Let's get our basics right!

WORD 2day: Thursday, 5th week in Easter time

May 19, 2022: Acts 15: 7-21; John 15: 9-11

The apostles, in the first reading, so clearly mirror the mind of Jesus who said, "my yoke is easy, my burden is light" (Mt 11:30). They decide that anything more than what is really necessary is an unwanted burden. Jesus dared to summarise the whole of the law into just one dense, profound and challenging word: LOVE.

The commandments served but one purpose: Remaining in the love of the Lord. That was the only concern that Jesus had. Jews or Gentiles, circumscised or uncircumsised, it did not matter to Jesus and the apostles learnt it well from their Master. St. Paul would say categorically in 1 Cor 7:19 - "circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing; Keeping God's command is what counts."

And Jesus had already clarified what that commandment was - the new commandment that I give you, love one another as I have loved you - in terms of serving each other, in terms of washing the feet of the other, in terms of doing unto the other what one wishes to be done to him or her. 

This is the mindset with which Jesus says: "the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments" (Mat 22:40) - the Love of God and the love of the neighbour. What other summary can we give for a Christian life, other than this? 

Let us beware of complicating issues: our faith is simple, easy and light, if only we get our basics right: L O V E.