Immersed in Christ: March 7, 2021
Third Sunday of Lent: Year B
Exodus 20:1–17; Psalm 19; 1Corinthians 1:22–25; John 2:13-25
An Infinite Father
“I, the Lord, am your God...” Exodus 20:1
God’s laws can distract us from his Law. The first words—I, the Lord, am your God—say it all; the rest just spell it out.
If the Lord is our God, he is infinite. So is his mind and will. If we think we understand the Ten Commandments, we totally misunderstand the first one. That is why the Jews, speaking for us all, rejected Jesus. Christ crucified was “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” because, before the Resurrection and Pentecost, no one understood “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Jesus was too much for them.
Jesus came to replace the Commandments with his New Law; the Jewish temple with the universal temple of his body on earth, the Church. But only “after he was raised from the dead,” did his disciples “come to believe the word Jesus had spoken.”
Our “Father in heaven” is a mystery: a “truth that invites endless exploration.” To live his laws authentically, we must commit ourselves as disciples to keep studying the Law of his heart as it is revealed in his word.
The greatest obstacle to that can be to focus on his laws. But if we focus on him, his laws lead us into mystery.
ACTION: Every time you keep a law, see it against the background of God’s infinite Truth and Goodness.
PRAYER: “How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” (Psalm 139:17).
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