great nation.’ And indeed, what great nation is there that has its gods so near as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call to him?” The only way the Law leads us to knowledge of God is through our failures in all our attempts to keep it.

One who succeeds in keeping the Law considers the gifts of God as his merits. But the fact is that none of us merits the gifts of God, for we all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. As we have noted, our experience with the Law is an invitation to God’s love. Our personal failures and sins beckon us to encounter God and His love outside this focus on the Law as coded. Our Lord's stricter re-issuance of the Law is to make our need of grace obvious to us. “Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them. I tell you solemnly, till heaven and earth disappear, not one dot, not one little stroke, shall disappear from the Law until its purpose is achieved.”  He did not relax the Law.  He also did not present the Law first; rather, the knowledge and love of God before the Law. The Gospel gives birth to faith and hope, which are perfected in love of God. All the people of the Old Testament who went behind the coded Law, through the words of the Prophets, had a distant encounter with Jesus Christ, the Messiah. They were made righteous, not by keeping the Law, but by believing in the word of God. The purpose of the Law and the Prophets is to lead us to Jesus Christ, our Saviour, who shares his Holy Spirit with us, making us children of God. “O praise the Lord, Jerusalem! Zion, praise your God! He has strengthened the bars of your gates he has blessed the children within you.”

Let us pray: Grant, we pray, O Lord, that, schooled through Lenten observance and nourished by your word, through holy restraint we may be devoted to you with all our heart and be ever united in prayer. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.