12/22/24 - Matthew 5: Advent of Love

Dec 21

Moses stood between the people and God because they could not bear to hear His voice. Moses kept the people away and brought the law down. Jesus drew everyone near and brought them up.
Moses announced blessings and curses based on adherence to the letter of the Law, and Jesus announced blessings and curses based on the deeper condition of the heart.
Moses was an unwilling but obedient servant who resented the burden of carrying the people and blamed them for his error that kept him out of the promised land, Jesus comes as Isaiah’s prophesied suffering servant, taking on the sins of the people and happily bearing their burdens.

Moses brought the Law, what Paul calls the schoolmaster, preparing us for the coming of Christ. The scriptures make clear that no one can be justified by mere obedience to the law but only by faith.
Yet Jesus said that not the smallest stroke or twist of the pen would done away with until it has fulfilled its purpose. So what do we do with the Law? And what do we do with what seems to be Jesus’ amendment of the Law?

Paul writes that the law is for lawbreakers. That the rebellious of heart and all who refuse the gift of grace are under the law’s condemnation.
For the Christian, when Christ was breathing His final breaths, he cried out, “It is finished.” Hebrews goes into great detail to convey how the blood of Christ has fulfilled the Old Covenant, a new priesthood has been ordained, and with a new priesthood, a new commandment.
Jesus proclaims this new commandment as a twofold command: To believe in the Son who the Father has sent and to love one another as He has loved us.

The Essenes waited for two Messiah figures who would reclaim the priesthood and the Davidic throne.
Jesus is revealed to John the Baptist as the Messiah who takes away the sins of the world. A fulfillment of all the hopes of Israel and the desire of the nations all wrapped up in one figure.
The sermon on the mount is the beginning, not just of a reclamation but of a transition.

When Jesus says that the law will not pass away until it is all fulfilled, the word He uses is the word “γένηται” (genetai), a word which doesn’t merely mean fulfilled but “transforming from one state into another.”
The sermon on the mount is the beginning of this transformative fulfillment. He challenges their assumption that mere adherence to the letter is enough and holiness, like the Pharisees’, is the peak of holiness and drives their understanding of the law and righteousness down into matters and intentions of the heart to bring mankind to the end of themselves and to stand in their place as representative for them before the Father. He institutes a new priesthood with Himself as the great High Preist over a new people of a wholly different kind of kingdom.

Jesus starts many of his statements with the phrase, “You have heard it said…but I say.” Their understanding of the law was about skin deep. He intended to draw them deeper. He brings them down to the inner workings of the heart.

In Heaven’s court, murder isn’t just about killing someone; it's about unjustified anger, spewing insults, or signing people off as fools and unredeemable. Anything that kills a person’s character or reputation unjustly
Adultery isn’t just about intimacy with an extramarital person but is coveting another person, wishing you could have them, wishing your spouse could be more like them, wishing to have something other than who and what you have.
Divorce, when flippantly done, is the ultimate outward expression of the adultery of the heart.
Invoking God, heaven, earth, or your mother’s grave to show your commitment or seriousness isn’t just words but a reflection of the heart, most likely revealing that you’re not honest enough with yourself or others for a straight answer to be taken seriously.
The letter of the law is evenly retributive. The heart of God is to receive injustice, don’t give it back in turn, go above and beyond what’s imposed on you(even unjustly), and give generously to anyone who asks anything of you.
And don’t just love your neighbor, but love your enemy at the cost of yourself, and you’ll be like God.

All of these things that Jesus says are correcting and transitioning their understanding of the law. It’s not the letter of the law but the underpinnings of love for neighbor, enemy, and God that is the foundation of the entirety of it.
The people that Jesus is talking to were, like we are, crafty at finding the “line.” To follow the rules while trying to turn the rules to our advantage, fooling ourselves and thinking we can fool God to get away with whatever we want to. Jesus exposes our hearts and our intentions and draws us deeper from technical rule-following to heart surrender.

Jesus also gives them a new understanding of sacrifice. The proper act of worship in the mind of the Israelites was to bring God a sacrifice in the form of animals, grains, and money.

They often fell into the trap of believing as long as they brought a sacrifice to the temple, everything was fine. We do similar things today by saying a prayer or going to church. For our catholic brothers and sisters, this may look like praying the rosary or going to confession. We do the prescribed things, yet we can still miss out on what God truly desires for His people.

Jesus says here that if you know someone has something against you, don’t even bother bringing the outward sacrifice. He goes deeper to the heart. Don’t think you can bribe God. Stop what you’re doing and go make things right between you and those you’ve wronged.

This kind of sacrifice is laying our hearts on the altar, sacrificing our pride, our arrogance, our self-righteousness, our reasons for division and segregation. It’s a sacrifice that seeks out communal love and unity. And it’s this kind of self-sacrificing love that Jesus lays out as the ideal form of worship.

When we think of a kingdom, we think of rulers, laws, and armies. The battle cry of the kingdoms of this world preempts conquest and death to enemies.
Jesus commands us to be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect. What Jesus says right before this is that to be children of our Father in heaven is to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Because the Father extends His grace to both the evil and the good, we are expected to do the same. This is altogether different from the domination mindset our world has us accustomed to.
We live in a transitionary period in our county. Our attitude towards our culture is often everything Jesus commands against. We search for reasons to hate those whose sins aren’t like our own. We find ways to twist the scriptures to give us a false sense of authority to justify harboring hatred in our hearts.
On this day, when we remember the advent of Love into the world, let us consider what kind of a people Christ desires to make us and live like He did and still does. A love so strong for the least of these, the marginalized, and the sinners that He stooped so low as to empty Himself of all that marked Him as divine and identify with those who the self-righteous cast off.

Let us examine ourselves in the context of our time and ask who are the least of these, the marginalized and the sinners of our times, and how can we, like Christ, enter into their world, identify with them, and with radical love bring them into this unusual Kingdom.

Brandyn Bettis

1/12/25 - Matthew 6: What Drives You?