Lent Week 3: Wednesday
Free to Follow the Way of Love
We all have a desire to be free. We want to have our way, to do what we want, without restrictions and inhibitions. This way of freedom is how the world defines liberty of thought, word, and action. And so, it is easy to explain the aversion towards rules, laws, and commandments. Too often, we view these as the very opposite of the liberty we seek.
But unbridled freedom too often leads to a subtle and deceptive slavery. Without guidelines, without standards, without barriers against which to measure our passions, we fall into the trap of unfreedom. This is how the cycle of obsession, addiction, and patterns of sin start. We become attached to our own way without regard for other views, suggestions, or instructions. This is why in the Old Testament, the primacy of prescriptions of the law was promulgated.
While in the Old Testament, the law sought to curb excessive freedom, the Lord Jesus now fulfills by introducing an internal and personal element to freedom. Contrary to popular idea, he has not come to judge and condemn or to pronounce ultimatum on our waywardness and sinfulness. But why in the gospel today, we hear him say that he does not intend to abolish the law but to fulfill it? Why does he seem to be upholding the commandments rather than repudiating them so as to liberate men and women from the shackles of obedience to them?
For Jesus, freedom is not the enemy of obedience. To be free, one has to be capable of choosing the correct thing. True love is choosing the best for the one you love even if it is difficult. Authentic self-love is choosing the best for oneself even if it seems disagreeable at first. The law the Lord upholds is not the law of unbridled freedom that leads to destruction and death. The law he offers is the law of love which carries with it a responsibility to follow what is life-giving, eternal, and pure.
Too many times, we shook off the prescriptions of the law of God and society to obtain what our passions pine for. In the process, we end up regretting what we have thought, said, and done as we find ourselves entwined in a web of difficult situations.
Let us reflect on how we use or misuse our freedom. Let us ask the Lord Jesus to take us by the hand and guide us to the freedom of love which passes through obedience and humility.
