One thing that gets touted often when I say that I eat Kosher and celebrate Sabbath on Saturday is that I’ve become legalistic. People will often point to the number of commandments and quote verses like Luke 11:46.
Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.
While I’m not one to disagree with Jesus, I don’t think he was talking about the law given to Moses. I think he was speaking of the manmade fences placed within that law so as to never even come close to sinning. The law of Moses (and God), to me, is best exemplified in Leviticus 19, where we get a slew of “burdensome commandments.” This single chapter contains roughly 40 commandments but what I love about it is that many of them are things people wouldn’t consider any sort of burden. For example: don’t steal, don’t lie, stand up when an elderly person enters a room, when you harvest fields, leave the corners and the droppings so that the poor can eat it, don’t cut yourself, and use honest measurements when trading. None of those seem overly burdensome to me yet, when itemized, people grow scared that this turns into a checklist that can never be accomplished.
Not to discount grace and mercy but I don’t think “don’t cut yourself” is something I just can’t help but do. To me, all sin is this way. Think for a moment: how long can you go without telling a lie? Can you make it 10 minutes? How about 30? An hour? If you can expertise self control for a short while, why is sin excused as something we simply can’t help but do? While I do agree with that sentiment, I do think most sin can be avoided with prayer and self control. To say that we’re powerless sells the work of the cross short, as well as ourselves. We have been given a spirit of power so that we CAN do things that make us righteous, including everything listed there in Leviticus. Did Jesus not frequently heal people only to say: “Go forth and sin no more?” Why don’t we take that advice and choose life instead of settling for sin.
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