The Way: obedience of faith

WORD 2day: Monday, 2nd week in Ordinary time

January 20, 2025 - Hebrews 5: 1-10; Mark 2: 18-22

We are going to continue for a second week, reading from the letter to the Hebrews, and the beginnings of the Gospel of Mark to corroborate the teaching! While entire last week, the Word spoke to us about the Journey we are called to undertake with Christ, the journey of our faith, this week would speak to us about the Way that is set out for us, to make this journey. Jesus who declared, I am the Way, explained that in his way of living and in the choices he made, much more than the words he spoke. This week the Word, wishes to draw our attention to that way, set out for us. 

First and foremost, according to Jesus' mind and his life testimony, the way to our total realisation is obedience of faith. The letter to the hebrews will emphasise this in more than a few places and in many ways. It was the obedience of Jesus that makes his the True Son of God, the Begotten One who saves us, the perfect obedient Priest-Sacrifice who not only offered that sacrifice but became the sacrifice of salvation for all. 

This obedience is seen all over the Old Testament - in fact, this obedience was praised as the best of religion and the say to salvation. The interpretation of this obedience was concrete too - obey the law given by the Lord, and you shall be saved. The Law was the absolute revelation of what one needs to pledge one's allegiance to. At a moment, the absoluteness of the law, was so exaggerated that the law-giver was placed out of focus. This is what Jesus explains in the Gospel. 

The Gospel, which seems to be a continuation from the discourse of wine in yesterday's gospel, invites us to reinterpret law, to revisit the purpose of the laws that we have, and to reinvent our way to God our loving father and mother. Obedience, yes, without any doubt... but interpreted not as a blind following of a set of lifeless rules, but as a living relationship with someOne who has always loved us, who has always been with us and wants to be with us always. Obedience of faith, therefore is not a religion, it is a relationship.