On this final Sunday before Lent, the Church gives us a wise and precious instruction on living according to the Law of God. Often people feel daunted by the commandments or the Law. But the commandments are not meant to be a burden (cf. 1 Jn 5:3); they are signs of the covenant of love that God has made with us. The Law is given to us to help us remain connected to God who is the Source of life. Keeping the commandments keeps us in our covenantal relationship with him. It is in this sense that we can understand what we find in today’s reading from the Book of Sirach: “If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you.” Keeping the commandments is an act of trust in the Lord who gives us life.
It is not the commandments or the Law as such that gives us life. The One who gives us life is Jesus Christ, who has come himself to fulfill the Law on our behalf. So, in today’s Gospel, Jesus announces: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” It is in his fulfillment of the Law and the prophets that Christ saves us. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this point admirably: “The perfect fulfillment of the Law could be the work of none but the divine legislator, born subject to the Law in the person of the Son. In Jesus, the Law no longer appears engraved on tablets of stone but ‘upon the heart’ of the Servant who becomes ‘a covenant to the people,’ because he will ‘faithfully bring forth justice.’ Jesus fulfills the Law to the point of taking upon himself ‘the curse of the Law’ incurred by those who do not ‘abide by the things written in the book of the Law, and do them,’ for his death took place to redeem them ‘from the transgressions under the first covenant’ (Gal 3:13; 3:10; Heb 9:15)” (CCC 580).
To accept the redemption that Christ obtained for us by fulfilling the Law, we need to have faith in him – and faith in him implies following him. He calls us to live according to the deeper meaning that he has given to the Law by his fulfillment of it. In today’s Gospel, Christ seems to raise the Law to higher standards. In fact he is restoring its original meaning, revealing God’s original intention in giving the Law.
In doing this, Jesus connects the Law with the heart of the human person. He says, for instance: “You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” With this teaching, as with the others in today’s Gospel, Jesus wants the Law to be engraved no longer on tablets of stone but upon the heart of every man and woman. He wants us to share in the New Covenant which he has come to establish. Regarding the New Covenant that will be made, God declared: “within them I shall plant my Law, writing it on their hearts; then I shall be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer 31:33, cf. Heb 8:10).
In order to be the people of God and so receive the salvation which Jesus has obtained by fulfilling the Law even to the Cross, we need to be in union with Christ. This means that we must carry our cross with him and share in his death. We share in his death when we take up the sweet yoke of his commandments. If we participate in his death in this form, we will share in his life, the salvation that he offers. This is the “wisdom to those who are mature” of which St. Paul writes in today’s second reading. It is not the “wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away.”
God’s wisdom, which is the source of life, is most perfectly revealed by Christ on the Cross. Here he shows us the triumph of love. It is in union with Christ crucified that the martyrs were able to understand “what God has prepared for those who love him.” What has God prepared for us? Eternal life in glory! With this goal in mind, the martyrs willingly gave themselves to death so as to be united with Christ in eternal life. Keeping the commandments as Jesus teaches us in the Gospel today is a kind of martyrdom. It is the way of accepting and living by the mysterious, hidden wisdom, which God, as St. Paul says, “predetermined before the ages for our glory.”
When do I find obeying the commandments a burden? How is faithfully keeping the commandments a kind of martyrdom? What concrete choices today will help me “take up the sweet yoke” of Christ’s commandments and share more fully in his life?
Excerpt from The Anawim Way, Volume 22, no. 2. More information about The Anawim Way may be found here.