Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern, would not immediately pull him out on the sabbath day?

The Jewish leaders started with good intentions…, they did not want to ever break God’s law, but by the time of Jesus, their rules had grown to be so burdensome, that it was almost impossible to not break it. And in fact the primary Job of the Pharisees and Scribes, at that time, was to help people navigate the morass of laws that they themselves created. This gave them a lot of prestige and power.

The law that was given to Moses, in the ten commandments, was fairly simple. God then gave Moses a full explanation of the law that was later recorded in the torah, and then prophets and sages then pondered it, and eventually expanded upon the law for centuries in the talmud. For example, the Lord made rules like “make the lords day holy”. this is simple law to understand…, we should not work on the sabbath, and we should rest and spend time with the Lord. The jews then created thousands of laws to prevent people from ever getting slightly close to infringing on Gods law. It got so bad that if a person fell down in front of you, the jews considered it a sin to help them up.

This is clearly not what God intended with His law. And so when Jesus says that they have locked the kingdom of heaven before men, He was saying that your system of laws has made it impossible to not sin, and thus made it impossible for these people to make it into heaven. One of the many reasons that Jesus came into this world, was to loosen the straps and lighten the burdens that the jewish leaders had placed upon the people. This is why he uses the word “woe,” because the jewish leaders have much to account for, by placing the people in their midst under such burdensome rules.

Today we must continue to discern the path that God has made for us, and we must try to understand what plan God has for our lives. The answer is written on your heart, and we should strive to do the thing that God wants for us, and pay less attention to the rules that the world is trying to make us believe. At the end, you will stand before your judgement alone, and those leaders that lead you astray will not be there to point the finger at, so we must all account for our own lives, and the choices we make, so choose wisely.

Oh Lord, give me the grace today to discern your will for my life and to walk the path that you have set for me. Help me Lord to be the man that you are calling me to be, and to have the courage to be that man, despite the world.