Matthew 5:48
Be perfect,
therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
TNIV
Christmas is
a Jesus celebration. Two thousand twenty-two
years ago a baby was born in a stable manger of Jerusalem as foretold by the Hebrew
prophets. This baby, celebrated then and now, was to bring salvation safety to
his oppressed people. Jesus was to be the
Godly savior for the people in their desperate time of need. This was the
expectation of the people then and how his birthing has been largely advertised
every year since that first Christmas.
After thirty
silent years Jesus begins his mission, not to do the people’s expected political
and spiritual bidding but rather to advertise the glories of eternity to, we residents
of hell on earth. He sits down on a Galilean
hillside and begins to teach about the constant failure of the Hebrew religion. The ways of men, as Jesus says, can be
relatively moral, right or righteous but no match for the certainty and power of
God’s eternity, now and forever. These Jesus words have been named though the
centuries, the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, chapters 5,6,7).
This Jesus
message was given to upset the spiritual and religious status quo. To the religious crowd who preached ceremony
and performance as necessary for a future with God’s approval, Jesus said, “Be perfect,
therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
In nine words, Jesus popped that balloon. Trust not in your relative performance factor, allow God to be God, perfection awaits all of we humans in eternity united with our Father God. Celebrate? You bet!
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
