19 July 2013 - pilgrim priorities

19 July 2013 - pilgrim priorities

Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath
the priests serving in the temple violate the sabbath
and are innocent?
I say to you, something greater than the temple is here.

David's companions lack of food takes precedence over the ceremonial restrictions relating to the temple bread. The hunger which Jesus satisfies is deeper than hunger for food.  How much more than David's companions do we need the bread which Jesus gives.  He is the bread that satisfies   No one who comes to him will go hungry (cf. Joh 6:35).

Priests that serve in the temple are permitted to violate the sabbath because the temple is so important.  God dwells within it.  Service in the temple therefore takes precedence over sabbath rules.  Jesus is the very presence of God.  What is partial and symbolic in the temple is fully realized in Jesus Christ.  Therefore, the building of his kingdom is of greater importance the the sabbath.

The sabbath rest is important.  The readings stressed that yesterday.  But the rest week to week is temporary and points toward a perfect rest that will only come at the end of time when the kingdom is comes in its fullness.  We are to remember that we are still on a pilgrimage until then.

“This is how you are to eat it: 
with your loins girt, sandals on your feet and your staff in hand,
you shall eat like those who are in flight.
It is the Passover of the LORD.

We remember the deliverance that the LORD has already wrought even as we look forward to a still greater deliverance when we finally and definitively pass from death to life.  Even as Jesus feeds us on our journey so will we be even more perfectly united to him.  Having done nothing to earn so great a deliverance he himself will be all we have to offer in thanks.

I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.

We will say to the Father, 'I have no merit.  Take Jesus's merits as my own.  In thanks I offer myself, but only in union with him.'  As Therese of Lisieux says:

When I think of the good God's statement: 'I shall come soon and bring my reward with me, repaying everyone according to his works', then I say to myself that He will find Himself wonderfully embarrassed with me, because I have no works! So He will not be able to repay me according to my works. Very well, then, I trust that He will repay me according to His works.

On that day we will rejoice with the psalmist:

I am your servant, the son of your handmaid;
you have loosed my bonds.