A Light Burden
Jesus recognized the horrible burden that was being placed on the children of men. Along with the Sadducees and Pharisees, he particularly condemned the lawyers of his time.
Luke 11:46 And he said, Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.
It may have been in the spirit of the crafty lawyers who lie in wait to entrap somebody with their own words, that a lawyer, a law of Moses expert, tried to bait Him and tried to catch Him in a trap using the artful knowledge of the law of Moses.
Matthew 22:35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, atempting him, and saying,
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt alove the Lord thy God with all thy bheart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy cmind.
In Greek, the word “hang” means “depend”. All law and the prophets, or prophecy depend on these two great commandments. We shall see how love of and love for God leads to charity and without charity all things fail including laws and prophecies. Conversely, through loving the Lord our God with our whole beings, flows and follows everything, all things are added upon us.
What glorious relief! What liberation! I didn’t have to have a genius IQ to figure out the bible code or to master every jot and jittle. There it was, in all its majesty, power and infinite wisdom. I merely had to love the Lord my God with all my heart and with all my being.
Now I understood what was meant by the scripture,
“There is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated and when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law on which it is predicated”
The law in heaven upon which all blessings are predicated is the First and Great commandment. And when we obtain any blessing, it is by obedience to this First and Great commandment. The Second and Great commandment is a natural adjunct and although cited as a second commandment, it is part of “a law” upon which all blessings are predicated or upon which all other laws, prophesies, decrees, covenants and teachings hang. The important thing to note is that “any blessing” is predicated on this. Any blessing is the same as saying “all things are possible,” for if we are granted any blessing, then nothing is impossible to us.
The lawyer did us an invaluable favor in drawing this answer out of the Savior, for after centuries of slavery to the law of Moses with its many twists and turns, interpretations, traps and penalties, the Savior was now liberating all of mankind with this simple but profound statement. The version in Mark, the scribe (paralegal?) may have been moved or affected by Jesus’ answer as he shed additional light on the importance of these commandments when the scribe said,
“And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength; and to love his neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
The scribe recognized that a whole culture and life-style had grown up around the tradition of burnt offerings and sacrifices. In the people’s mind, this is what pleased God and the more sacrifices made, the more it pleased God. So, people busily occupied themselves frequently going to the temple, performing repetitive rituals, sacrificing their “time and talents” in these ritualistic observances taking pride in the numbers that could be performed in one day. In effect, as Jesus later noted, “They strain at a gnat and swallow a camel” and they lived the letter of the law, but missed the spirit of the law. What is the camel? The burnt offerings and sacrifices, all the laws, regulations, rules and penalties there from. What is the gnat? To love the Lord our God with all of our beings. It is a gnat because it is relatively simple and easy to swallow. Jesus said, “Take my burden upon you, for it is light and easy to bear.” He meant it! What is the burden? Not the camel but the gnat. Not the mustard tree, but the mustard seed. These two great commandments make everything much easier, much easier to swallow, like a gnat. They make the burden of faith much lighter, like a mustard seed, not a mustard tree. But we go through life straining at the gnat, the two great commandments, and swallow the camel, the multiplicity of rules and their mind-boggling burden in trying to understand them, keep track of and keep them. The gnat and the mustard seed, few there be that find them.
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