The Spirit of the Law

The Spirit of the Law

January 23, 2013

Wednesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

By Colleen O'Sullivan  

Jesus entered the synagogue.  There was a man there who had a withered hand.  They watched Jesus closely to see if he would cure on the sabbath so that they might accuse him.  He said to the man with the withered hand, “Come up here before us.”  Then he said to the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?”  But they remained silent.  Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, Jesus said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”  He stretched it out and his hand was restored.  The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death.  (Mark 3:1-6)

Piety

Lord, let me be like you, always concerned about doing the loving thing.

Study

The Pharisees had totally lost sight of why God gave his Law to his people.  By Jesus’ time, people had added reams of restrictions and regulations to the Law.  These additions had been around a long time and the religious leaders had forgotten they didn’t come from God and didn’t carry the same weight as God’s commandments.  The Pharisees made it their business to hold everyone’s feet to the fire on all of it, whether given by God or added by human beings.

God gave us his Law out of love.  It’s not meant to be a burden or a drag on our lifestyles.  The Law is designed to draw us closer to God, to show us how to love and honor our Creator and how to love our brothers and sisters.  Far from seeing the Law as a gift of love from God, however, the Pharisees instead misused it as their tool for wielding power and control over others.

Power is an insidious thing.  It goes to our heads so easily.  In spite of their “religious” talk, the Pharisees had forgotten who the Lord was and had become lords of their own lives.  They didn’t act out of love for God’s people.  They liked people fearing them.  Jesus absolutely enraged them with all his talk of love and forgiveness and his healing people on the sabbath.  Who did this upstart carpenter’s son from a nowhere place like Nazareth think he was?  In the synagogue in today’s reading, Jesus shows them up. He breaks with tradition in order to reclaim the Law’s cornerstone, God’s overwhelming love for us.  What could they say when he asked them, “Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?”

Their public humiliation seals Jesus’ fate.  The Pharisees immediately forge a bond with their enemies, the Herodians, to put the Lord to death.

Action

The Pharisees have seemingly forgotten that God is Lord.  Being lord of their own lives, and certainly attempting to be lord over other people’s, won’t work out in the long run, but it’s momentarily gratifying.  They’ve forgotten that they have enjoyed God’s love and forgiveness themselves.  They’ve lost sight of the nature of God’s Law, a lovingly bestowed gift.

I’d like to say that, like Jesus, I’m angered and grieved at people who show such hardness of heart, but I’d be pointing a finger at myself.  I know all about thinking I’m in control of the show when it comes to my life.  I can forget in a heartbeat all the times God has forgiven my sins or healed my wounds.  I can become like the Pharisees in a nanosecond, pointing an accusing finger at someone else and enjoying that brief feeling of superiority.

Let’s all pray that God will forgive those moments in our lives and will give us the grace to share with others the love God has shown us.