23rd Sunday After Pentecost The Very Rev. Steven J. Belonick 2016

Transcription

1 23rd Sunday After Pentecost 2016 The Very Rev. Steven J. Belonick 2016 I. The Gospels often describe to us many confrontations that took place between Jesus and the Scribes and the Pharisees. Most often, those confrontations came about as a result of Jesus healing on the Sabbath, as in the case of today s Gospel. When Jesus healed the woman who was bent over for 18 years on the Sabbath, his enemies immediately accused Him of breaking the Law of the Sabbath. The Law of the Sabbath, if you remember, was to remember it and to keep it holy. But Jesus had an attraction to healing on the Sabbath, and we might ask ourselves: Why didn t He learn His lesson and just heal on another day? OR Why did He put Himself in this predicament on a regular basis? OR EVEN Did Jesus break the Law? II. The answer to that question can be found in 1

2 something that Jesus taught in His Sermon on the Mt. He said: Do not suppose that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. What did He mean that He came to fulfill the Law? Jesus meant two things. First, Jesus meant that He came to clarify the true meaning of the Law; to restore its original purpose, which had been lost and distorted by men. Why was this important? In Jesus day, the Jews used the expression the Law in four different ways. Some used it to mean only the 10 commandments; some used the term to mean the first, five books of the Old Testament, called the Torah; some meant byit the entire Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi; and yet others meant by it all the commentaries handed down orally from generation to generation on the Law. It was this last way of looking at the Law the commentaries on the Law - that was predominant during Jesus time, and these commentaries grew in volume 2

3 until they became great collections. These commentaries were interested in the most finite of things. So for example, if the Law required that no work be done on the Sabbath, the question became what do you mean by work? If the answer was - anything that was a burden, then the question was - what do you mean by burden? Was a mother guilty of breaking the Sabbath by picking up her child? Was a tailor guilty of breaking the Sabbath if mistakenly left his house with a needle on his clothes? Jesus found such legalism an abomination. So, He came to restore in the hearts of His people the original meaning of the Law. And what was that meaning? The Law was to seek God s will; to love Him with all your heart, with all your mind, and with your strength; to respect all life; and to love the neighbor. Love trumped everything. And there was no better venue to reveal the true meaning of the Law than to heal on the Sabbath. So, Jesus 3

4 healed on the Sabbath, and He did so on a regular basis. III. It is interesting, however, that one of the oral traditions that was followed by the Pharisees allowed a person to untie and water his donkey or ox. So, Jesus shows the Pharisees the fallacy of their ways by saying: if it is proper on the Sabbath to loose and give an animal relief from the heat, how is it not proper to loose this women, this human, and to give her relief? Is she of not greater value than the your donkey? IV. But there was a second meaning to Jesus words I have come to fulfill the Law and that was that He came to be the consummation of the Law; to complete the Law in His own life; to fulfill it. No other person on the face of the earth had ever accomplished that. But in Him, we see the One who fully sought His Father s will; we see the One Who loved His Father with His whole mind, heart, and strength; 4

5 we see the One who loved the neighbor as Himself. V. Now, these aren t just nice words. Rather, it is because Jesus was fully obedient to the Law, that He and He alone could open Paradise to us. St Paul said: By Adam s disobedience, by Adam s one sin of disobedience, paradise was closed to everyone; but by the obedience of Jesus, paradise has been reopened to all. VI. So, you and I have nothing that we can boast about. This is what St Paul told us in today s epistle. The Kingdom of Heaven is given to us as a pure gift. We can t earn the privilege of entering. We were dead in our trespasses, but Jesus, out of His exceeding kindness to us, has carried us in. Jesus says to His Father they are with me. VII. So, Jesus healed this woman, bound for 18 years by her infirmity, on the Sabbath. And He did so to show us the true meaning of the Law to 5

6 love God, to respect life, to love the neighbor; and having lived the Law perfectly in His Life, He show us that He came to release us who were held under the infirmity of death. VIII. As we move closer to the coming of the Lord on the Feast of His Nativity, let us rejoice that this Law of God will stand until the end of the age and that the fruits of His faithfulness to it has given us life, breaking down the doors that once kept us outside of the Kingdom, weeping. Amen. 6