Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Devotion...
I cannot help but be in many ways amazed yet at the same time in some regard not surprised by the level of devotion shown by the orthodox Jewish people. A religion and culture with such heavy practice and ritual does not last this many years and through the trials they have faced without much devotion and even stubbornness. The dress that is so specific, praying at the same times daily, the manner in which they pray rocking back and forth, the strict adherence to Sabbath rituals, all of it paints a vivid picture of the Jewish religious culture. This was highlighted as this evening is Shavuot or Pentecost, the celebration of the giving of the Torah, in which men and women celebrate and study the Torah all night, rejoicing in the Law. The scene at the Western Wall displayed a mixture of jubilant dancing, singing, and shouting and also fervent prayer. In many ways these people are more devoted, more reverent, more religious, more ritualistic, more moral, more conservative, and more traditional than we as evangelicals in the West could ever dream of, but it is all for naught if they have not Jesus. No manner of ritual matters if Christ is rejected in it. If you don't have the Son then you don't have the Father, and you can't please the Creator while casting aside the One through Whom all things were created. Any level of admiration in my mind that is engendered by the people's religious practice is rapidly swallowed by an overwhelming pity; outside of Christ they will never know what true Spirituality is or to Whom the Law is to point us. I cannot help but wonder that they can read all of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament to us) and not understand that they have no true ability to keep Torah; they are embarking on a quest that is destined to fail. With all of our best religion we are still sinners in the end, and to think that we can somehow work ourselves to a worthiness acceptable to God is the height of arrogance and paramount of sin. It is not that I have figured something out that others could not, as I would not know God were it not for the Spirit first moving in me; I only love God because He first loved me. Under their religion I surely would have given up long ago. They are in a lot of ways better than I, but in the end depraved, unworthy, and thus doomed, just as we all are if Christ is not our bedrock.
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Aaron,
ReplyDeleteThanks for writing some memoirs on your trip. We miss you. I was just reading something very relevant to your topic earlier this evening.
Matt.5:17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."
"There is no fulfillment of the law apart from communion with God, and no communion with GOd apart from fulfilment of the law. To forget the first condition was the mistake of the Jews, and to forget the second the temptation of the disciples...
But the disciple had the advantage over the Pharisee in that his doing of the law is in fact perfect. How is that possible? Because between the disciples and the law stands one who has perfectly fulfilled it, one with whom they live in communion. They are faced not with a law which has never yet been fulfilled, but with one whose demands have already been satisfied. The righteousness it demands is already there, the righteousness of Jesus which submits to the cross because that is waht the law demands. This righteousness is therefore not a duty owed, but a perfect and truly personal communion with God, and Jesus not only posesses this righteousness, but is himself the personal embodiment of it. He is the righteousness of the disciples. By calling them he has admitted them to partnership with himself, and made them partakers of his righteousness in its fulness...
This is where the righteousness of the disciple exceeds that of the Pharisees; it is grounded solely upon the call to fellowship with him alone who fulfils the law. Their righteousness is righteousness indeed, for from hencefoorth they do the will of God and fulfil the law themselves." D. Bonhoeffer, Ch.8 - The Righteousenss of Christ, The Cost of Discipleship