When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  John 1:17

 Something in my eight-year-old Sunday School brain residue sort of understood that the Law was a plan that God tried on man, and it didn’t work out so well, and then He sent the prophets to run through it again for Him, and that didn’t work out, so then He sent Jesus as a Last Resort.  

Nope.  He was the First Resort.  Part of the plan from the very beginning.  The promised seed who would crush the serpent's head.  

And the Law.  What is its role?  People sort of sift through it and take what they like and disregard the rest.  I like oysters on the half shell, so forget that part of the abomination before the Lord bit.  Remember, Matthew cared a lot about the word “fulfilled” and so when Jesus said, “jot and tittle” he meant it.  He also meant, “It is finished.”  The job is done.    But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter and for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. No more old wineskins.

But Jesus.   Grace and Truth.  He who fulfilled the Law’s requirement for a blood sacrifice to cover our sins so carefully spelled out is God’s grace, undeserved favor, and the Grace who is the “empowering Presence of God enabling you to be who He created you to be, and to do what He has called you to do” (Ryle).  

Imagine The Word who created every thing come to live among man. To eat with sinners.  To reach out to the woman at the well.  To the seeking Pharisee.  To  tell the fishermen where to cast their nets.  And we beheld His glory.  His humble glory.  And comprehended it not. 

He is Truth.  Revealed.  What it all about.  The higher bar.  What to do if you have two shirts.    And being angry.  And keeping promises.  All of this is only possible with the Spirit at work in my life:  Love, joy, peace, patience, mercy. Now it’s all about being fruit bearers to God.  And the greatest of these is love.

And surely that is what it really means to be about my Father’s business.