Christian Art | Daily Verses For Lent
Matthew 5: 20-26 – Lent Week 1, Friday; also Thursday Week 10 (King James Audio Bible KJV, King James Version, Spoken Word)
20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
21 ¶ Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee;
24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
25 Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
26 Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.
As we progress through Lent, we listen to Christ’s teaching of the limitations of the Old Law and the complete fulfilment, transcendence and renewal of the Law which Christ, through his life, death and resurrection, gave to us. As St Paul will teach: through the Law, there can be no salvation; salvation is for us through Christ alone.
Christ clearly says, however, that he is not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfil it. Through this passage of the Bible, Christ explains how his teaching does in no way lessen the importance of the Ten Commandments; rather, Jesus tells us to hear again the commandments and to extend our understanding of their meaning through the gift of love. Just as God loves us, so we must fulfil his commandments with love both for God and for our fellow man. The letter of the Law is not enough. The letter of the Law will not bring about our salvation. It is the love that we must now know permeates the letter of the Law that brings salvation.
There is great respect demanded here for the Ten Commandments, and a new understanding also required. The Old Law was good and right for a particular stage of human history. The Law anticipated Christ. What has happened, though, is that the scribes and the Pharisees have distorted the spirit of the Law, turning it away from the message of love to an emphasis on external ritual observance. For them, an exact and hyper-detailed observance was the way to salvation. Jesus tells us this is false. It is in this sense that Christ both breaks the Law and re-affirms its core truth as being the justice of God which is love.
Salvation is not something we can achieve through our own works and merits, through our own observances. To be saved, we need God’s grace; we need the salvation Jesus came to give us. We do not deserve this. We cannot do this ourselves. The Old Law is, in this sense, both respected, maintained and transcended. The New Testament of Christ brings a greater truth.
This is why Jesus extends the injunction: you shall not kill. Of course, this law still pertains, but now we are taught to look at every instance where we do something to kill a little of the spirit of our neighbour, our fellow man. To be angry, to insult, to denigrate, these are an evil to our neighbour; they work against him and to kill a little of the spirit within him – and so we injure Christ and really we injure ourselves. We must avoid all thought of killing, and all thoughts which may lead to this most terrible of thoughts. These are negative injunctions which extend the original commandment. We may turn these into a positive, indeed into that positive which Christ explains to us: love your neighbour as yourself. In following this commandment of Jesus, we are in fact obeying the Ten Commandments by honouring God. We are taught by Jesus to abolish all tensions and prejudices and misunderstandings that may persist between us. We are taught to honour our neighbour and to honour God.
This passage of the Bible particularly highlights the fact that, as taught by Jesus, we must set our faith in God firmly in the context of our love of and good relationships with our fellow man. It may well be that, through Lent, as we discipline ourselves, we seek to cleanse also our thoughts of others: ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ Once more, our aspired to unity with God and with all other human beings is taught to us as being God’s plan for our salvation.
‘The highest type of brotherly love is to love our enemies and there is no greater encouragement to do this than the remembrance of the wondrous patience exercised by him who, fairest of the sons of men, offered his gracious body to be spat upon by his enemies… [I]f a man would really love himself he should avoid any corrupt love of the flesh. Not to be overcome by fleshly concupiscence, he should turn all his love to the sweetness of the flesh of our Lord. To love his brethren even more perfectly, he should open his arms to embrace even his enemies.’ St Aelred
King James Audio Bible | Endnotes
What Is Transformation Of The Heart? Jesus’ Revolutionary Message
The teachings of Jesus are revolutionary in many ways, perhaps none more so than his call to a deep transformation of the heart, an extreme and a radical conversion, which many Christians might yet find perplexing and a challenge to so much of how we live our lives, particularly as we are habituated to conform to worldly values.
In Matthew 5:20-26, Jesus challenges his listeners to go beyond mere external conformity to the law and to cultivate a deeper righteousness that overflows into their relationships with others.
Jesus begins by setting an extremely high standard for righteousness: ‘Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven’ (v. 20). The scribes and Pharisees were known for their strict adherence to the law, but Jesus teaches that true righteousness is much deeper than mere external conformity. It requires a transformation of the heart, a willingness to confront our own sin and brokenness, and a commitment to love even those who have hurt us.
Jesus calls his followers to this deeper righteousness is through the practice of reconciliation. He says, ‘So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift’ (vv. 23-24). This is a radical challenge to the prevailing cultural norms of Jesus’ time, which often emphasized retaliation and revenge rather than reconciliation and forgiveness.
In this teaching, Jesus connects our human and specifically our family relationships with our relationship with God. Our sense of our relationship with God becomes more closely rooted in human society, which as a consequence may discover itself transformed.
Jesus also challenges his listeners to address the anger and resentment in their hearts, saying that anyone who is angry with their brother or sister will be liable to judgment (vv. 22, 25-26). Again, this is a call to a deep transformation of the heart, to confront and overcome our own sinful tendencies and to cultivate a spirit of love and forgiveness.
Jesus asks for deep-rooted conversion to Christian faith. Our conscience is central, our deep and abiding sense of what is truthful and loving in the heart and according to God’s truth.
Jesus calls to deeper righteousness that overflows into every aspect of our lives, and to a love for others that goes beyond what is expected or even demanded of us. And yet, at the same time, Jesus’ message is not one of despair or condemnation, but of hope and grace. Jesus invites us to trust in God’s transforming power in our lives, and to believe that with God’s help, we can become the people he has called us to be.
