It’s an appropriate word for today as all this week, I have been frustrated and asking myself how we have gotten so far from the Gospel.

On this Good Friday especially, we need to remember that Jesus came to fulfill the law.  It was finished on that cross in Calvary.  Just before he was sent to die, Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

John 13:34

This was consistent with the answer he’d given the Pharisees when they asked him:

 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”  And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

Matthew 22:36-40

We get so wrapped up in our politics and religion and being “right” that we forget to love people.

How have we come so far from the Gospel?

These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Matthew 15:8