To You Who Are Beloved of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Our Scripture for this week is Mark 12: 28-34:
28 One of the scribes came
near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered
them well he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” 29 Jesus
answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is
one; 30 you shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your
strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than
these.” 32 Then the scribe said to him, “You are
right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is
no other’; 33 and ‘to love him with all the heart
and with all the understanding and with all the strength’ and ‘to love one’s
neighbor as oneself’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings
and sacrifices.” 34 When Jesus saw that he answered
wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that
no one dared to ask him any question.
One God, two commands. Our whole faith in a nutshell. It is fascinating how Jesus cuts off the
conversation, isn’t it? “You are not far
from the kingdom of God.” Why did it
shut down the conversation? Because, in
a phrase, Jesus undermined the whole religious-industrial complex of the Law of
Moses. ‘Burnt offerings and sacrifices’,
that is the basis of what the Levites-the tribe of priests-do. It is what the priests do. It is what the temple’s function is. It’s what everyone comes to Jerusalem to
do.
And Jesus just told the man who
said, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides
him there is no other’; 33 and ‘to love him with
all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength’ and ‘to
love one’s neighbor as oneself’—this is much more important than all whole
burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Soooo…what we believe and NOT what we do…
So, here’s the thing, in the
gospels, Jesus declares the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven is
near. Then He died and rose again and
arose to heaven and sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost and now the tagline
reads, “The Kingdom of God is HERE…” Not
done yet, but begun yet.
And something has shifted from
the gospel account to Sunday morning worship…we don’t do much in the way of
‘whole burnt offerings and sacrifices’. However,
we commit ourselves to one God, to loving God and to loving our neighbor. But we also have one sacrifice we remember…
Here, we remember once a
month. Well, technically, we do this “in
remembrance of Jesus”, because He told us to.
It is the sacrament of the Last Supper.
Jesus’ body broken and His blood shed for us. Put that way, it can sound morbid to the
present ear. But it was Jesus living
into ‘all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices’. He was the final, the full, the complete, the
worthy sacrifice.
Before, the people repeatedly
came to God for forgiveness and, with the sacrifice, they were forgiven, till
the next time. But, with Jesus’
sacrifice, we are forgiven. So, when we
confess our sins to the Lord, the forgiveness is taken care of. We no longer worry about whether things are
‘okay’ with God.
Rather, we can take everything
that stands between us loving God and loving neighbor, lay it down at the
cross, and work to make our lives more like that of Jesus. We are not waiting for the Kingdom, waiting
for what Jesus will do next. We are IN
the Kingdom, our Neighborhood is here.
We are free to love God and love neighbor ever more powerfully, in Him.
Pastor pete
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