What Is The Goal Of The Law?

Listening is prerequisite to doing.

Reflection on Today’s Readings, Wednesday of 3rd Week of Lent B, March 6th, 2024
Texts: Deuteronomy 4:1.5-9; Psalm 147:12-13,15-16,19-20; Matthew 5:17-19

Jesus Christ tells us today that He has not come to abolish the law but to fulfil it. This means He has come to make the law accomplish its goal. What is the goal of the law? It is eternal life in the kingdom of God. 

This is clear in today’s first reading: "And now, O Israel, give heed to the statutes and the ordinances which I teach you, and do them; that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land which the  Lord, the God of your fathers, gives you.” Our own land is heavenly kingdom, not earthly kingdom.  

They are the values of the kingdom of God

The statutes and ordinances of the Lord are guides to heavenly kingdom. They are two things we must do to fulfil the commandments. We are to listen to them and do them. In the words of Moses: “Keep them and do them; for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples”.  

St. James says, “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. ... But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing” (1:22-25). It is in listening and doing that we are blessed. They are the values of the kingdom of God; for by them we live the life of the kingdom. 

Listening is prerequisite to doing

It is in listening we know what to do and keep them in our memory and keep the path.  Moses puts it thus: “Only take heed, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children's children.” Listening is prerequisite to doing, in which we are blessed.

When  we keep the commandments and do them they become our wisdom and understanding. Being our wisdom, they inform our course of action and become our ways of life. Being our understanding, they inform our perception and what we accept as truth.   

Living by the statutes and ordinances, we will stand out because they are righteous. In the words of Moses: “For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the  Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day?” 

Prayer  

Grant, we pray, O Lord, that, schooled through Lenten observance and nourished by your word, through holy restraint we may be devoted to you with all our heart and be ever united in prayer. Amen (Collect) 

Fr. Andrew Olowomuke