In a world that often values external appearances over inner transformation, Jesus’ message challenges Christians to go beyond the superficial, to confront our own brokenness and sin, and to cultivate a deep interior righteousness that overflows into human society. It is a message of hope and grace, reminding us that with God’s help, we can become the people we were meant to be.
Mark’s Gospel, thought by many to be the earliest written, does not present an account of the birth of Christ. He begins with the proclamation of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, leading into his baptism by John. Toward the end of the Gospel, when the crucified Christ dies, the centurion standing by him will affirm this, saying: ‘Truly this was the Son of God.’ Throughout this most fast paced of gospels, this is Mark’s message, to give his readers the knowledge that Christ is the Son of God [ … ]
The Christians living in Jerusalem wanted no part of the Jewish Rebellion and, remembering Jesus’ prophecy, fled Jerusalem as the Romans advanced. They avoided the slaughter, and for this there arose enmity between Christians and those Jews who adhered to the old Law. There was a parting of the ways. The Jews went to rebuild their religion, led by the Pharisees and along exclusive lines, never more to be centred on Temple worship. The Jewish Christian Church which had been in Jerusalem waned – the Temple had been of great importance to Jerusalem Christians also. Henceforth, the Church would become more and more of the Gentiles [ … ]
‘Death,’ says His Grace, ‘throws it all apart. For we are not as we should be. Faith requires our adjustment to God’s truth. God’s triumph in a very real sense requires in us the loss of our everything. Which, as with Mary at the other end of Jesus’s life, is God’s truth.’ The Gospel reading is of John 11: 1-45, which is a long passage, and His Grace’s homiletic theme commences in textual wilderness. Our brokenness – in this place – a family home. Our faith, our doubt, our death… The irruption – death, doubt, fear – within our precious scenes and our most intimate places. Our domesticity. His Grace speaks from the chair, as is a bishop’s prerogative, and says: ‘So much is obscure in the Gospels. We’re always reaching through them. We’re never there. Really, we never are. Our knowledge, our understanding, of the Gospels is never complete, and with each reading comes a new revelation. There are always new riches there. Just as there are between all of us, between myself and you. The Gospels are living texts. This is a part of the conversation we have with our own Christianity. It is a part of who we are in our relationship with Jesus. We are in this sense always on the brink. ‘So yes, there is plenty that doesn’t seem to make sense. As one of the order of bishops, we would be lying if we said that weren’t the case. They are not easy texts to encounter, if by that word we may signify something more than a superficial glancing off against, but rather a profound search for the word of God. The Gospels are written by people who had their own ideas, and often didn’t know what had really happened. Luke is quite explicit on this point. His is an investigation, from the explicitly claimed point of view of an historian, rather than that of a first-hand witness, who attempts, so he says, to set out an orderly account, out of the chaos, the sheer muddle, that has been handed down to him. It is possible to imagine Luke researching and composing his account after many years, when there has arisen a desire to know what exactly happened, and this implies a certain call to faith and certain demands of historicity, to historical exactitude. So in these different ways, the people of the first years of Christian faith are in the dark. There is also a decisive need to define the life of Jesus. And people didn’t get Jesus. The whole meaning of Christianity is only now beginning to take root throughout the composition. So much needs to be evangelized. The light shines almost in tentative fashion like that first star, which drew the wise men from the east to our Lord’s cradle. ‘John’s is widely held to be a very late Gospel. There are others who say that John’s Gospel might have been the first to acquire its true shape, because it most fully expresses Jesus, as we know him to be, as members of the Catholic Church. We don’t really know when any of this is being written, but we get a feel in John of a Gospel refined over many years, through a community. So there’s a lot going on there that I’d like you to think about. ‘What I would like to suggest to you is that, while within the Gospels we are often confronted with clues, guesswork, stories that have been handed down through so many people, and so in this sense we might find ourselves to be in the wilderness, this is the very desolate space itself to which we must give ourselves in order to experience Christ’s full redemption in our lives. I suggest it is for God’s glory that we do so. ‘As we become aware of ourselves, in this seminary, we find ourselves in a very secure, comfortable setting, and there are signs of Easter everywhere. Within the very fabric of these buildings, our Lord is risen; our Lord lives. But now this is our Lenten journey, where death enters, where death breaks us. We are to ride into Jerusalem in triumph, and then we are to be utterly broken, all hope gone, our hope extinguished. And really, I suggest to you, it is only by inhabiting this thought, as if we don’t know Easter is there, that our new life can follow, just when we have given up all hope, when every promise that Jesus made to us seems to have been cancelled. ‘And here now we have the story of Lazarus. I should like to suggest to you that we have a very powerful call now. In our very comfortable space, our domesticity, with all this comfort, where so very little might seem to happen each day, so it might seem to you, there is a disturbance within all of this comfort, and that is a disturbance within ourselves, and that is our call to Jesus. I think it is correct to say that our most comfortable places break in the light of Jesus from the inside, in order that we may take the necessary steps to be with Jesus. ‘Faith is not comfortable. I think that we can all receive the message of the rolling away of the rock from the tomb of Lazarus to say something of vital importance to ourselves concerning our openness to God’s love. The rock we roll away can come in all sorts of guises, but we know when we are blocked, and I firmly believe if we are truthful then we know where those blocks might be. ‘Next Sunday, which will be Palm Sunday, we process as it were to Jerusalem, to begin our Holy Week. Now as I speak to you we are on the brink. Even now, I suggest it might be very good for all of us to lay aside what we think we know, to fall apart a little, and so […]
