SHOUT FOR JOY
  • Paul
  • David
  • Peter
  • John
  • INDICES
  • Psalm 118

                Shout for Joy              

Can new and old coexist?

9/11/2017

0 Comments

 
 
Jesus came to proclaim a new message . Whereas Old Testament Judaism, like all other religions of its day, involved a number of ceremonial rites, Jesus taught such remarkable ideas as, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). This would strike the Jewish mind as contrary to their religious tradition. Jesus taught that the welfare of those for whom such ceremonies had been established was more important than the ceremonies themselves. When a woman, caught in the act of adultery, was brought to Jesus he didn’t join with her accusers, but told her she could leave, however she was “not to continue in her sinful ways” (John 8:11). Christianity was a new era in redemptive history in which former religious rules and regulations no longer played a central role.
       It is against this background that we consider a rather matter-of-fact remark by Jesus, “Sometime later I went up to Jerusalem to take part in one of the Jewish festivals” (John 5:1). But wait. He had come to establish a brand new alliance with mankind, but now he seems to deny it by stepping back into the customs of yesterday. He was going up to Jerusalem to take part in a religious festival! That seems to be out of step with his healing of a crippled woman on a Sabbath? The synagogue leaders objected, noting that there were six days of the week for that sort of thing and the Sabbath was for worship, not work. Jesus reminded the “hypocrites” (his title for them) that since they cared for their livestock on the Sabbath, should not this woman, bound by Satan for eighteen years, be set free even though it happened to be the Sabbath? (Luke 13:10-17).
       I believe that Jesus decided to attend that particular festival simply because he wanted to. There was nothing essentially wrong with the ceremonies of Israel. After all, God established them. It is only when the ceremony replaces what it is supposed to accomplish, that it is wrong. Jesus could enjoy the beauty of the ceremony as well as truth to which it pointed.
       Is there a lesson here for us? I believe so. Fortunate is the person who can embrace the fullness of spiritual reality all the way from ceremonial expression to personal experience.


 
 
 
 

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Robert H Mounce
    President Emeritus
    Whitworth University
    .

    Friends Sites
    Biblical Training_
    Sceadu Design
    Creative Savv
    Frugal Retirement
    _

    Archives

    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    August 2016

    Archives
    January 2016 
    December 2015 
    November 2015 

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
Trial balloon
  • Paul
  • David
  • Peter
  • John
  • INDICES
  • Psalm 118