Fulfilling the Law

Gospel:  Matthew 5: 17-19

In today's Gospel portion Jesus speaks of fulfillment of the law, a fulfillment which comes in the giving of the Eight Beatitudes.  The challenge in any legal system lay in prioritization of which law was more important in a given situation.  The other challenge is found in determining to what extent and how far the law applies in a given case.  The endless debates and legalism left the practitioner confused and without a means of discerning what ultimately should be done.

The Beatitudes, however, give us both a means to prioritize what is most important in the law, and it gives us a way to discern the extent and scope of our moral duty.  The Beatitudes give priority to mercy, meekness, purity of heart, peacemaking, and striving for justice.  What is more, the Beatitudes do not merely deal with external actions, but they also encompass our internal dispositions and intentions in performing actions.   

Throughout the remainder of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will take certain precepts of the law and then apply the Beatitudes to them in order to provide us examples of how this prioritization and discernment takes place.  After the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will embody the living out of the Beatitudes in his own life that provide us with the life of a person who embodies mercy, meekness, purity of heart, peacemaking, and striving for justice so that we might do so in our lives.