A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Mark. Jesus said to his disciples, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. In other words, the whole of the Old Testament. Christ says, I repeat, do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
Of this much, I assure you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter of the law, not the smallest part of a letter of the law shall be done away with until it all comes true. That is why whoever breaks the least significant of these commands and teaches others to do it shall be called the least in the kingdom of god. Whoever fulfills and teaches these commands shall be great in the kingdom of god. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
On more than one occasion, I have recounted the in that incident in my own illustrious career when in speaking over the phone to a Jewish lady that I didn't know, but who had told me she had become a Christian and a Catholic, I used the word convert, which he immediately picked up and said, no, father. I am not a convert. I am a fulfilled Jew. That was the first time that I'd heard that expression. It'd been around, but I just hadn't heard it.
I live, you know, in a very isolated life. Anyway, nothing more exact could express the truth of the matter. Our lord did not abolish the old law. He fulfilled it. Just think of this.
To me, it's a most significant fact that nobody on God's earth can deny that Titus, not more than about thirty years after Christ's death, came and destroyed Jerusalem entirely so that there wasn't a stone upon a stone left of the temple, and there wasn't. There were some stones left whole of the wall holding the mountain up that Herod had created, but there was not a stone upon a stone left of the temple. From that day to this, in all of the Jewish world, there has been no temple, no sacrifice, no priesthood functioning as a priest. In other words, offering sacrifice. Not no place.
Instead, on the on the temple heights in Jerusalem right now and this is on the West Bank. This is in the at the practically is in the control of of the the Jews right now in Jerusalem. There are two mosques, and the main the the more important of the two is second only to Mecca. That's what's on where the temple stood right now, and there's been no effort to change that. Not the slightest gesture to change it, to ex to exclude or to to get rid of that mosque and to rebuild the temple.
So from practically from our lord's death to this present time, there's been no temple, there's been no sacrifice, there's been no practicing priesthood. Where do you find a temple, a sacrifice, and a priesthood? Christ in the church of Jesus Christ. Now one of the main objections of Luther Calvin was to this idea of sacrifice. That is the conception of the Eucharist, and especially Calvin.
They would have none of that idea. But right down the centuries, straight down, you have this you have the church of Jesus Jesus Christ functioning as a church with Jesus Christ, priest, victim, and altar. That's been the teaching of the church. This is very significant, Very significant. I mean, the and this is an undeniable fact.
I mean, there's no way. There were two or three abortive attempts to rebuild the temple, but they never amounted to anything. It it never got off the ground. Never got off the ground. And there's been no attempt on the part of the Israelis to rebuild the temple.
None at all for a lot of reasons. And so we come back to this, that the church of Jesus Christ is built upon the Old Testament, not to abolish it anymore than the foundation of a house is abolished by building the house on the foundation. And if you go back and read the early church fathers, you will see how how the importance they gave to how how Christ fulfilled the prophecies of the of the Old Testament. That was their biggest argument. Their biggest argument.
This is a very significant statement of our blessed lord, that he has come not to abolish the law. The law stands. And remember, the essence of that law is the 10 commandments. That's the essence of it. That's the heart of it.
That's the core of it. Then those 10 commandments still stand as guides of conduct, which we call human, which conduct us in our wayward way of life to god. That's it. You see, you cannot you cannot withhold respect for the way the Jews down the centuries have honored the law. And remember, this was true even when the Jews had no concept that they accepted of immortality.
Remember, it was only the pharisees in the time of Christ were were, the party who were claiming and defending and teaching immortality. The Sadducees would have no part of it. And as you know, that's that's what Saint Paul picked up when he was being tried. So he got the Sadducees and the Pharisees fighting each other, and they forgot all about him. This this concept of the law that it's god's law, that's the significance of the Jewish men wearing that little cap that they are under the law of god.
You can't that's wonderful. That's a tremendous evidence. They witnessed to Jesus Christ that they are under the law. And you know what's happened in many, many quarters today. It's rejected.
Even the 10 commandments are rejected. And so this phrase out of today's reading is terribly significant. It pulls together of course, the question that I ask myself as if this is true, why is there such has been has there been such a severe cleavage canyon between Jew and Christian? Well, that's a big story, story, but it's a good question, isn't it? And what happened?
The the the the early church was all Jewish. Every single member of that church was a Jew. Remember, Paul Of Tarsus was a Jew, but a Roman citizen. Every single member of the church, our blessed lord, was a Jew. So this cleavage, this this, this bitter separation, Where did it come from?
How does it endure? When Christ himself said, I have come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. That's why we say hallelujah. And why that good Jewish lady could say, I am not a convert, I am a fulfilled Jew. In the name of the father and the son, holy spirit.
Amen.