Jesus talks about people who rejected the law back in His time. The laws were created in order to establish a set of rules and benefit the citizens, but the people simply opposed the laws such as the sabbath and used them to their own advantage. This greatly upset Jesus because of the selfishness of the people, and their lack of willingness to open up to the laws and use them as directed. It seemed that the laws were used to obtain power and not used for the greater good. Those times were simply a power struggle amongst citizens, and this obviously angered Jesus. He said, "For I tell you unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 5:20 RSV). This is basically saying that if you fail to obey and use the laws of God appropriately, then you will be punished and not live an eternal life with God. It is almost a threat based on the frustration of Jesus.
Jesus was not well known when he was alive. Even though people knew of Him, they did not actually know Him as a person. They judge Him based on the people with whom he associated, His assumed title, and His beliefs. They lacked knowledge of His purpose and what he wanted to do. The characteristics of Jesus were indescribable, and to those who never gave Him a chance deprived him of His greatness. People who only looked at Jesus as divine stripped Him of His humanity as well. It was very difficult to encapsulate Jesus, but He was both human and divine and many people failed to see that. They simply wrote him off and treated him poorly at times.
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I think that Billy does a really good job at explaining the reasons why there were rules in Jesus' time and how they were used. He does a really good job at explaining why Jesus became so upset with some of the people of his time. He was upset because Jesus was putting laws there for THEIR benifit, and these people sort of shoved it in His face. The sabbath was one of these laws. They looked at it as a burden which greatly upset Jesus. Also, Billy does a good job of pointing out how people had stripped Jesus of his humanity. In the process of doing this, it becomes hard for them to imagine Jesus as one of them. They simply looked at him as a divine figure and in doing this, they were totally misenterpreting Jesus and not seeing the full Him.
ReplyDeleteBilly wrote about how people disobeyed the laws set down by society for no reason. They disregarded them and they thought they could do whatever they wanted. Jesus was also angered by people breaking the laws of God and not following them as they should be followed. Jesus was upset at this and he threatened them with eternal suffering in hell rather than a good time in heaven. Also, many people treated Jesus badly and they judged him by the outcasts and low lifes of society that he lived with. He lived in solidarity with all people, which is what everyone must strive to accomplish.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting look at the time Jesus lived in and the social codes of the past. I think the insight to how people would disreguard laws and regulations (such as the sabbath) is not so distant from the times we live in now. If we look at what recently happened with Rod Blagojevich, we see a person, taking advantage of a rule, his position of power, and putting it to his own selfish use, disreguarding the greater good (as Billy put it). I think this is an interesting reminder that personal gain and greed are timeless vices, and something that we must constantly fight to overcome.
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