“Happy are those…who walk by the teaching of the Lord. Happy are those who observe God’s decrees.” The     opening lines of Psalm 119 serve to establish the theme of this great poem: the beauty of God’s law. Living as we do under the new covenant, we may recoil. Our perception of the Mosaic law is often negative, conjuring images of Pharisees, rule-following, scrupulosity, and hypocrisy. We see the people of Israel oppressed, weighed down by heavy burdens until Jesus came to free them from the yoke (cf. Acts 15:10, Matt. 23:4). 

Yet in today’s gospel, Jesus says just the opposite: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.” And far from abolishing, Jesus proceeds to add, to make the law even more stringent than before. Now it is not just actions that matter, but motive. It is not enough to refrain from killing or committing adultery if there is hatred or lust residing secretly in the heart. How, then, can we say that we have been freed from the law? Has Jesus not made the law stricter than ever? Has he not commanded to do the impossible, to be perfect as God is perfect? (Matt 5:48)

But where Jesus commands, he also empowers. “I have come not to abolish [the law] but to fulfill.” By perfectly living the law, Jesus has been able to do what we could not, and from him, we receive power to live as he commands. Far from being a tool of oppression, the law of Christ is thus a law of love and transformation. Jesus demands more of us than did the law—not just external obedience, but our hearts. Because of this, he can transform our hearts in a way the law of Moses could not (Ez. 36:25-27). Thus, the more we “observe God’s decree” as revealed through Jesus, the freer we become, free of sinful desires, free to serve God and neighbor with our whole being. “Lord, teach me the way of your laws,” we may at last pray with the Psalmist, “I shall observe them with care.” 

Reflection by parishioner Kathryn Wilmotte