What’s Gotten Into Jesus?

The Gospel is Matthew 5:21-37

What disturbs Jesus so that he would offer frightening language, using the common rabbinic technique of hyperbole, about our inner attitudes, passions, mindsets and beliefs?

He says these interior states are a kind of violence, and are more important than our external acts, because the external acts proceed from our inner states that may have been simmering inside for months or even years.

Jesus directs us to look inside our own hearts and deal honestly and unflinchingly with what we find there. We can have integrity and align our thoughts, words and actions. Purity of heart will lead to purity of action.

So Jesus says the Kingdom of God is at hand, change your hearts, and change your lives. This leads us to maturity, what St. Paul calls “the full stature of Christ.”

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.