The Joshua Victor Theory

Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The epistle of Galatians is a short, 6 chapter letter written to one of the Apostle Paul’s mission churches he’d helped to establish 2,000 years ago. He wars against the ever-popular opinion that we can be justified before God by our works. We saw it a few weeks ago in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee thought he had God’s law down just fine, and had nothing to be sorry for before God. Besides, everyone else he knew was worse than him! He was righteous in his own eyes—trusted in his good effort to get him in good with God. We don’t have to be quite as pompous as the Pharisee to fall into the same trap. But the tax collector knew better. He cried out: “ God, have mercy on me, a sinner !” Jesus said that tax collector went home justified, with God’s verdict of innocence. Paul is determined in Galatians 3 to drive away the spirit of the Pharisee, trusti...

·          The first part of our Gospel today is a confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees about the Sabbath. It’s not His first bout with them. First it was a complaint about His disciples eating grain on the Sabbath. There Jesus asserts that He is the Lord of the Sabbath. Then, a second time, He heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath, and again, they were closely watching Him to find a reason to accuse Him. Like our reading, Jesus ask them (ch. 6): “ I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it? ” Then, in chapter 13, it gets even more heated as Jesus heals a woman at the synagogue who was crippled by an evil spirit. This time, the ruler of the synagogue rebuked Jesus for this act of mercy, saying: “ There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day. ” The Lord answered: “ You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the S...