Murder Mytsery Series

Have you ever caught yourself looking at your reflection in a shop window? I have to confess that I sometimes do. I'll wager there's not one person in this room who doesn't take at least one good look at him or herself in the mirror every day. Maybe you don't care much. But you look. You have some idea of what other people see when they look at you. And some people spend half their lives, it seems, and most of their discretionary income, polishing up their exteriors. From jewelry to jogging shorts, Americans spend enough on personal appearance to equip a small army. Maybe a large one.

Have you ever thought how pleasant it would be if people spent half as much time and effort polishing up their interiors?

What do you suppose life would be like if we, like God, cared more about being good than looking good?

What would happen, if instead of seeing your face when you glanced at a shop window, you saw your heart?

It's a moot point, anyway, because we don't have anything that can do that, do we. There isn't any such thing, is there, as a mirror that can reflect our inner selves back at us.

Or is there?

One of the functions of the law is, as the Apostle Paul says, to make us “conscious of sin." [Rom 3:20] You may ask, “How does that happen?” Let's suppose I say to you, as I just did, "You shall not murder." If you're like me you'll say, "Sure, no problem. I've never killed anyone. God's talking to someone else, not me." That law hasn't shown me anything about myself. That law has not reflected my soul back at me, for me to confront, and recognize as my own.

The Ten commandments, narrowly interpreted, are mostly keep-able, at least as far as anyone else can tell. Nobody but God knows if you love him with all your heart. Nobody but God knows if you’re really coveting. Sometimes you can even convince yourself that you've got ‘em all nailed down. Most of us can say -and mean it - that we haven't committed adultery. Most of us can say - and mean it - that we haven't stolen. Most of us can say - and mean it - that we have not committed murder. But not many of us could listen unmoved if Jesus were to say to us, “Anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.” [Mt 5:21-22] Just in case we're tempted to try to weasel out of the implications of this incredible expansion of the commandment, 1 Jn 3: 15 puts it even more strongly: “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer.”

Remember that Jesus earlier said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” With these words about murder, and the following passage equating lust with adultery, Jesus tells us what he meant by the fulfillment of the law. The law is completed when God’s character is stamped on a person’s heart as well as on his or her behavior. But the law cannot be fulfilled under human power.

God chose to give Moses these Ten commandments for a reason. They aren’t arbitrary or frivolous or unconnected to reality. Each of those rules is a sign saying, "This is where the danger is", like those old maps with the sea-monsters on the edges warning, “Here be dragons.”

God only puts fences up on the dangerous curves.

These commandments, along with Jesus’ commentary on them, tell us something very important about being human. They show us just what we actually are like, when left to our own devices. The unpretty fact is that we are all naturally murderers, adulterers, liars, idolaters, and thieves. Maybe not all at once, or all the time, but on the whole, that is what human beings are like. And Jesus showed us that even when you and I keep all the rules on the outside, we're still the same on the inside, no matter how well we've been trained. That is why you and I need the Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can write the law on our hearts, the way God promised the prophet Jeremiah.

It would be a terrible thing if every flash of irritation we felt were like a lightning bolt that could actually strike down the person who upset us. I don't really have much of an anger problem, but I get really burned at drivers who, when two lanes shrink to one, don't merge until the absolute last minute, to try to get ahead of everybody else. What's your flash point? Imagine what it would be like if every time you flared the other person just - disappeared.