God Rises Above The Law, And So Should We

Another time Jesus went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.” Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent. He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

Mark 3:1-6

Most of us have heard the expression "the law is an ass.” Popularized by Charles Dickens in his novel Oliver Twist, it captures perfectly the singular defect of law—inflexibility.

Yet the idea of this defect in the law was not new in Charles Dickens’ time, just as it is not new now. Time and again Jesus confronted and called out the legalistic thinking of the scribes and Pharisees who put adherence to the law above the foundational concepts of mercy, compassion, and justice. Time and again Jesus confronted the basic hypocrisy of those who stressed adherence to the law without regard to the human cost.

And there is always a human cost in adhering to the law. It is the nature of law to impose penalty and exact consequence. The law demands atonement for all transgressions, and indeed it must demand atonement or else the law has no meaning and no substance. There is little point to any edict of law if there is no consequence to follow the breaking of that law. Every penalty imposed, every consequence exacted, is a cost at least to the human who breaks a law, and very often is a cost to others as well.

When parents are separated from their children following an arrest for an alleged crime, there is no escaping that this expression of the law imposes a consequence on the innocent children as well.

When people convicted of crimes are sentenced to prison, there is no escaping that this expression of the law imposes a consequence on society as a whole, as it is society that must bear the cost of the convict’s incarceration.

When the police violate the civil rights of the accused, and in the process taint evidence, forcing the courts to exclude that evidence at trial, resulting in a guilty person being set free, there is no escaping that this expression of the law imposes a consequence on the victims of crime.

Yet we would not, as a rule, suggest that people not be arrested for committing crimes merely for the sake of keeping them with their children. We would not, as a rule, suggest that convicted felons not be incarcerated merely to save society the cost of that incarceration. We would not, as a rule, suggest that the police be allowed to taint evidence and violate people’s civil rights—the victims of crime could never receive justice from such injustice.

The nature of law is that it imposes a cost, and, for the most part, if we value the law we choose to pay that cost. We accept that burden that we may have the benefits of an ordered and hopefully just society which only law can provide.

But we must also be mindful that there are times when the costs imposed by law run contrary to our apprehension of what is just and even what is righteous. A sentence handed down in a courtroom may be far in excess of what a just penalty should be. The law may declare a righteous act to be wrong, and so punish otherwise virtuous people for their good deeds.

Only God’s Law escapes this limitation of law, because God’s Law demands first and foremost that there be love, mercy, compassion, and justice among men. As Jesus reminded the Pharisees, the two Great Commandments are that we “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” and also that we “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It is simply not possible to be faithful to these twin foundations of God’s Law and fail to show love, mercy, compassion, and justice to anyone.

Thus it is that Jesus did not sin by healing others on the Sabbath, a day the Lord commended the Israelites do no work, not even the cooking of food. God does not demand that people be left to suffer needlessly merely because of the Sabbath. God does not set aside His expectations that we show love, mercy, compassion, and justice towards one another merely because of the Sabbath.

The world does not stop merely because it is the Sabbath, and misfortune is not held in abeyance merely because it is the Sabbath. Likewise, we are not called to refrain from offering healing and comfort merely because it is the Sabbath.

Nor is there any legalistic loophole being expressed in this. The simple truth of work is that we necessarily work for ourselves first and foremost, while love, mercy, compassion, and justice are necessarily about others and not ourselves. The purpose of the Sabbath is to remind us to set aside one day of the week where our hearts and minds are turned away from our earthly desires and focused on that which is spiritual, righteous, and Godly. As healing and comforting others are themselves among that which is spiritual, righteous, and Godly, it is right and just and proper that healing and comfort be permitted even on the Sabbath.

Indeed, within God’s Law the sin was upon the Pharisees, who heartlessly placed fidelity to the particulars of one tenet of law above the overarching requirements of showing love, mercy, compassion, and justice towards one another.

There is no tenet of law which demands we be heartless and cruel towards one another, nor can there ever be such a tenet. Those who forget this forget that which is most important—that we love God and that we love one another—and those who demand that particular tenets of law be obeyed even though the outcome be cruel and callous are failing to adhere to both of God’s Great Commandments.

God gave us His Law, yet God is and has always been more than His Law. God is Faith, and God is all the love, mercy, compassion, and justice we are called to show daily towards one another.

Because God is greater than the law, greater than even God’s own Law, God can and does rise above the law. God especially rises above man’s laws, as God’s Law sits high above man’s laws.

So it is that we, too, are called at times to rise above the law, and especially man’s laws. No matter what penalty might be demanded by man’s laws, God’s Law is always the superior law, and it is God’s Law we are called obey first and always.

God is greater than the Law, and therefore we too are called to be greater than the law. God rises above the law that he might show love, mercy, compassion, and justice towards all mankind, and therefore we too are called to rise above the particulars of the law, and especially we are called to rise above the particulars of all man’s laws.

I pray that every man will come to see this simple reality, and choose to rise above those particulars, choose to rise above all our laws. I pray we may each of us find the wisdom and the inspiration to be greater than our laws and so truly understand what it is to love one another.