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Are You Above the Law?
4 min
Gospel
Lk 2:36-40
And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phan′u-el, of the tribe of Asher; she was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years from her virginity, and as a widow till she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour she gave thanks to God, and spoke of him to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
And when they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth. And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.
Readings are taken from Dynamic Catholic’s Bible: RSV Catholic Edition.
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Transcript
Are You Above the Law?
What jumps out at you
today? So we've got Joseph and Mary have taken Jesus to the temple to present him
according to the law of Moses, just as any Jewish couple would have taken their child to
present him to God as the law prescribed. And what I find fascinating here, what I find
just overwhelmingly beautiful, is that here we have the Son of God, here we have the
Messiah, here we have God Himself, become man. And Joseph and Mary, they still are
living by the law. They're not saying, "We're special. Here's the exception." And how
often do we do that? How often do we say, "Well, that rule doesn't apply to me," or,
"That law doesn't apply to me." And we might be tempted to think we don't do that, but
the reality is do you speed? Yeah. Only sometimes maybe? Yeah. When? You have good
reasons. Okay, but what are we essentially saying? Right now, in this instance, that
doesn't apply to me. I'm only going 5 over, I'm only going 10 over, or whatever it is.
And we do it more than we think we probably do, where we say, "That rule doesn't apply
to me." Now, we might not say, "That rule doesn't apply to me." We've justified in our
minds in some way. We probably don't say, "Hey, I'm special. I'm an exception to the
rule." Probably none of us that arrogant or completely narcissistic, but what our
actions are saying is that that's what we are saying. And here you have Joseph and Mary.
If anyone was ever an exception to the rule, it was Jesus.
And yet
there's this profound humility in them, and they say, "Nope, we're not going to—we're
not going to travel that path. We are going to follow the law." And so, they've taken
Jesus to the temple and have presented him, and it's a profound humility. Profound
humility. And that's what jumps out at me today. So each day we say a word or phrase or
an idea. Today, for me, it's an idea. It might be a word for you. It may be a phrase for
you, but today it's that idea of this profound humility of following the letter of the
law, of following God's rules, God's guidance, God's perspective, God's way. It's a
beautiful thing.
Have a great day and remember, Be Bold, Be
Catholic.
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