Christ the Law

We may extend or narrow our friendships, intensify enmity or compromise with evil, all by manipulating law that we have access to. Being lawless, we can be very much ‘righteous’ to ourselves and before ourselves. The sacred laws codified were with a hope to be holy as God is holy. The holiness of God cannot be real if there is no justice, even if we have ‘holy’ structures, incense and ‘holy’ songs and praises everywhere.

Paul finds Christ as the new law. We cannot manipulate, or be hypocritical and follow Christ the law. Christ is not rules and regulations. Christ is the way we walk and the end we accomplish. Though frail, sincerity is the only requirement to follow Christ the law.

Often, we hear this gift to be led by Christ the law as individual obligation. It is ‘you’ (in singular) who is to follow Christ, keep his ‘commandments,’ and be holy. It is ‘we’ or ‘you’ (in plural) that follow Christ, or follow Christ the law, and be holy as God is holy, and being perfect as our heavenly Father. Has any one got a merit, it is shared for the good of all. Has anyone flawed? It is a concern for all, not as a worry or shame, but as a need of the body to make one another complete.

In these little ones

Purpose of the laws is to train one to see the face of God in the other. So the law, more than any of the rules and regulations, take us into the most vulnerable conditions. It is there we see the face of God, and serve God. No ritual or custom can substitute it. 

In order to train ourselves in this, it is also important to identify temptations that disfigure a Christian vision. 'In these little ones you did it to me' goes through a temptation of screening these little ones through our celebrated prejudices of race, religion, language and morals.

Wilderness

God, man, the tempter, the angels, all in the wilderness. Did Mark have Adam in mind as he sees them together? However, the wilderness shapes one's life amidst our struggle among the angels, the beasts, and the evil one. It is the good news that stands as mirror to see what shape we have received. So the true repentance is our alikeness to the Good News.

Every temptation is a hindrance to the shaping done by the Good News. They don't appear evil. They offer something good, and even as something divinely true. But they don't carry the blessedness of the Gospel. God's word becomes an instrument of magic, God's care is assumed to play a hero. Every temptation is a distortion of God's blessedness to a deity's strength, and is a bowing down before the devil. 

Tax Collector

A tax collector (in the New Testament times) was the most hated person in the society. He had to hear the filthiest words charged to him. He was not necessarily a cruel exploiter of people. He collected taxes for Rome. The Roman system ruled with power and illtreated all under them.

 
Mathew may have been hated by all. For Jesus, he was not a man to be hated. Jesus' gaze entered the prison that Mathew was thrown into. His love lifted the yoke that Mathew carried. He was led to liberation, and his days were turned holy. The despised found a home in the house of Mathew to find healing of compassion.

The tax booth was more open to Christ than the temple quarters. The custodians of God killed the anointed one.

gospel impossible

 There are preachers and evangelists who have become more believable than Jesus Christ. Their kingdom-values exploit the emotional sensitivities of the 'believers,' and true faith is given. Gospel is inclusive, liberative and peaceful. These, they say, cannot be the pleasing to God. Given the context, these preachers are more correct than Jesus. But, they make the gospel impossible.