Pulled From the Law: Encountering Christ in the Flesh

Nov. 30, 2020 | By Justin Ferrugia TD ‘23+1

Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Matt. 19:21)

I want to pose a thought experiment. Suppose you are a devout Jew in the time of Jesus. You faithfully and rigidly adhere to Jewish law. You keep the Sabbath and adhere to the Levitical laws of food, drink, and sacrifice. You are rightly and completely devoted to these laws, just as many of us are devoted to the doctrinal tenets of our faiths. 

Then you encounter Christ. 

I think it is easy to romanticize a first encounter with Christ. For many, the initial greeting was neither exceptional nor mystical. Jesus was a humble, sandal-clad man, at times tattered, and certainly not standing out from the crowds that surrounded him.

More pertinently, Jesus was a man who ostensibly rejected many core tenets of Jewish law. He re-contextualized Jewish law surrounding the Sabbath. We see this when Christ condones his disciples working on the Sabbath, and when He heals a man on the Sabbath. [1, 2] Perhaps the most objective rejection of universally accepted Jewish law comes in Mark 7:19 when Christ declares all foods, even those traditionally banned under Levitical law, clean. He admonishes the Pharisees saying, “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” [3] If you are a devout Jew in the time of Jesus, He threatens the doctrinal traditions you believe unconditionally to be the law of God. 

Not only this, but Christ challenged some of the basic societal axioms of right and wrong. I often imagine what it must have been like to hear Christ, for the first time, explicitly stated that “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.” [4] I do not think it can be overstated just how egregious this proclamation was. Not only was the eating of human flesh declared a punishment for disobeying God in Leviticus 26:12, but it was, and continues to be, a universal societal evil. John says that the crowd surrounding Jesus “quarreled among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us [his] flesh to eat?’” [5] This was a difficult proclamation to accept, and for many present, John describes the cognitive dissonance brewing. 

So this is the question: thinking of Christ in this way, as a man challenging everything you know to be true about God, His world, and what is right and wrong. Thinking of Him rejecting laws and proclaiming the necessity of acts you once knew to be reprehensible, imagine yourself as part of the crowd of people watching a paralyzed man being lowered through the roof in Mark chapter two. You listen as Christ says, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” You look towards the shocked scribes as they say, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” [6]

After all Christ has done to uproot and re-orient everything you know to be true, you stand at a crossroads. The scribes’ question is valid, based on sound premises, and there are two ways you can choose to answer it. First, you could say, as many did, that Jesus was simply a blasphemer with a flagrant disregard for tradition and law. Second, you could say that Jesus is God. Which would you do?

If in that position, I would, as I am sure most would, like to say that I would take the latter path. At the time of writing, I regret to say that I cannot be sure. 

We, in some ways, have it easy. In our lives of faith, we can rely on the testimony of a long and flourishing intellectual tradition, our parents, religious leaders, and to some extent, our culture. While many of us may be converts to Christianity, many others may not remember their true Initium Fidei. When Christ asks us to drop everything and follow Him, He is not simply referring to our belongings. We must be willing to drop our very idea of how the world should, or does work, and perhaps, even what we previously considered right and wrong. Christ ennobles us today when He tells Didymos “blessed are those who have not seen, but still believe.” We must, however, ask ourselves. Do we really believe? Do we believe with the same energy and tenacity as someone who has given up everything, their beliefs, their possessions, and their conception of the very world in which they live, to follow Christ?

This is a difficult question to answer because it rests upon a “would have.” In the end, these questions are simply another way of asking if we have a relationship or friendship with Christ. It is the nature of faith to encounter hardship—  faith is hard. But, it is a mistake to think that struggle is your own to traverse. Christ was, is, and will always be a teacher. There is great power in asking Him, not to prove Himself to you, but to guide you to the fierce faith of the disciples and early saints. 

This is the belief to which we are called. As we approach what is likely to be a Thanksgiving and Christmas away from family, breaking tradition, and likely testing us to a greater extent than even the rest of this year, many may feel tension in our life of faith. It may be difficult to detach from those traditions and joys we look forward to. In many ways, this time is a good self-assessment of what we are truly wedded to. Will we, like the rich young man in Matthew 19:21, sulk away unable to detach from that which is not Christ? Or, will we relinquish that that holds us back, bind ourselves to Christ, and strive to enter the narrow gate? 

1. Matthew 12:1-2

2. Mark 3:1-5

3. Mark 7:8

4. John 6:53

5. John 6:52

6. Mark 2:5-7

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