Legal, Right, or True

Matthew 21:1-17

As we read today about Jesus entering Jerusalem on the precipice of a week full of world-changing history, it’s worth remembering the difference between what is legal, what is moral, and what is true, and I think this is something worth reflecting upon this Holy Week.

            When we teach children about right and wrong, at first it is clear. What is right is what is legal is what is true—that’s where we start. Don’t do drugs, because it’s wrong and because it’s against the law. Don’t steal, because it’s wrong and because it’s against the law. But if you live long enough and find yourself mulling enough tough life situations, you begin to see that these things occasionally diverge. For Christians, who worship this God we know in Jesus Christ, this is forever colored by Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, where he comes in as a king but is quickly arrested and put to death according to the law. According to that law, the chief priests and Pilate were righteous and Jesus was a criminal.

Jesus broke the law. He healed on the Sabbath, he claimed to be God’s Son—even God’s self!—and he claimed authority that pit him against the leaders of the day. Jesus was guilty of breaking the law, which is precisely why we need to remember that our laws are not always not always a mark of morality. Rather, the law is a human thing, created for order, which can be used or misused. Apartheid was the law in South Africa, the Holocaust was executed according to the law in Germany, and, even today, in places as distinct and different as South Sudan, and Israel, and Venezuela, and Russia, the law is used to silence and oppress, sometimes to the point of killing; sometimes more subtly. The passion of Jesus should remind us that the law may easily become morally bankrupt.

            If we look deep enough within ourselves, I suspect most of us take issue with some aspect of our laws, whether it’s about drugs, or abortion, or immigration, or criminal justice, or whatever. Most of us are not fully satisfied, and that’s OK! As followers of Jesus, we are called to struggle together to find a better way of doing things, knowing that the law will never be perfect. The law is a human creation that can always be done better, and it’s always at risk of becoming the thing that kills Jesus all over again.

            When you question the law as Jesus did, a few different things happen. One is that you become unpopular with those who are trying to uphold the status quo. You become threatening. Jesus was a threat to the chief priests and the secular leaders of the day—the Herods of the world. The next thing that happens is that you will always have people trying to tell you that the law is synonymous with what is good and true. To break the law is sinful, some may suggest, but here’s the thing: Your choices are colored by sin whatever way you choose. You are not Jesus. You won’t be able to make a sinless choice, especially not when it comes to the most difficult areas of human ethics. All choices are sinful. That’s not saying that there is no right and wrong; it’s simply admitting that whatever you choose to do will not make you righteous. Instead, we are to earnestly strive after God, even while we admit our sin, so that we do not use the law as a crutch to uphold our own righteousness. That’s the difference between a follower of Jesus and a Pharisee—we do not believe the law will make us righteous; instead, we know we are sinners, but because of Jesus, we are free to love our neighbors and love God, forgetting all that judging bologna.

            The question is what is true, and it is one where the Christian life will forever diverge from the non-Christian. For me, one of the best moments in the Gospels is when Jesus stands before Pilate, on the eve of being crucified, and (in John’s Gospel) Pilate asks, “What is truth?” and the scene immediately comes to a close with Jesus saying nothing, but for those of us who have been reading along, he has already answered. What is truth? Jesus earlier replied in John 14 (v.6), “I am the way, the truth, and the life. None come to the Father except through me.”

            Jesus is the ground of truth. What is true is not what the law says; not what judges say, far less politicians. Neither is truth a democracy. The majority do not get to decide what is true. The ground of truth is Jesus himself and nothing else. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10 (v.23), that “all things are lawful but not all things are beneficial.” Why does Paul say all things are lawful? Because what matters is not our adherence to rules that we can never fully know to be right; what matters is Jesus, who lived and died on our behalf. Jesus breaks the law to show us what is true, and the law kills Jesus because that’s the only move that the law ultimately has.

            However, we don’t always live like this is the case. Too often, Christianity is reduced to being a good person and following rules. We treat sin like it is a thing we can avoid by being good people, but that isn’t really how sin works. Scripture teaches us that sin is part of our very being, ever since Adam and Eve, and any good we achieve is only God working through us. Nobody is good but God alone. The only way to be perfectly righteous is to be Jesus.

I think this is incredibly important, because people tend to make their own morality, feed their own self-righteousness, and then call it “common sense,” or something like that. But “common sense” tends to be code for whatever I say is good and true. The good news of the Gospel is NOT common sense. There is nothing common sensical about it. Jesus’ coronation and ultimate crucifixion should remind us that we cannot be righteous according to the law.

            Palm Sunday is a reminder that no matter our effectiveness at making the law more Christ-like, the law is still what killed Jesus. And it does it again and again. The powerful still go to that fountain to maintain their power, and the oppressed still struggle under the thumb of the empire. The rich stay rich; the poor stay poor. The law maintains, but Jesus has come to do something different. And it’s scary. It’s everything Mary preached when Jesus was still inside of her womb. He rides into Jerusalem not the king they thought they were getting but the very king they needed; one coming not to live but to die; one coming not for the rich but the poor; not for common sense but for radical grace. Jesus came to break the law, because it is not the law that saves us. And this week, we shouldn’t forget that. We should mull over it, wonder how it might impact our lives to live like that is true, and then we will be ready for the wild ride of what is to come.